It's a privilege to be gathered together once again in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and it's a privilege to be gathered together in the house of the Lord on a beautiful Friday evening, and I feel a little bit more relaxed, more my family is with me here, and praise the Lord they got in Just a little after six o'clock this evening and had a good trip in and even finding a way through the amazing Holmes County roads and We are from central Illinois where the land is nice and flat. We can enjoy seeing our neighbors several miles away, each way, and sunrises, sunsets. And some people call Illinois landscape fairly without character, fairly boring, because it's just flat and wide open. We do have a few trees around. And I thought that Illinois had a, had a corner on having spring winds, but based on what we experienced this afternoon, it seems like you all have your share as well, even to the point that we had to detour just a bit on our way to church this evening because of a tree that had fallen across the road. But praise the Lord that we're here safely and looking forward to spending time together in God's word. Yes, part of my family did join me. My wife, Lekri, and son, Josiah, he's 13, and Simona is 16, and thankfully she was able to help drive this afternoon. And then our daughter, Emma, is three. And so praise the Lord that they could join us. Our two oldest daughters are in North Carolina for a wedding this evening. And Lord willing, by tomorrow afternoon, they'll be able to join us here as well. And I think that would be the end of the ones that will be joining us. My son, Alex, is 20 and will not be joining us. So looking forward to continuing our weekend together. Just a quick update on Howard. Brother Phil mentioned Howard, who is the former bishop of our church, whose, by the way, the name of our church would happen to be Pleasant View, which is fine. Trinity is our sister congregation there in our community. And some of y'all wouldn't remember Menno Coons being from that congregation. But Howard Koontz, he preached for us on December the 10th, and then soon after that was not feeling well, had a cold, significant cold, and then ended up testing positive for COVID, and through a series of kind of unique events, ended up in the hospital and had a stroke, actually a series of strokes, and currently is in the local nursing home. there just a half mile from his house. And recovering but slowly and seeing a man, Howard, he was a very sharp mind. He managed their family equipment dealership for many years and was very quick with numbers and business decisions and things like that and so to see him now hardly being able to put together one complete sentence at a time is a challenge for us. And so continue to pray for God's direction there and for his continued healing and also that he could recover more of his sight. His vision has been significantly affected and So it's been a challenge for us as a church to see him be in this state in such a short amount of time, and also for the family as well. So ask an interest in your prayers there. Last evening I shared just a few things about myself. I forgot one thing, and that is that, ikon et dech verste. One of my memories as a boy from years ago, my father was a minister and my mother was from Dover, Delaware. And so we got, even growing up, we had family connections, friends, numerous places. And one weekend we were in Holmes County, Ohio visiting. And so Sunday morning, of course, we went to church. I can't quite remember, probably seven, eight, nine years old. And of course, the church that we went to, they had Sunday school. And if you've ever been that age and had to visit a church, Sunday school is, ah, that's a challenge. But I found my Sunday school class, and the lady teaching it, she kindly introduced me, and then she said, And I made the mistake in answering, because that was one phrase that I knew in Dutch. And so I said, Matthew. And so she immediately assumed, and by all rights, I do not fault her for this, that I was fairly comfortable with Pennsylvania Dutch, which I was not. And so she proceeded to continue the lesson, a fair amount of the lesson, in Pennsylvania Dutch. And I was sitting there in a church strange Sunday school and now I can't even understand what's going on. But I was shy enough that I didn't actually let her know that I'm not really following you. And somehow I made it through that. But it is obviously a memory that has stuck with me. And so if you, don't mind in our conversations here, if you start with Pennsylvania Dutch, I'll probably try and kindly remind you that if you want me to be a part of that conversation, if you wouldn't mind switching to English, that would be great. Sometimes I'll take the initiative and just start speaking in Romanesh, which is another language that I know and I can speak in that language. And then we can go on with the conversation because you realize that, wait a minute, he just said something that I don't know, which would be the Romanian language. My experience in Romania, of which I had the privilege of living there for a total of nine years, was something that I can't imagine my life being without. And it's one of the things that has kind of driven the message this evening. Brother Phil, thank you so much for the introduction, and you made a comment there. You said, well, that's enough, and you closed your Bible, and I was thinking, he's just getting started, because of all the things that we could take in those verses that you used and fleshing those out. We're gonna go a little bit different direction. this evening, almost more going back from that and thinking about, you used the phrase, who am I? But let's add to that and say, who am I and who are you? Open your Bibles, please, to Psalm 100. And David here in this Psalm of Praise, in Psalm 100, there's a few tidbits in here that I think we can use to help us get a perspective on how David thinks about himself and how David thinks about his God. And I'd like to to help us just think through this thing a little bit of actually, who am I? Because once I have a proper understanding of who I am, and then I can properly comprehend who you are. And we're gonna be talking some about our connections with the people around us and some of those ideas. Psalm 100. says make a joyful noise unto the lord all ye lands serve the lord with gladness come before his presence with singing know ye that the lord he is god it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves we are his people and the sheep of his pasture Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Amen. those few short verses, we have several clues as to who David recognizes that he is and his relationship with God, and what he recognizes that is due God. He talks about Verse two, he's talked about serving. Well, it's an imperative command, okay? It means you serve the Lord with gladness. I serve the Lord with gladness. He's calling us to action. Come before His presence with singing. Whenever I sing, and sing a hymn, sing a song of praise. I'm using my voice to vocalize the thoughts, hopefully, that come from my heart as I am giving praise to God. The verse three continues on with, know ye that the Lord he is God. It's something that you can know. It's not just an idea. It's not just a theory, but you can know that the Lord is God and says, it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. Why did he have to include that phrase and not we ourselves? You don't think surely that even back then they had a problem with people thinking that I've kind of arrived. I've kind of made myself a self-made man. Have we ever heard that phrase before? And he's saying, no, no, no, we didn't. That's not us. God made us. And he continues on and says, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. David knew about sheep. We can talk quite a bit about sheep. Sometimes it's not necessarily a pretty topic when we compare ourselves to sheep. It makes you wonder, why didn't David choose another animal, something that's more self-sufficient than a sheep? But he properly chose the metaphor, the sheep. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, there's that thanksgiving again, and into his courts with praise, be thankful. How many times has he talked about being thankful here and about praising? That's what praise is, is being thankful. It's an interpretation of our thanks. For the Lord is good. Here's why, here's the why of this. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. This is Old Testament, but right there's the gospel. Right there is a proper understanding of who I am and who God is. I have a question for you. Phil asked us for a response. He didn't have much success. I had one on the tip of my tongue, but I wanted to make sure I had my wording right, so I quick looked it up. you ask about any I am verses. Romans 1 to 26 says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That's another aspect of who I am. You're familiar with the phrase one-liners, right? Sometimes they're referred to sayings or cliches. As we think about the Bible, what are some valuable one-liners, if you'll allow me to use that term, of tidbits of truth that come to your mind? Would you care to share? I'm not gonna put a qualifier on it, like it starts with I am. I'll start with one. Ye are the light of the world. Any other responses? You are a chosen generation. God is love. There's so many tidbits there that we can, nuggets of truth that we could spend a long time unpacking and developing. There's one that I think should be closer to the top of our list than what it is typically. We'll find it in Genesis 1.26. Last evening, Phil Miller was talking about the things that we find in Genesis chapter one that God said, God did, God created. And this is one of the God said statements that we find in Genesis one. And I believe that a proper understanding of this statement is one of the keys to helping us realize who we are and also who I am and who you are. Because in Genesis 1 26, we find this, in a way, a mind-blowing statement. Now, we're familiar with it, we've read it. Right? But let's think a little bit about who God is. God does not have a beginning. We could park on that thought for a while too. In our finite minds, we short circuit. We just, we can't quite get there. So a God who has no beginning, But then we have the first 25 verses of Genesis where God has made and created all these things by speaking them into existence. And we have the days of creation and everything that has come into being. And God said, it is good. And then we get to verse 26 where God follows up with that and God says, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion. So this first part is what we want to concentrate on. Let us make man in our image. In our image, what kind of, is there any other religion that would conceive of a God that would want to, and the God would want to make, want to assimilate humanity into the likeness of that God? Is there any other religion that would even come close to that concept? No. Their gods want to be something very separate from humanity, right? That way they can establish the fact that, or try to establish, excuse me, the fact that they are God, right? But here God says, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Sometimes words fail when we realize that as God formed Adam and Eve, that He had Himself in mind as He was forming them. And part of that forming was not just the physical part, but the soul, the spirit, all three parts of that. And you notice that God says, and let us make man. There's a Trinity there. It's more than just God the Father, but it's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Can you see them working together? to form mankind and form the spirit, soul, and body as type and shadow of who they are. And then God breathed into his nostril and man became a living soul. Our ancestors. Verse 27, so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. You notice it took two verses? He didn't say let's do this and stop there. The writer Genesis followed up and said, and he did it. That way someone wouldn't come along and say, well, God said he was planning on doing it sometime, but who knows if he ever did it. No, he made sure we knew that he did it. So God created man and God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And so God blesses them and gives them their mandate here on earth of what God wants them to do. I believe it's only when we actually grasp the depth of God's creation of man that we begin to truly value the individual human. One of the things that I enjoy doing is observing people. And I think I get this from my father a little bit. And my father used to enjoy to travel and if he was in an airport, a long layover didn't bother him at all. He would simply find a fairly busy spot and simply sit and observe people. He enjoyed that. And those of you that have done much traveling, hopefully you find some enjoyment in that as well. Simply observing people and and realizing the variety that God has created, the variety of people that now inhabit the earth, and we realize that God has placed value in every human person. And I appreciated Brother Phil, your thoughts about our identity and so much of our identity comes in the fact of who we are. So sometimes our wording, we have to make sure we know what we're talking about. Our identity comes from our family and where we come from. And then as we, look at our dress and how we use that as a significant part of our identity. And where if I were to meet any of you and we would be dressed like this, we could be halfway around the world and there would be a connection. Even if we wouldn't recognize each other per se as having met before. but that similarity in dress would, I've experienced it, where you're in Europe or someplace like that in an airport, and you're walking through, you're going to your next gate, and you have all these strangers around, and all of a sudden you see a family that's like, wait a minute, they've gotta be Mennonite. And even as you pass each other, your eyes meet and you smile and maybe you keep on going. Maybe sometimes you stop and say, so where are you from? Other times you just keep on going. But there's an identity connection there. It's part of how we are put together as people. It's part of the community aspect of humanity, of being human. And so how can we project value into everyone that we meet? How can we properly do that? Because if we've just said that God created man in his own image, that includes everyone. One of the things that I've enjoyed about my time in Romania was learning to know the people there. I was 19 back in 1996 when our family first went and so we started, we did some language classes, tried to form a foundation of learning the Romanian language which thankfully is a Latin based language and has a lot of similarities to Spanish and Italian. And since English is Latin-based as well, there's a lot of root words that were the same, but someone really got messed up when they tried to put their sentence structure together and things like that, and it got all hobbled up. And anyway, don't get me started, because it actually has more order to it than English does. I feel sorry for people that try to learn English, because the English that we speak most times is not a textbook English, it's a street English. And you from Holmes County, you're probably picking up on things that I say is like, wait a minute, he said that word a little strange. We in Holmes County don't say it quite like that. And even though we're speaking English, and so all these nuances. But I enjoyed learning. learning the Romanian language. And then once my wife and I started dating, which was all the way at the end of the first three years that we were there, I made good use of my language there and gave me an extra incentive to learn even more. But one of the aspects of learning that language was was by putting forth effort to learn that language, I was communicating with the local people there that I was interested in communicating with them. And therefore showing value to them. Because I could have showed up there and there were numerous other American families there. We could have formed a very tight, closed group. We speak English here and We could have gotten our jobs done that we were called to do, but yet not really interacted with people. And we would have missed out on a significant blessing, and our work would have been much less effective than by not interacting with people. speaking into the, being able to speak into the lives of people around us and allow them to speak into our lives as we had that communication where we could communicate back and forth and we could enjoy some of those good relationships, relationships that I enjoy even today by being able to show value to them. Let's go to another scripture. New Testament, James, chapter two. And James here pulls out some of our natural tendencies. And so this is one of those scriptures that has a tendency of stepping on our toes as it refers to our interaction with people around us and the way that we view people. And so let's take a look at James chapter two, probably the first 10 verses or so as we, as we recognize the fact that we are surrounded with people, with all kinds of people. And James, here as he is writing to to these people, he says in chapter two, verse one. Are you not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom, which he hath promised to them that love him? Let's pause there. And as James sets the stage here, he's saying your faith in your Lord Jesus Christ needs to be a pure faith. Don't let it be watered down. Don't let it be tainted with this thing of being of respective persons. And what he's talking about is, a common word today would be discrimination, where I look at this individual and say, well, he doesn't dress like me, so obviously he doesn't have as much value as me. He says, don't do that. You should be able to see value in every person. And then he fleshes that out, he says, if someone comes in with a gold ring and goodly apparel, and you respect him and say, oh, here, why don't you come sit up front, and we'll give you a good spot, and here, are you comfortable there? And then someone else comes in, and his clothes, he says, Makes you wonder if he's in the right spot, but I guess he's here, so, well, you wouldn't want him to, obviously he wouldn't be fit to sit up front, so, let's see, there's, yeah, there's a chair in the back. Just go ahead and sit there, try not to make too much noise, and we'll be fine. You think, well, we wouldn't do that, and hopefully we wouldn't. But how do we see value in people simply for the fact that God created them? I think of the work of AMA and MIC and MIM and CEM and so many of these missions that have gone into unfavored places. and started churches and started working with people. And so much of that is simply coming alongside those people and instead of thinking is, well, let's help them up, it's more, let's come alongside them and just help them along. Show them value and show them Christ's love in a pure way. One of the things that, back to this whole identity thing, one of the things that I struggled with in Romania was, and I have to give a little bit of a background here, the Romanian culture in general has always held Americans kind of on a pedestal. They've always really looked up to the Americans after, was a World War II, well actually during communist times, there were many people that were waiting for the Americans to come and save them from the society that they were in. That never happened. But Americans were seen as, obviously everybody has a money tree in their backyard, and everything just goes good for the Americans, and they have all these advantages and things like that. Not everybody saw it like that, but that was kind of a general consensus, especially under communism. After communism fell in 1989, and then people learned more of the reality of the world around them, and it wasn't censored so much through the communist agenda, then that changed somewhat. But there was always a good respect for the Americans. But sometimes it, I would have enjoyed if I could have entered a service, a Sunday evening service in a local Pentecostal or Baptist church there, of which we had good relations between the, between the CM, between the Mennonites there and the local Christian community, of which there was a strong Christian community in Northern Romania there where we were at. And I would have enjoyed just being able to, you know, come in as a visitor, sit in the middle of the congregation just like anyone else, and simply enjoy the service. Many times when they saw us enter, they they quickly ushered us right up front and then said, would you have a word from the Lord for us? And so you never went to a service without being prepared for a five, 10 minute devotional or something like that. And they simply did it out of respect and out of a heart of love for us. And, but sometimes I struggled a little bit with my identity as an American. And there was something about it, even though I could speak Romanian, even though my wife is a Romanian, and after we had lived there even eight or nine years, there was part of my identity that was still American. Okay? And I had to learn to be okay with that. And I had to try to wrestle with, so how can I use this in a positive way? How can I continue to show value to people around me? Because there was a temptation, it could have easily been a temptation to use that to my advantage and say, well, I'm an American and lift myself up. And that's why verses like, David used there in Psalm 100, where he said, it is he that hath made us, not we ourselves. We dare not let ourselves fall into that trap, where because the fact that I belong to such and such a church, or because of the fact that I belong to such and such a family, or such and such a country, that it automatically grants me a different status than other people around me. That's what James is talking about. We have to stay away from that. We have to recognize that people around us are people like you and I. God cares about them. And so many times God wants to use us to reach out and touch their lives. He wants us to be willing to see them as people that God wants to love. Just this afternoon, I had a phone conversation with one of the Billboard Evangelism, one of the members that answer the phone. And he said, well, last evening, he had a lengthy conversation with someone who's close to our area there in Illinois. And this man, he said, he's not sure he's a believer, but he's searching for truth. And one of the questions that he asked me, and it was perfectly okay that he asked me this, but it made me stop and think, he asked me in a very nice way, a very appropriate way, he said, how open is your church to reaching out to someone like that? How would you answer that on a personal level? How would I answer that? I had to take quick inventory. of my life, how open am I to speaking into someone's life, investing time in their life, and showing them value, showing them the value that God has instilled in them simply because they are made in God's image. How can I transmit that value and not simply write that person off because Maybe they don't, maybe their dress shows that they don't have the same values in life that I do. Verse six, James follows up with this thought and he says, but ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you? So he goes into this thought line and he says, you've despised the poor. You've given place to the rich people, but wait a minute, think about it. It's the rich people that are oppressing you. It's the rich people that are pushing back against the spread of the gospel, but yet you would, rather elevate them and not the poor people. Verse seven, he says, do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? Verse eight, if ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Ye do well, but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors. Love thy neighbor as thyself. How do we do that? How do we do that in today's society? Where we have so many agendas, so many things that our society has bought into that are directly against biblical principles. How do you show love to those people? It's so ironic that some of the, some of the social agendas that our society has bought into are actually exactly opposite of what they want to do. We don't hear as much about the Black Lives Matter movement anymore. But Black Lives Matter saying we've got to get rid of discrimination, hello, that's one of the most discriminatory statements you can make. Because by proclaiming that Black Lives Matter, you're putting down anyone who's not black. But how do you show love to someone like that? Steve Russell from a instructor there at Faith Builders was shared an incident that one of his former students had as a student was in medical school. And one of his colleagues there in med school had chosen a different name, a different lifestyle. And let it be known that he would like for all of the people, all of his acquaintances to use a certain pronoun when referring to him. And so the student called Steve Russell and said, how do I work through this? How can I show him God's love and not just follow along and go along with what this person has chosen in their life? And so they had some back and forth there. And the student finally arrived at the conclusion and told his colleague that he said, he just simply kindly informed him that he would simply use his name instead of that different pronoun. I believe a wise choice. Showing him value, not totally discounting that person and writing him off because of the choices he had made, but yet showing him value. Rei Utsu, who's from Iowa, when he was working at the Encounter Cafe there in Iowa City, just a couple blocks down from the university there, prime location, lots of university students and all kinds of people that frequent the cafe there and enjoy the atmosphere. And as they become friends with some of these people, one of the people that frequented that had chosen a different lifestyle. but yet felt a connection, a friendly connection with Rei Yutsu. If you know Rei Yutsu, you know what I'm talking about. He's just a very personable man. And so finally, Rei was aware of things going on in this person's life. And one day this person asked him, he says, what do you think of this lifestyle that I've chosen? What would you answer? Maybe you've had instances like that. How can Ray respond to that in a way that would not make so that person never wants to show up in an encounter cafe again? Ray usually wisely said, well, it doesn't matter so much what I think. It matters what God's word says. He just pointed that person to the truth. I don't know the outcome of that. But by pointing people to the truth, something that will not change. It's not my interpretation. It's not what I think about the situation. It's not what I've reasoned through the situation. It's what God's word says. 1 Peter 1.22 says, seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. For some reason, in that verse, he uses the word unfeigned, which means not fake, and he uses pure, which would mean, let's see, not fake. He doubles up on this idea that it's not something that is put on. It's not something really that comes from us. But a love that comes based on the fact that God made us in his image. And the fact that as we receive God's love in our hearts, that out of that we can turn around and love the people around us. we all realize that loving people around us is not the easiest thing that we do every day. But isn't it a choice that we have to make? And sometimes I have to remind myself that it's a head choice. I will choose. And sometimes we face that when we see God's promises. And you read the promises and say, well, I guess that's good for some people, but no, that promise is for me. I have to make a choice that, yes, the promise that where Jesus said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, that's for me. And I can claim that for me. I have to make that choice. As part of this, I have a question for you. Another question. Do you love yourself? Now, as good Mennonites, we've been taught, and rightly so, an expression of humility in our lives. I'm not trying to discount that at all. But a fake humility says, well, I'm just little poor old me. And so, and I'll just try it and submit and just do the little bit that maybe God has for me in this life. And we just sit here and it's almost like someone who's been given one talent and they go and bury it and don't actually use it. Please don't exit the doors and say, well, yep, I love myself. I'm not talking about that either. We're not talking about a prideful love. But whenever I grasp the fact that God has made me with a purpose and that God has created me in his image, and because of that, then I can share that with other people. Now I have something, I have a foundation, I have truth that I can show love, I can show truth. to people around me. In Matthew 11, 28 to 29, Jesus says, he says, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Some of you are quoting this in your mind as I read it. And he goes on and says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. Jesus is saying this about himself. Meekness, lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I'm constantly amazed by the number of times that Jesus, in His interaction with His disciples and with people that were listening to Him, where He would constantly say, these things that I'm doing, it's not about me, it's about my Father. This is Jesus talking, the one who would have the right to say, I'm doing these miracles, look to me. And he did say that in a certain extent, but he was constantly deflecting people's praise to the Father. He was lowly in heart. How good do I do at deflecting praise to my Father? But see, whenever I recognize that it is he that hath made me and not me myself, then I have the truth to flesh that out. In verse eight here in James two, it says, if you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. Let's quickly turn to Matthew 22. If you care to, just a few verses here. And we recognize that when Jesus was asked, and as a rabbi, as part of the culture here, any rabbi had to have a motto that he was known for. And his motto was often taken from what we now know as the Old Testament Scriptures. Whichever verses he considered the greatest verses kind of directed that rabbi's core of teaching, which was why some of these questions came. And we find one of these instances in Matthew 22, verses 34 through 40, but when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, someone who studied the law, someone who was able to think through things, reason through things, asked him a question, tempting him, meaning that this was a question with an agenda, saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? So there's a lot riding on this question here. Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is likened to it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets. loving thy neighbor as thyself. Now, the first part there, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, Jesus gave that first, and rightly so, because that needs to come first. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, but the second is likened to it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. It says the second is likened to it. So is Jesus actually saying that the way I love my neighbor is a mirror of how I actually love God? Ouch. See, the interaction and the comments that I make about certain people groups, or the interaction that I have with some of the people that I work with, and these things that they do that get under my skin, and I just, they would just change their ways that make my life so much better. Is that a reflection of how I love God? On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. In his book, Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer says it this way. After the law was given, God said to Moses, thou has found grace in my sight. And how could it be otherwise? God will always be himself, and grace is an attribute of his holy being. He can no more hide his grace than the sun can hide its brightness. In talking about, end of quote, in talking about grace here, because basically what I just said, and we're sitting here thinking, well, how can I love these people around me? when they're seemingly so hard to love and to get along with? God's grace. It's amazing how many times in the Bible grace and truth are paired together. And as we recognize that grace is receiving a gift we don't deserve, God's grace is there for us. Sometimes we need to ask for it. Sometimes we need to depend on it and recognizing that it's not because of me, but because of what God has done in my life. If we go to Luke 10, Luke 10 verse 25. We have another question. And this is the story of the Good Samaritan. We're not going to dive into that this evening, but just a few thoughts. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said unto them, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answered, He said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto them, Thou hast answered right. This do, and thou shalt live. And that should have been the end of the conversation right there, because the man had answered correctly. He had everything in order. But look at what he picks up on. He doesn't say, so how could I really love God with my whole heart? That wasn't his burning question. He comes back with verse 29, which then starts the rest of the dialogue here. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Oh, by the way, this is a Jew asking this. Jews knew very well who their neighbor was and who wasn't their neighbor. We surely wouldn't have categories like that, would we? This group of people are easy to love, they're my neighbors, and these other people, I can just kind of discount them. But Jesus uses this as a springboard for the story that we know of the good Samaritan, of the man who had a need. There were numerous types of people that had it within their capacity to help him and chose not to. Walked by on the other side of the road until a Samaritan comes along, someone who was not supposed to be his neighbor, but he was his neighbor that day and he took care of him. How do we show love? Why is it that Jesus said in John 13, and I'm gonna close with this thought. I'm gonna turn there just to make sure I can get the whole verse properly. A verse that should be on the standard of the Christian church. It says, in verse 34, Jesus is talking here. He said, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. And he finishes up with this thought. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. as we take that thought of loving one another and then realize that that actually expands to include our neighbors. Realize that we're called to love the people around us. Let's stand for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love to us. Lord, as we recognize that that love is what gives us the foundation of truth and that foundation of love that we can share with those around us, Lord, I pray for your grace. Lord, I pray that you would help us to recognize that because you have made us in your image, then you've given us that. and we have tasted of your grace, we've tasted of your love, help us to show that to those around us and help that to be something that is an identity factor for us as your children. I pray a blessing on each one of us here this evening, a blessing on the day tomorrow, and Lord, I ask you to bring us back safely together on Sunday. And Lord, we pray most of all that your name be honored and glorified. In your precious name we pray, amen.