to the twelfth chapter of Romans and stand with me as we read the manna from heaven. Let's read down one through ten. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one member one of another, having been gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, Whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love Be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. You may be seated. Let us seek the Lord's blessing together. Our Father in heaven, May your name be revered. May your kingdom come and may your will be done. We pray that you, Lord Jesus, by your Spirit would come down upon us like rain upon the mown grass and refresh and encourage our hearts with your word. We ask in your name. Amen. So, living sacrifice. We are to bring ourselves in the light of God's mercy and dedicate all that we are to the joyful service of our God and of our Savior. As we undertake this consecration, we are to practice a self-conscious nonconformity to the world, being transformed, metamorphic, by the renewing of our mind, thinking God's thoughts after him, loving his word, so that we may approve his good and acceptable and perfect will which is found in his word. The rest of chapter 12, in fact, the rest of the book, the rest of the letter, I think is an expounding of these basic principles of Christian discipleship. However, we cannot study the rest of the book, so I have to be selective. So I'm going to look in verses 9 and 10 tonight, and then verses 17 through 21 tomorrow evening, and we're going to talk about love tonight, because love is supreme. Because by this, all men will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another. God's grace and truth to us in the gospel, His mercy in Christ, always transform us into lovers. Lovers of God, lovers of men. Now, Christian love is really the love of Christ in us. Because it is no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives in us. And so the more we abide in Him and His Word abides in us, the more we are empowered, changed, metamorphosed from haters into lovers, selfish into givers. The love of Christ in us is very different from the world sentimentality, and eroticism, and even its noblest definitions of friendship. When the world loves, it's the inverse of 1 Corinthians 13.5. Remember that verse? Love does not seek its own. But when the world loves, it always seeks its own. There's always string attached. They may be slender threads, they may be iron chains, but something is demanded in return for its love. And that's the reason the world's loves so quickly turn into hatred. A little whisper, a little unguarded gossip separates those who profess to be the best friends their whole lives. The I do's of the wedding day become quickly the I will not's of every day if we follow the world's love. As long as there is any thought of love me for me, love on my terms, Unconditional love, as the world speaks of it, without a corresponding surrender of the will to the will of God, love will always be the world's forlorn hope. It sings about it. I don't listen to pop music very often, but my guess is it still sings as much about love as it ever did, believes it capable of love. There's romantic movies. It wants love. It craves love. But every new promise of love, every new supposed beginning of love leaves the individual emptier than he was before until today. I think many people have just given up on love and prefer fantasy and prefer perversion. Because unable to conquer the lust of their own heart, they just set up an altar to them and worship there. But God and His work in us is very different. Very different. Very unique. You know, only the God who is love can tell us what love is and can change us so that we love. You want to hear God's definition of love? 1 John 4.10. 1 John 4, 10. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Christ's love is a total self-emptying of Himself for our salvation, for the salvation of lost and condemned sinners. So great was the love of God in Christ that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Remember Paul's argument earlier in the book. For a righteous man, someone might die. For a good man, some would even dare to die. But God shows His love and that while we were alienated from Him, wicked sinners, He sent His own Son to lay down His life for us. And so for many believers, and I hope for every one of us, one of the most awe-inspiring verses in Scripture is John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. No reformed person should ever fear to quote that verse, don't get sidetracked on peripheral discussions, well wait a minute Pat, no it doesn't. Don't try to redefine world to media wreck, that's not the purpose of the verse. The purpose of the verse is the God who is holy and just Look at this filthy, condemned, rebel world, and the marvel is that He would love one, but instead He loved a multitude out of that world and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So, the cross is about divine, obedient love, our Lord Jesus Christ. It's about love becoming our surety, love becoming the propitiation for our sins, becoming our penal substitute. I hope you know this gospel well. Because if you do, it changes you. Because when Jesus loves us, His love loves us into love. It changes us. That's the whole point. of Romans 12, the verses on spiritual gifts, humility in verse 4, bearing with one another, appreciating the gifts throughout the body, and now in verses 9 and 10, love and affection. Because this isn't us. This is God doing, the God of love, the Christ of love, changing us by His love, transforming us so that we become lovers. There's nothing more wonderful than the love of Jesus. John 13, 1, having loved his own, he loved them to the end. When that end meant him drinking the cup of God's judgment and bearing our curse upon himself. But he rose from the dead. And he now loves us in life, ruling over us, defending us, providing for us, guiding us. and encouraging us by His Spirit to hold fast to the narrow way, so as the old hymn says, in every way we are secured and guarded by the deep, deep love of Jesus. So when we read, and I hope you'll continue reading in Romans and throughout Scripture, when we read of being affectionate toward one another, that we're supposed to serve one another, that we're supposed to appreciate one another's gifts and to praise God for them, or show hospitality. Let's not count the cost of love, but remember the price that was paid in love for us. And remember the price that was paid so that we might become the sons of God. Now, when he says here, let love be without dissimulation, and abhor that which is evil, be kindly, affectionate, Please understand that no command in Scripture ever assumes you can do it. And especially something as sacred as love. Because remember, herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us, for God so loved the world. We are to pray in Ephesians 3.18, Paul says, that we may understand, comprehend something of the love of God in Christ. Love is beyond us. Can I find it in myself? Can you find it? Can we find it in ourselves to lay down our lives for other people? How about to bless those who curse us? How about to turn the other cheek? How about to keep quiet when I really want to gossip and spread the rumor? No. No. No. We can't. but Christ in us can. The love of Jesus is enduring and it is transforming. There is no greater love. John 15, 13, the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed said this, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for my friends. Ye are my friends. He can. His love is powerful enough to change it. So look at the areas of your life, and we'll return to this at the end, where you're not very loving. I assure you there are many, just like there are in me. Where you're selfish, where you're kind of stingy with your affection because someone just edged you the wrong way, said something, didn't agree with you, didn't kiss your feet and say, Oh, Pope, I will gladly receive your opinion. or heard it in some other way, beware. The Bible's command to love is one of the most dramatic, deep, relevant commands in Scripture. It is one of the great commands of the law. Jesus said, by this all men will know. that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another. He nowhere says by this all men will know that you are my disciples because you're very, very, very, very smart. Or because you have a whole library of books like I do. I'm not against books. I love books. But we need to make sure we understand the heart of the gospel before we move out from there. God, the lover of our soul through His Son, sent His Son in love. Love swallowed the sword of divine justice whole, satisfied every bit of God's righteous judgment against sin and sinners, and then sends His Spirit to transform us to reflect that love in the way we treat one another. Notice he says there in verse 9, let love be without dissimulation or hypocrisy. When Jesus was put to grief for us on the cross, there was no pretension. And our Savior's sacrifice just been a grand moral point or a theologic or a moral example he could never have endured. the sword of divine justice that struck him down and being forsaken by his father. In a sense, what we see at the cross is love to the death, triumphing over justice, not by negating justice, but by fully embracing it in the perfection, the sinless obedience and the worthy sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in the same way that Jesus loved sincerely, without feigning, without pretending, without going through a show, our love is to be sincere, without deceit, transparent, guileless, without ulterior motive. Hypocrisy in love is devilish. It's like the Judas gift. Hypocrisy and love is saying, Lord, Lord, but not doing the things that He says. We need to be really, really careful. And when Jesus said that in Luke 6, verse 46, why do you call me Lord, Lord and don't do what I say? Or when He said in John 15, You're my friend if you do what I command you. He was setting up some very important objective markers for us to know. Do we really love Jesus? I mean, those words roll off the tip of our tongue. We hear love all the time in this culture. But we know that we love when we keep God's commandments, 1 John 5, verse 3. We love Jesus and are His friends when we do what He says. But hypocrisy, boy, we're good at this. Hypocrisy is smiling to one another. And I'm aiming this for the body of Christ. which I'm a part, I pray, not the world. Hypocrisy is smiling to those who you really wish you could ignore and maybe somehow think beneath you. Hypocrisy is saying to your wife, I love you, but not willing to give up your love. True Christ love where no dissimulation, no mask, no pretending. None. It's open and transparent, like His love was. You know, I don't know that when we think of the cross, it's not so much the strife and the agony of our Savior, but His love to undergo these things for us wretched sinners that moves our hearts so and humbles us. How could He love like this? Why would He love me like this, us like this? His bride like this. And so when we come before the cross, the mask of self-deception and pretending, it has to be ripped off or we just don't really know or have forgotten the Savior. When we come before that love, we just have to confess our selfishness. We don't scream and pout for others to love us on our terms. We want to know more of the love of God in Christ so that we may love him and love one another. Notice when the mask comes off, our attitude toward evil changes. He says we hate it. That's not a, you know, love it less. It's a hate word. We hate it. We abhor it. It is disgusting to us. We hate all evil, we should as Christians, but I'm going to emphasize first that we must hate our own evil. Because everybody is very pious when we think about other people and judge them, but often times when it comes to the door of our own heart, we leave the piety at the door. We must hate all evil, including our own. In context, when we see Jesus, we hate our masquerades at love. I don't want to give a Judas kiss to my brothers, pretending to love them, saying nice things to them, but behind their backs saying, hey, can you believe you did that? Can you believe she's dressed like that? Loving them with words, but keeping them at a distance. True love doesn't keep an account of what other people has done for them or done to them. When by faith we lay hold of the love of God in Christ, like Him, there is an emptying that occurs, an ability to forgive that is heavenly, that is divine, that is truly supernatural, matching the new birth, we are never the same when we look at the cross, and we never look at other people in the same way. Again, this certainly grows in us. Thoughts of getting something in return for love? Husbands, think about this in your marriages. Wives, parents and children, members of the church. Thoughts of, well, I'm going to do something good for them because I want to get something back. It should make us nauseous when we look at the cross. If Jesus went to the cross thinking, well, I'm going to lay down my life, but I better get something out of him. He wasted his time and his blood and his tears. That's not love. Love is emptying. Love thinks only of doing good and showing mercy and forgetting self and the joy of serving others. So when we demand that other people love us for who we are, isn't that a common demand in our culture? Just love me for who I am. Don't put judgments on me. Don't weigh me by some scripture. Just love me for who I am. We're denying the love of God in Christ that was poured out on the cross. As believers, if we hold on to the world's love and you fill in the blank, Things that move you, things that you desire that you're willing to sin for, lie for, pretend for, be secretive in order to have. Again, this is tearing down Christ from the cross and erecting an idol of selfishness in the place of love. So when we taste the kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Peter talks about, we want to cling to that old rugged trawl. For by doing so, we cling to love, and in the process, the love of Christ in us changes us. If it means that we need to wash dishes for a month so that our wives can have a rest, so be it. If it means that we need to have other people over when they can't have us over, so be it. If it means that I need to be way more cheerful, young people, in doing chores and even say, hey, can I do more chores? These are not enough. I want to serve more. I don't want to just take out the trash without wishing I could stuff Dad in there and take him out too. I want to take out more trash. I want to clean up more. I want to do... Because love is like that. That's what love... Love flows from one mouth, and it's Calvary. The Lord Jesus Christ's love poured out for us. If it means that a husband, since we do have married folks here, must deny his sexual appetites for a season and love his wife in a different way because of circumstances or illness, then that's okay. If it means that a wife needs to give in this area when she doesn't really want to because she loves her husband and sees in him pride, that's okay. Love is self-empty. And I can't empty myself, and neither can you. Only God can do this in us through His Son. But I want to encourage you, come often before the cross. Look often at the mercy of God shown to us in crucifying His Beloved for us. Think often of John 3.16, John 15.13, verses we've already quoted. Think often of the love of God in Christ And you will be doing what we looked at yesterday and the night before, being transformed by the renewing of your mind. And you will see that love, sacrifice, and self-emptying is beautiful. It is the only way of living that is truly satisfying. Because here's a little secret about us. and it's not pleasant, and I'm still learning it, and I dare say the most mature Christian here is still learning it as well. We are the sources of our own misery. Very personally, practically, in our own lives. And the reason we are is because we seek our own. We think of ourselves. We are selfish. We think to self first. It's just ingrained now because of sin, but Jesus can break it. And the more we're in communion with Him and in fellowship with His Word, and the more we drink of the living waters that He has opened up to us, we will love because He is the Savior of love. And when we walk with Him, He transforms us. Now, there's something that's always been very shocking to me about verse nine, how closely connected love and hate are. One very short line, let love be without hypocrisy, pretending, mask wearing, abhor what is evil. That's, I mean, are we really capable of passionate love and vehement hate in this kind of close proximity? You know, the Holy Spirit regularly joins these together. For the sake of time, we won't look at the references. I'll just mention three or four. Psalm 97, 10. All you who love the Lord hate evil. Psalm 119, 113. I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. Psalm 119, 163. I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love." Amos 5.15. Hate the evil and love the good. These things are very complementary. Why? Love pulls back from its opposite with of horror. We see this in our Lord's treatment of Peter. The Lord said, I'm going to go to Jerusalem and die. Peter said, far be it from you, O Lord. I'm sure something flashed in his eyes and he looked at Peter and he said, get behind me Satan. Now again, he recognized behind Peter the lies and the temptation of Satan. You see, Peter, for the moment, as a tool of the devil, was an instrument to divert the Lord Jesus away from love's goal and love's destiny. and that is the cross, and nothing would come between it. And he spoke out with strength and sanctified abhorrence of anything that went against the will of God and interfered with his calling. Now, apply it to us. We cannot love God truly, maturely, sincerely without feeling abhorrence And what offends him? Well, this is a very uncomfortable feeling. Those of you who've done any good at whoring lately, you know what I'm talking about. Okay? It's not, you know, you're raging against the machine or the beast and you're sopping through the house, punching holes in the plaster. It's not that. It's something more sickening. It's kind of like when we hear and see or maybe hear stories more firsthand of what goes on in abortion or we see how the family is under attack and perversion is being institutionalized. It's not just a lash out kind of a quarrel. It is a deep, thick, nauseating, The healing just swells from within us, it's almost instinctual. Why is that? Because it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us, and in union with Him, He begins to change us into lovers. We love what is good, like He did, and we hate what is evil. Here's some things we need to learn to hate, if we are going to love. Gossip. Stinginess. Holding a bad opinion about others. It's amazing to me that, you know, you'll talk to people and they'll... I had somebody recently who remembers something that was done to them 43, 44 years ago. And as they started telling it to me, it was just like it happened five minutes ago. And it didn't forgive, never made it right, but you know what's funny? On the good things, we like to have a ten-minute memory stone. You know, we've got to repent and ask God to give us the grace of repentance for our lack of forgiveness and being so blindly wedded to our own opinions that we take offense when dust disagrees with me. I mean, I've never seen, you know, everybody's got dust. Ladies, you can be great housekeepers and you've got dust. But I've never seen two dust clots fighting and saying, no, no, that's my place. No, no, you've got to get out of the way, that's my place. Now granted, when we're defending the honor and the truth of God, there's limits to this analogy, but we're talking within the body of Christ where the assumption is that we are generally agreed upon the most important things. We've got to remember, we're not going to see everything eye to eye. Paul speaks about this at length in chapter 13 and 14 of Romans if you want to with Sarah later. So, again, we've got to remember, I conduct, I do my best to understand God's Word, but these are only the beginnings of His ways. And so I don't know everything. And Paul said in another place, whoever thinks he knows anything as he should, doesn't know anything as he ought to know it. And so there's a sense of humility and meekness and teachableness that comes from the love of God in Christ being implanted in our souls. So the abhorrence here is not vengefulness, it's not out-of-control wrath, it's not burning down abortion clinics, as the question was asked last night. It is the focused, determined, emotional, mental, volitional, the will, disgust, opposition, repulsion, at whatever offends against God's majesty and his love for us in Christ. I'm reminded of a story I read some years ago. Charles Ludwig Dodson, who wrote under another name, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He always had a studied habit that when anyone came to him and started telling religious jokes, that began where three men went to heaven, Peter, James, and John, or the Pope, a Jew, and a so-and-so. This was going on, you know, well over 150 years ago. And they all thought it was really funny. He would just stare at them. And he wouldn't crack a smile. And he wrote in several of his letters that the reason that he wouldn't smile is because he was not going to give anybody the impression that heaven and hell are lacking matters under any circumstances. Now granted, that's just one example. And again, don't draw from that a life paradigm or a t-shirt slogan. I'm just giving you an example of the kind of seriousness that love produces in us. when we see God's love in Christ and we're humbled by it. Now, this love comes to tangible expression. Verse 10, we have to move a little bit for the sake of time. The Holy Spirit speaks here of being kindly affectioned to one another. The mutual love of parents for children, husband for wife, it's a feeling of special affinity for those with whom we are close. It's not surprising that Christians would be affectionate people, or should be. Many of Paul's letters contain this injunction, which all young men in the church everywhere rejoice to hear, greet everyone with a holy kiss. Now, it does say holy, And that doesn't mean you set up your personal kissing booth, okay? But it does mean there is to be a sincere gospel affection that we have within the body of Christ. Why? Because we've all had, at the core, a very similar experience. We have beat our breast before the cross and said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. We have stood there and said, truly, This man was the Son of God. And it has changed us. And we love those who we can talk to about these things. The important things. The most important things. You know, Jesus was like this. He was very affectionate, warm-hearted. The Samaritan woman who had a very checkered past, He gently led her to the truth. Even Nicodemus, He gave some Doubt warnings too, but he also gave, interestingly enough, some of the most precious truths in the New Testament to that man. We see him touching lepers. A big fat ceremonial no-no. Some of these may never have been touched by human beings in their life, maybe for years, and he touched them. We see him with Martha and Mary and Lazarus, He was very approachable. John reclined on his bosom. And here's a good one. So on the night in which he was betrayed, and the whole world of our sin is about to come crashing down upon him, what is he telling grown men, grown men in the upper room, I love you. I love you. No embarrassment. Let me tell you how much I love you. I'm going to take the lowest place of a common menial slave. I'm going to wash your feet. No wonder Peter just stood back and gasped, you're not going to wash my feet. I don't want to go here. I don't want the kingdom to look like this. We're still dreaming of marble palaces and everybody going before us and saying, look at Peter, look at James, look at John. One on the right hand, one on the left. That is the king of glory washing feet. All of these ideas are wrapped up in Being kindly affectionate and preferring one another. Preferring one another. The verb here has been variously translated. It almost has the idea, so if I said there is a suitcase in that sound booth right there right now that has ten million dollars in it and the first person, don't worry, there's not, you're safe, okay? The first person that gets to it can have it. Well, you're going to see death and destruction within 50 feet. But the idea of this verb is that we would kill ourselves trying to push everybody else up to get the money before we would get it. In other words, we trample all over each other trying to honor, love, promote. Instead of saying, hey, look at my gift, what about me? We say, hey, look at his gift. And if somebody else has a gift we would like, well, I sure wish I could preach and teach. But all I can do is, I don't know, cook meals. All I can do is sing. We all do this. The grass is always greener in somebody else's life. But the love of God in Christ says, you know what, I am so thankful for what I see Jesus Christ doing in their life. If the spotlight goes on Him, or the spotlight goes on her, it's kind of like John. Everybody was following John, and then everybody started following Jesus, and John didn't have any disciples left. I mean, can you imagine this? Jesus said, among those born of women, there is not a period of greater than John the Baptist. And yet, John just kind of quietly walks off the stage, not too quietly, in a dungeon, beheaded, a few disciples, and all John's response is not, what I say is, what about me? That's not John's response. His response is, he must increase, I must decrease. The whole goal of my life has been for the sun to rise so that my little flashlight could be put out. That's how we're supposed to love one another. That's how we're supposed to feel about one another within the body of Christ and be kindly affectionate. You know, this is more than words. Jesus was on the cross and he was looking at Mary, his mother, and I could imagine what he was thinking. what he was thinking and what was going on on earth was nothing in comparison to him standing and being offered on the burnt altar before the throne of his father for our transgressions. And yet he, John, take a hope. Take a hope. So we say, I can't love. You don't know how hard my circumstances are. You don't know how hard my husband is on me. If I stood up right now and told you, and told everybody what kind of man my husband truly is, or what kind of wife my wife truly is, or what kind of children I really have, or what kind of parents I really have, if you knew my dad and how he talked to me in the home, if you knew my mother and how she talked to me in the home, if you knew my preacher, and how He really is behind the scenes, you wouldn't tell me I'm supposed to love. And my only response to all of that, because many of our circumstances, and probably way more than we would even want to confess in this group, are things that we pray never see the light of sun, and we're scared of them, and they bother us. But all I can tell you is, even there, look at the call. Because God Almighty through His Son is able to change us so that in the worst of circumstances we love and we serve and we live. Why? Jesus did and none was ever so low, so judged, so despised, so condemned, so tempted as he. And where is he now? He's at the right hand of the Father. And what has he done? He's poured out his Spirit. And what does that make of? The temple of the living God, so that it's no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. So there is possibility, tremendous certainty, that members of the body of Christ can love each other, that churches across denominational lines We can love each other, but each of us must go back and without any pride of place, position, learning, influence, must get down on our face before the cross of Jesus Christ and look up and say, God, be merciful to me. So I can't live there. So I can't live there. Their power to crush it and overcome it and power to say with John, He must increase, but I must decrease. And in conclusion, that's how we learn to practice these verses. Loving without hypocrisy, without pretending, smiling, but with a knife of words in the back. We come often before the cross and we're broken. over our sins that we rejoice and stand amazed at God's mercy. I say this often to my own people, and I'm sure preachers here say it to their congregation all the time. You know, liberalism, post-liberalism, they all have such huge problems with hell. I have no problem with hell. My problem is with heaven. I have no problem with judgment. My problem is with love. Because when we know ourselves honestly, hell, of course, of course I'm going to perish endlessly, cut off from the presence of God. But love by Him forever, that I cannot pass. I can understand God judging me and saying, depart from me, you Christian evil who practice iniquity. I can totally understand this. But to hear Jesus say, well done, good and faithful servant, entered into the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world, that I cannot understand. It is mercy and grace and love that occupy the best and the purest thoughts of angels. I can't understand that. But the best way for us to be changed on earth so that we love without hypocrisy and hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good and that we practice real affection and promoting one another. Not promoting me, but promoting one another is to stand amazed before God's mercy in Christ. You know, Jesus said about this love, all men will know you're my disciples. by the love that you have for one another. So, I'm asking myself, and I ask you too, you can be included, two questions by way of just kind of wrapping up. There's so much more. I mean, how can you talk about the love of God in Christ and say, there it is, put a bow on it. You can't. But, do unbelievers around you think of you as a loving person? You know, it's often said of the early church that their persecutors would even say things like, how those Christians loved one another. You know, I think that, you know, the United States stays where we've got the black eye. The church in the United States has got the black eye. Because I think when the world looks at the church in the United States, they're going to say, man, that is a real haven of service, and there's no gossiping there, and they don't tear down one another. They never get any, they never have divorces. I mean, they never. But if love goes bye-bye, so does the church's witness in the world. Again, granted, don't worry, I'm not defining love based on permissiveness and tolerance. I'm talking about real, gospel, self-emptying love. So to the believers of the unbelievers that we rub shoulders with today, is that how they know our churches? Do we try to minister the love of God in Christ to them? Because Jesus says, that's how the world will know that you are my disciples. And since the world's also blind, that also implies some opening and some salvific work of God going forward. But the last question is perhaps closer to home because we have to start there. What Christians in your life and in your home, me too, Do I need to go back to, do you need to go back to and say, forgive me for being hateful, selfish, priceless Christian. Forgive me for being so selfish, it's like I'm the black hole in my home and I just suck all the air out of it. I've been like that. I've had to ask my wife to forgive me. meanness, selfishness, only thinking about what I had to do and that that was all important. And everybody else, you know, it's not like most of us, we have a camera running. We're the main actor and everybody else is just kind of a bit player in the story of our life. We need to go back and make it right with those in our homes and in our churches. and say, Lord Jesus, would you please, would you just do this for me? And he will. My life would be so different. You would be so glorified. I would be more useful in the world. Make me to look like you in your self-emptying love. He could do a lot. But make me look like you, washing things, Touching the untouchable. Kind. Bearing with Peter and all of his foolishness and the other disciples as well. So who do you need to go? Okay, I know this isn't what you're expecting, okay? It'd be easy to say, hey, you know, go buy these ten books and read them. Let me give you something way harder to do. Go buy the ten books, by the way, and read them. But, do this, because this is deep layer magic. Identify, and I hope that this is not true, but if there are those in your life, spouse, parents. You know, I grew up in a Christian home, and I was always scared of somebody who was always haunted by Christ, but I didn't really yield to him. And my dad was, in many respects, a real paragon of Christian virtue and diligence, and he was an elder in the church and all this. I was always scared to death of him because I always knew who the dancer was going to be. He was a godly man. He wasn't perfect. It's easy to see ideographically of those whom we love, but he was a godly man. One of the best graces that God ever gave to me in this life, about six months before he died, He was shot in Vietnam and just suffered a lot of injuries and surgeries. But I went to him one day in his study and I just, I didn't know he was this. He was 38, I'm not going to see him. Six months later, he's gone. And I said, Dad, let me tell you something. And I was scared to death, trembling, I can still feel it in my whole self that moment. I just need to tell you. that I have not honored, and loved, and respected you, and I could tell you a lot more, but I've been a real jerk of a son. Would you please forgive me?" Well, I mean, you know, as most godly dads will when their children are humble and he's hugged and loved, sure, I forgive you, and, you know, we had a great time and shared a little bit more. Who do you need to go do that to? Who have you been hiding from? Who have you been pretending? Maybe it's to your parents, their closest dog. Maybe it's to your wife. Maybe it's to your husband. But we want the love of God in Christ. Because nothing is greater, sweeter, more satisfying, more God-honoring than to know, comprehend, and practice something of the height, the width, the breadth, and the depth of the love of God in Christ. Let's pray together. God of love, we worship you. We don't deserve your love and we don't even really understand that all we can do is look at the cross. And we bless you and we pray that by your spirit you would work, you would shed abroad love for you in our hearts, a greater consciousness of your love for us. humility before it, work in it. Bless us here in this place to have loving homes, loving churches, that we would fight all over ourselves to promote and to prefer others to ourselves. And may it be a real testimony, Lord, of your transforming presence. Renew us as we look at your cross, at your love, and we praise you that you are raised from the dead and reigning at the right hand of the Father, still pouring out the fountains of living water of grace and love for all who look to you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.