[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church Podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our
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[00:00:24] Speaker B: Well, good morning everybody. We're in a series called Living Life that Matters. And I told you last weekend as we launched the series that you and I are really in control of our legacy. We are in control of how we will ultimately be remembered.
We in some ways, as I said last week, are preaching our funerals while we live.
We're giving our families the material that they will use one day to memorialize us.
And so it's important that we stop from time to time to think about the life that we're living. In fact, last week that was the first of the series was to consider what is the life that I'm now living? How am I living my life?
This weekend I want to take the next step and I want to talk about that. The secret to leaving a great legacy is not only tied to the life that I live, it's also tied to the love that I lavish.
How well do I love other people in my life? How well do I love my family?
How well do I love my friends? How well do I love the neighbors that God has placed me in contact with? How well do we love others? We will be remembered by those things. One day somebody will recall how much we love them and how much we did for them. I read an article in USA Today this past week and it was a little troubling. Along these lines, it says at a time when we're supposedly more connected than ever, there are an awful lot of lonely people.
Nearly half of Americans, nearly half of Americans report sometimes are always feeling alone or feeling left out. This is according to a new survey that was done by the health company Cigna. It also went on to report that one out of five Americans say they have no one that they can talk to.
And then it goes on to say, and the loneliest generation, that would be the generation composed of Gen Z, which is the 18 to 22 year olds. They were identified as the loneliest generation in our country right now.
And here we are with all these devices that allow us to be connected with one another. And I'm just saying somewhere along the way we're doing this wrong.
You see, God created us to be relational people.
In Romans, chapter 14 and verse 7, it says, no one lives to themselves alone. No one dies to themselves alone. God made us for relationships. He made us to connect and to react and to relate to one another.
And one of the most devastating and one of the most debilitating things that anyone can do is to isolate themselves from and insulate themselves from other people.
Now, let me qualify that by saying that there are periods of time when it is healthy to isolate yourself and insulate yourself. I don't mean to sound contradictory, but let me explain myself. If you've been deeply hurt, if you've gone through a devastating experience in your life, maybe it's grief, the loss of a loved one, maybe the loss of a relationship, the loss of an income, a job, a child. I mean, there's so many things that we can go through that are just devastating, debilitating. And I would say during that period of time, it's healthy sometimes to isolate a little bit, to pull away, to insulate yourself from other people.
It's almost like you're in emotional icu and it's important. ICU is there for a reason. It's there to help you get back on your feet, and it's there to save your life. And. And so for a period of time, I. I think when you're grieving over something or grieving over someone, I. I don't think there's anything wrong during that period of time to isolate and to insulate.
If you have someone that you know that has gone through something just devastating.
I did the funeral, as you know, last week for one of our own, and Brittany Elliott, who was killed in that car wreck, her husband's a coach at Keller Spencer, leaving behind those three children.
And in that. That funeral service I mentioned one of the best things you could do for them is not only pray for them and be with them, but sometimes if you don't know what to say, just say nothing to them.
When I went through, and still am going through in a lot of ways, healing process of the loss of Cindy and a granddaughter, I can tell you sometimes the best thing anyone ever did for me was, was just be with me and say nothing to me.
Especially if you don't know what to say. Don't feel like you need to fill the vacancy or fill the air or fill the space with words.
Sometimes nothing is enough.
Sometimes just your presence is enough.
And so I'm just saying that I get it when a person is hurt, that they isolate and insulate. I did that for A period of time, I just wasn't in a place where I felt like I had anything to give. So. I understand that. But. But here's. Here's the thing. I want you to hear me say it's a place that you need to go. It's not a place you need to stay.
I mean, go there when you need to. Go there to heal your heart, to heal your soul, to heal your emotions, Go there. But don't stay there.
The problem, if you stay there, it will eventually start to change you. It will change the way you see yourself. It will change the way you see God. And that will certainly change the way you see other people. People.
Someone said and used this illustration. They said when someone tries to protect their heart from ever be broken again, they. They. They think they can place their heart in a concrete vault and hide their heart deep within the earth, safe from anyone ever accessing their heart or breaking their heart again.
But the person went on to say, who wrote this illustration? They said, the problem is if you're not careful, your heart begins to take on the character of its surroundings.
And your heart becomes as cold as the hole that it's buried in. And it becomes as hard as the encasement that it's hidden in. And it becomes as dark as the dirt under which it's buried in.
You change.
In fact, when you think about it, ICU is an important place. But they're not selling ICU units as condos.
They're not saying, we've got a nice little ICU in here, we'll sell you. You could live there. It's ridiculous. You'd never think about it because it's just a place you want to go temporarily while you're getting back on your feet. They say treat them and street them.
We want to get you back out there.
So what I'm saying to your heart is this morning, I get it. When people come to our church, sometimes the tendency is, man, let's just get them right in there. We want them serving. We want them to find a place and. And know when we challenge you to do that, we may be doing that unaware of what you're going through with the best of intentions, but sometimes the best thing you could say to us is, I'm not ready to do that yet.
I just came out of a bad church experience.
And I've told you before, if you've never been hurt in church, you should go long enough.
Hang in there, baby. Somebody will run you down to the glory of God.
We all got stories.
I'm Just saying. Sometimes you need to say, I'm getting out of something, I'm getting away from something. I'm trying to get through something. And that's enough for me. I'm gonna say, sit there as long as you need to stay. Say, don't stay there, but sit there and get healed and get ready. Because you're gonna offer something to us that we didn't have when you're healthy again, than you may be able to offer right now.
But what I don't want you to miss is God made us relational. He made us to interact in need. He designed us a way that we are to love one another.
In fact, the context of the text that I want to share with you just for a few moments before we leave is in the upper room.
Jesus is with his disciples and he is about to go to the cross. And the thing that he's told them that would happen for the last three years of ministry is now going down.
And in the course of that conversation with them in the upper room, he.
He says, one of you will betray me. And of course, Judas is identified and he leaves the room.
And then Jesus said, fellas, I have loosely translated, fellows, I have.
I'm not going to pull you out of the world. I'm going to leave you in the world because my role here is done, but yours isn't.
My mission will be completed when I come out of the tomb and ascend to the Father and take my rightful place at the right hand of the majesty on high. But I still have something for you to do here on the earth. So I'm not going to pull you out of the world. I'm gonna leave you in the world because you are going to lead this organism, this organization that I've created called the Church My body on the Earth.
And so he's sharing that with them.
And in the midst of all that conversation, he says this. And this is so powerful. This is our text. This is what I want you to see this morning. John 13. Look at verses 34, 35.
He says to them a new command. I give you, boy. Now they're listening in. Wow. We've heard Jesus talk about a lot of stuff. He's going to give us kind of the last words. He's going to give us a new command. Let's take notes. Anybody got this Art? Let's write this. This is important. Jesus said, this is a new command. What is it?
Love one another.
And I'm sure some of them probably looked at each other and said, well, he's Told us to do that before. How's this a new command?
I mean, you look back in Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. And Leviticus 19:18 says, Love one another.
So it's not new in the sense that they haven't been taught this before. Listen to this. It's new in the sense that they've never modeled this before.
He said, now, I want this now not to just be theory.
I want this to be activity.
I don't want you just to know that you should.
I want you to actually put this into practice.
Love one another and then continue reading there. He said, here's. Here's the. Here's the bar. Here's how we to measure this. We're to love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. How did he love us? Unconditional.
He didn't say, I love you. If you get your act together, you change your life. You do that. I mean, Romans 5:8 says, While we were yet in our sins, Christ died for us.
I've told you, Christianity is not behavior modification. God doesn't change someone so that he might then love them. He loves them so that he might change them.
Sometimes in church world, we get that the opposite way.
And we love people if they meet a certain standard or if they, they. They rise to a certain level. If, if. If are, the are. Are.
Someone says, well, it's not if. It's because I love you. Because I love you. Because you can love me back.
I love you because of what you've done for me. It's reciprocal.
It's nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, anybody can do that. Anybody can. And the atheist can love somebody who loves them back. That's not the standard.
Jesus said, love as I've loved you. He loved us when we were unlovedly.
He loved us when we didn't love him back.
He loved us when we offered nothing to him.
He loved us just as we are.
That's why that great old hymn Billy Graham used to close all of his crusades with is so powerful. Just as I am without one plea but that your blood was shed for me. O Lamb of God, I come. You know, if you come to Jesus, you come just as you are.
You say, bill, I gotta get my act together. No, you don't.
I hear people say, well, if I go to church, roof would fall in. Well, I hadn't fallen in yet.
You know, I hear all these excuses. Listen, can I tell you something? Just put all that aside. Jesus loves you just as you are messed up, confused Angry, hostile, maybe wicked.
Jesus said, if you come to me, listen to this. If those who come to me, Jesus said, I will in no wise cast out whosoever will let them come. That ought to be on the doormat of the church. Whosoever will let them come.
Our job as fishers of men is to catch em. It's his job to clean em.
Our job is to catch them. We're to love them. And then Jesus. Go on, read again. Let's pick that up again. 13. Look at verse 35. And by this you wanna be authenticated, you want to be verified.
By this shall all men know you are my disciples. How? If you love one another, Jesus said, they're gonna know you're the real deal. If you love other people, you don't know what the difference is. When somebody who is skeptical and cynical about people who claim to know Jesus, the real deal is how we treat other people, how we love one another.
So let's understand this a little bit before we go.
What would you say, first of all, would be the definition of love?
How would I define this? Love.
Is love a feeling? No, you can't command a feeling. And he just commanded us to love.
It may produce a feeling, but you can't command a feeling.
Love is an emotion, but it's not defined as an emotion. It produces an emotion, but love is much more than that. Love involves a choice. And love involves commitment.
And love involves conduct.
It's a command. He says, I'm commanding you to love people. And here's the standard. You're to love them as I have loved you.
Well, Paul, kind of. In the Love chapter of the Bible, Paul helps us understand this. In First Corinthians 13, he says, Love is patient and is kind. Think about that word, patient.
By definition, the word patient means the ability to hold up under pressure or under a burden.
It means when you pray and you say, God take this from me. And God doesn't take it from you. He gives you patience to bear it.
Paul said, remove this thorn, please, Lord, from me. And God said, my grace is sufficient. What was he doing? He was given Paul the patience and the grace to carry the burden that he's designed to carry.
And I could warn you about something this morning if you to take some advice here. Don't pray for patience.
Don't do that.
Because the Bible says tribulation brings about patience. All you're doing is praying for trouble.
Cause the only way you're going to get patience is trouble. You might as well say God, would you give Me some trouble.
I mean, things are going good right now, getting along with the spouse, and things are great in my life. Bills are paid. You know what? I need trouble.
I just had more trouble.
Nobody prays that way. But he said tribulation brings about patience. It's the burdens of life. So it's not something we choose. It's something that we respond to what has been chosen for us and how I decide to act on it that develops this quality of patience.
So what does that look like when we love other people? It means I can forbear, I can go the second mile. He said, love is patient, it suffers long. It means I can go, as I said, the second mile with someone, maybe the third mile. It isn't easily angered, it isn't irritable, it doesn't envy, it doesn't boast, it isn't proud, it doesn't dishonor other people. It's not self seeking. It doesn't keep records of when it's been wronged. It doesn't delight in evil, but it rejoices in the truth. And listen to how he summarizes it. This kind of love protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres. And then he just said, it never fails.
Loving people this way works every time it's tried.
It never fails.
Now, the reason we sometimes have trouble understanding what this kind of love means and looks like is in our English language, we only have one word to convey love.
The Greeks were much more explicit. They had four words that conveyed love.
We have one word, for example, we say, I love peanut butter.
And in the next line we say, and I love my kids.
Well, if you weren't familiar with the English language, you say you love kids like you love peanut butter.
Well, we know what we mean by what we say. We get the nuance and we get the, you know, we get the. We understand what we're saying. But I'm saying Greeks were much more explicit. So when they use the word love, as Jesus is using here, it meant something more than that. There's no nuance. For example, the Greeks had the word eros, which meant erotic. We get sensual love, physical love from that. That was one word. Another word the Greeks would use is storge, which means a fondness for, an affinity for you might work with someone. You say, I don't know him real well, but I really like that guy. I really like her. She's really a nice person. A storge. It's an affinity for a fondness of.
The third love is phileo. That's Brotherly love. Philadelphia, all you Eagle fans, it's the city of brotherly love, right? Phileo, that's a friendship. You all have friendships, and you love your friend. And then this fourth, which is what is talked of here, is agape or agapeo, which is the love of God.
The immeasurable love of God, the unbelievable love of God, the powerful love of God. That's what Jesus. And so Jesus, when he's. He's saying love, it's eros. It's not storge, it's not phileo. It is agape el. Love, people with the love of God.
And then Paul breaks it down when he defines it in Ephesians 5. He said, it's selfless.
It's selfless love. He says, secondly, it's sacrificial.
You're willing to lay yourself down for the benefit of someone else. Thirdly, it's sanctifying, meaning that it makes the person you love a better person because you love them.
I mean, when we walk into a room, the room ought to be better because we entered it.
When we love someone, they ought to become a better person because we loved them. It's a sanctifying love. So it is selfless, sacrificial, sanctifying. And here's the fourth thing. It's satisfying, man. There's something that is satisfying when you love someone as God loved them, is the Holy Spirit will affirm what you're doing in their life. You'll see a difference in the lives of other people. So Jesus said, love one another. That's the definition.
Let me give the second thought. That's the development of this love. How do we develop this love? Is it something we just conjure up?
Is it just something we just sitting in a service like this, one day, we decide, okay, I'm in. I'm gonna do it. It's more than that. If it's an emotional decision, then that might be something that is tied to our emotions. So as long as we're feeling it, we do it. And when we don't feel it, we don't do it.
It's gotta be more than an emotional decision.
As I said, it'll bring about an emotion, but it's gotta be deeper than just an emotional decision to do this. This type of love, according To Galatians, chapter 5, verses 22 and 23, is the work of the Holy Spirit and the life of God's kids. We call it the fruit of the Spirit.
I mean, he said, the fruit of the Spirit is love. Can I tell you what's not natural?
What's not natural is to love people who talk smack about you, who post some bad stuff online about you, who, as the Bible says, despitefully use you.
It's not natural to love or pray for that person.
What's natural is to go right back at them. They bring a knife, you bring a gun.
I mean, that's natural. I understand that. I totally get that. And I've been guilty of that. I totally understand that.
What is not natural is. But what he's driving at here is not natural. It's supernatural.
Meaning that this is something you and I cannot do in the power of our flesh. This is something we can only do through the energy of the Holy Spirit, God. I can't. But you have to love them through me.
I don't have the power or the ability to love this person. But Father, you can love this person through me. And one of the first things you can do from, for someone that you're struggling with loving is pray for em.
Just pray for em. You don't even have to tell em you're praying for. Just pray for em. Just start praying for. You know what'll happen is God will begin to soften your mind and your heart toward that person.
You begin to let things go concerning that person and trust God to deal with that person and he'll deal with that person.
But I'm saying it's a matter of releasing the responsibility to God and just walking in the idea that I'm gonna love them and I'm gonna pray for them and I'm gonna do my best as long as I can, you know, to not return fire on them. I'm going to do as the Bible instructs me do instead to pray for them, by the way. And this kind of fits right here. Loving other people doesn't mean to embrace passivity.
It doesn't mean to allow someone you love to run over you.
Because sometimes we. We think well in loving others. It involves passivity. And then, well, passivity in the face of evil is not love at all.
For example, if our military had not gone after Hitler in World War II, we wouldn't be in the same position we're in today.
If law enforcement didn't go after the criminal, we wouldn't be safe today.
In fact, the whole book of Corinthians that Paul is writing, the chapter on love, First Corinthians 13, when you read the book in context, the two letters that he wrote to the Church of Corinthians, it's not passive. It's confrontational.
He's straightening them out.
He's saying, I love you, but you're doing some things wrong. For example, the Lord's Supper had become a drunken feast.
They were getting drunk at the Lord's Supper.
Does that blow your hat in the creek?
I mean, they had, they had prostitutes that were working it in the church. In the church.
That's one way to grow one, but it's not God's way.
And I'm just simply suggesting you that Paul was writing a letter of. And the motivation for the confrontation was love.
If you got a family member and they're being aggressive and abusive, or maybe they're struggling with some sort of a dependency on drugs or alcoholism, a healthcare professional will tell you you need to confront them in love. It's called an intervention.
I've been a part of several of those through the years.
And I'm just simply saying there comes a time in a family's life where you have to set down someone and you have to say to that person, how you're behaving is going to cost you your family.
How you're behaving is going to cost you your job.
And for some cases, how you're behaving may cost you your life.
Now, that's not passivity.
That's being confrontational. But it's being confrontational under the umbrella of love.
In fact, Jesus put it this way in Hebrews, chapter 12. Whom the Lord loves, he corrects, even as a parent, the child in whom they delight.
Now, here's the difference. When God deals with one of his kids, he doesn't judge them. Never call the chastisement of God on the life of one of his children. Don't call that judgment. Cause God doesn't judge his kids any more than you judge yours.
If you discipline your kids, you didn't say, I just judged him.
No, you say, I just disciplined them. And what's the point of discipline? It's to correct a behavior.
And you don't love your kids more than God loves his. And so if God says, I love my kids, therefore I chasten them, meaning I correct them. And sometimes there's a consequence, a consequence tied to the correction because you don't want them doing it again.
Because if you don't correct the child while they're young, you understand the pattern is the teacher's going to have to deal with them.
And if the teacher can't correct them, the coach is going to have. And if the coach can't correct them, then the police officer is going to Deal with them. And if that doesn't, then the justice system ultimately is going to deal with them. And I'm just saying at some point they're gonna get corrected. So it's better to do that while they're young. In other words, conquer them while they're five.
Don't weigh 100 pounds in 10 years too late.
Because you're not doing it out of the sense of judging them. You're doing it from the standpoint of correcting them.
So I'm saying don't misunderstand when we're talking about love that it involves passivity. No, it involves speaking the truth to someone who may be going astray or someone who's involved in something that could be destructive. And it's speaking truth and love to correct the behavior because you love them.
Now, one more little caveat, and I'll move off of that and we'll go home.
It's hard to correct a person who doesn't know Jesus because the standard is very different than one who does know Jesus. For example, the Bible says in John, chapter three, right after that beautiful verse, verse 16, where God so loved the world, he says, the people who don't know Jesus are condemned. Already are condemned. Get that phrase, a judicial phrase. Condemned already. Think about them as setting on death row. Let me ask you a question.
What could anyone do who is sitting on death row to become more condemned than they already are?
Spit on the guard, Smuggle drugs in, get high?
You're on death row. I mean, what are you gonna do? Kill him twice?
I mean. So my point is, whenever a person doesn't know Jesus, there's nothing that person can do to be made righteous other than confess, repent, and receive Jesus as Savior.
So in one sense, I'm not saying that you don't correct a family member or a friend who doesn't know Jesus. I'm saying you gotta go to the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is, until that person received Jesus as Savior, they're fighting the a power greater within themselves than they're going to ultimately be able to overcome.
Because unless they have within them that which is above them, eventually they succumb to what is around them and they fall into what is beneath them.
You need the power of the Holy Spirit living within you. That's why I go back to say this type of love is developed through the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
That's how this love is.
Is developed. Here's the third thought, and we'll go home. What is the demonstration of this love, what does it look like when we're doing this? Right?
What does this type of love look like? Well, first of all, it changes our lives, it changes our heart, it softens us.
You remember, Paul, we talked about Saul of Tarsus a couple of weeks ago.
And every Jewish mother loved to call her kids Saul. Well, that was a popular name because Saul was the first king of Israel. He.
He was a big, strong, handsome. You know, all this. And they picked him. He was the people's choice. He wasn't God's choice.
And it was the ideal guy. And every Jewish mother wanted her son to emulate or grow up to be like Saul. And so Saul, by definition, his name meant this significant one, the important one, even prideful one. Paul, on the other hand, meant the humble one. So one of the things God did when he saved Saul of Tarsus, life and soul, in Acts chapter nine is he changed his name from being the big and important one to the humble and insignificant one. And he changed not just his life, but he changed his heart toward other people.
Instead of persecuting the church and putting Christians to death, he changed his heart in such a way that he loved people that he used to hate.
So the demonstration of that love begins to change us before it changes them.
You remember the story of the Sons of Thunder when their mother brought them to Jesus because they wanted to serve and work with Jesus. And by the way, if your nickname is the Son of Thunder, you probably have anger issues, man. These boys were hostile, those James and John, and they bring them to Jesus, and she goes, my boys, the Sons of Thunder, you know, they want to follow you. And then Jesus responds. He didn't say, no, they can't. They're not qualified. He said to them, can they drink of the cup? In other words, can they pay the price?
Because access to Jesus. These seats are expensive.
I mean, you want box seats, you're gonna pay extra money. You want on the stage, you're gonna pay a lot of money. You're gonna. You want access to the star of the show, it's gonna cost you something.
Now, he wasn't talking about a monetary cost. He was saying, if you're gonna get access to the star of the show, it's gonna cost. In other words, there's a price to pay.
Paul knew about this because in the book of Galatians, he said, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. The word stigmata in the Greek, I bear in my body the stigma. What does that mean? That mean back in those ancient days, the king would go into battle with his troops and the arrows of the enemy would be trained on the king because the enemy knew if I can take the king out, I can discourage the hearts of the soldiers and perhaps turn the battle in my favor.
So here's what I would tell you. If you're not sold on the king and you're not loyal to the king, don't fight close to the king.
You don't get shot.
And Paul said, I bear in my body the stigmata. In other words, I have been shot at because I've walked close to the king. They were trying to hit Jesus. Instead they hit me. They were trying to take him down. And they took me down. And I bear that as a badge of honor. Cause it shows that I was courageous. It shows that I had character. It shows that I was committed to the cause. I bear in my body the stigmata of the Lord Jesus.
So that's what Jesus was warning those sons of thunder. She was telling their mama, these boys want to. There's a price to pay. They're gonna go through some persecution, they're gonna go through some tribulation, they're gonna go through some things that are gonna be hard for them. And man, when you track how that worked out, it did.
And by the way, them becoming people who love people was a process.
It didn't happen overnight.
I mean, there was a time when Jesus was gonna go back to Jerusalem and he's got his boys with him. And the shortcut was through the land that belonged to the Samaritans. And when they sought to cross the land belonging to the Samaritans, because the Samaritans hated the Jews and the Jews hated the Samaritans, the Samaritans said, uh, you're not coming across here. You gotta go the long way home.
And so one of the sons of thunder, John, says to Jesus, let's just call fire down from heaven and burn em out.
Isn't that sweet Jesus? They're gonna make us go the long way home. This is ridiculous. You've got all this power. Burn em out. And Jesus said, you don't know what spirit you're of. I mean, you got a long way to go, son.
And yet. Wait a minute. Fast forward Now.
Did you know the one who wrote more about love in the New Testament than any other apostle was John?
What?
The son of thunder. Burn them out, John.
Let's get rid of them, John.
I hate these people. Jesus, John.
And he became the apostle. In fact, you remember when Leonardo Da. Well, you don't remember that. I don't either. But when Leonardo da Vinci painted that portrait of the Lord's Supper, remember when he said, all right, you guys get on this side of the table for the. No. When. When they painted that depiction of the. You remember that one apostle that's leaned over on Jesus?
You know who that is depicted as being? John. You know why?
Because time and time and time, in the letters that John wrote, he would say this about himself. I am the apostle that Jesus loves.
Meaning that I love Jesus more than these other boys.
And when I read that, here's what I think about. There's people that can speak better than me. There are people that can sing better than me. It's not much. There are people that can do a lot of things better than me. But no one. Listen, no one can love Jesus better than me.
No one can love Jesus better than you.
You just try to out love Jesus more than anybody else in your circle.
And John did that and became the apostle that Jesus loved.
And can I tell you, this kind of love makes a difference.
When I look at the cross and I see Jesus dying on the cross in such pain.
Not only the pain of the torture of that experience. In fact, our word excruciating is a word we use to describe pain.
Someone says the pain is excruciating. Did you know that's a word that comes out of the cross? Ex is out of crucify.
Excruciating means out of the cross to describe the worst kind of pain that you could experience is a word that comes from the cross.
And Jesus is going through excruciating pain. But don't miss this. As I close, he wasn't blinded to the people at his feet who still needed his love.
He looks out from the cross and says, father, forgive them.
They just don't know what they're doing.
He loved people that didn't love him back.
I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised, would you, if he didn't call a little fire down and that would be a time to burn them out.
He didn't do that. I might have, but instead he looked out at that crowd and he said, they don't realize they are crucifying the Son of God.
I'm saying he was able to get past his pain and see the love of people around him.
By the way, not only did he see the love of those people that hated him, but he saw his mother at the foot of his cross. And he says to John, who was there with her, take care of her. I'M not going to be here like I was, take care of my mama, make sure she's got everything she needs.
And in the midst of his pain, he didn't allow his pain to affect how he loved other people. Listen, that ain't natural. That's supernatural.
And I pray God will help us develop that kind of love.
That we'll be a church, yeah, that's known for believing God's word and standing firm on God's word. But we'll also be a church that is known for a church that loves Jesus and loves other people and want more than anything in this world for people to know Jesus. That's what I pray. Let's pray together.
Father, thank you for your word that never returns void.
It always achieves the purpose for which it was sent.
Your word always hits the mark.
And I pray through the power of your Holy Spirit that something that might have been said or some experience it might have had during our worship would resonate in our mind and heart. That would change the way we live our life. This coming week, Father, help us to understand that we will be remembered by the life that we live, by the love that we lavish. Help us to love others as you've loved us.
Finally. Lord, I pray for my friends who may never have trusted you as their Savior, that this might be the moment right in this room or watching online, maybe listening to a podcast later where they say, lord Jesus, in this moment where I am with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you.
Come into my heart, forgive my sin, and I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
