Latest / HBCWestminster / 2.2.25 1 John 2:7-11 Pastor Danny Gardner

Transcript

2.2.25 1 John 2:7-11 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

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Church, would you pray with me?
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Lord, God of heaven, we ask again
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that you would till the soil of our hearts,
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remove what distracts and what detracts from what matters.
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Keep our eyes fixed on you.
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Lord, we want to receive your word for what it is,
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the words of God and not of man.
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And Lord, would you spark something new in us this morning,
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a new passion, a fresh commitment to your truth.
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Lord, make us into a people after your heart.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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Amen.
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Thank you.
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You can be seated.
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We have, as you know, been studying since the new year
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some proofs of genuine faith,
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the lines of demarcation we've called them
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between those who are Christians in name only
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and those who are genuine Christ followers.
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We've said before, it's easy to say that you're a Christian.
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Tons of people do.
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It's easy to claim the name of Christ
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or to assume that you belong to the Father
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simply because you attended something
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like a Christmas Eve service once a year
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or a birthday party or something like that.
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But shouldn't a genuine commitment to Christ
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mean something more than that?
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Shouldn't a genuine commitment to Christ
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cause something to change in your life
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or transform you in some way?
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Don't forget that Jesus ended up on a cross
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and he defined discipleship as deny yourselves,
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take up your crosses and follow me.
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And so shouldn't being a Christ follower
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at least contain the possibility
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of ending up crucified?
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Because that's what he said.
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Shouldn't being a Christian mean something more
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than a simple head nod toward heaven?
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A quick repeat after me kind of prayer?
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And then I'm going to go about my life
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as if nothing has changed.
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We diligently read the scriptures.
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We preach the scriptures.
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Our goal as scripture studiers
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is to collectively raise our view of Christ.
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We preach his supremacy.
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We preach his sovereignty.
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We want to deeply understand
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and deepen our understanding of theology
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so that the deeper our understanding goes,
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the higher our view of his deity can go.
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But I wonder if we're doing a good enough job
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raising our view of discipleship itself.
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What does it actually mean to be his follower?
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We say a prayer, something like,
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dear Jesus, thank you for my food.
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Thank you for the weather.
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But honestly, the humidity makes my knee hurt.
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And so if you could fix that, I'd appreciate it.
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Amen.
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And I shudder to think that we will all one day
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stand before him and hear.
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So when I said, follow me,
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that's what you thought I meant.
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It was James, the brother of Jesus,
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who said in James chapter two and verse 18,
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but someone will say, you have faith, I have works.
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He said, show me your faith apart from works
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and I will show you my faith.
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What does it say?
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By my works.
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For as the body apart from the spirit is dead,
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so also faith apart from works is dead.
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The following Christ should and will challenge us.
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It will change us.
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It will transform us.
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And in our study of 1 John,
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we have said that genuine Christ followers
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keep themselves from idols.
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That is one of the ways that you'll know
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that you are a genuine Christ follower.
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Are you sharing room into your heart with other gods?
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Is Jesus one among many gods?
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Or are you supremely and wholly devoted to him?
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Those who are genuine followers of Christ
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will receive Christ for who he genuinely is.
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He is the Lord and Savior of all mankind.
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We described it as the Jesus is not a salvation salad bar.
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I can pick and choose the parts I want,
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leaving behind the things I don't.
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We will recognize that the sinfulness of sin
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can only be destroyed by the goodness of God.
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And in that way, we can experience
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the joyfulness of joy.
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We said last Sunday that we will,
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as genuine Christ followers,
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lovingly obey God's commands,
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asking not only what would Jesus do,
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but also what?
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You're like, I don't remember last week.
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Ah, what will Jesus not do?
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Not only what will Jesus do,
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but also what would Jesus not do?
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And this morning, we come to another proof.
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Thus far, the proofs of genuine faith
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can be broken into two categories.
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There is doctrinal and moral proofs.
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They have either to do with our understanding of God himself
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or our understanding of ourselves in light of that truth.
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And this morning's proof fits into the latter category.
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Here we have another moral test.
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We can determine the genuineness of our faith in Christ
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by the love we have for him
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and the love we have for his people.
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Do you love God?
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I hope the answer is yes.
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If the answer is yes,
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then you will also love his people.
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That's what 1 John is going to say this morning.
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Now, when Hallie and I were newlyweds,
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we're coming up on 26 years of marriage.
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We were completely broke.
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I was in seminary full-time.
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I was working part-time at a pneumatic valves distributor in LA.
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Hallie was teaching sixth grade at Christian Elementary School
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in a town called Granada Hills.
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It was one of the many cities affected by the last month's wildfires.
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But we lived in a 500-square-foot apartment.
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The only reason we could afford such a huge place
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was that the owner of that apartment complex was a believer.
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He gave seminary students a discount.
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He was kind, certainly, but the apartments were rough.
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And they were in a bad neighborhood in town.
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It was pretty run down.
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In fact, you might even call it gross.
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As soon as we got back, we were in a bad neighborhood.
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Right back from our honeymoon,
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I started having all of these weird health issues.
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I experienced fatigue like I'd never had before.
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I developed a cough.
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I even had kind of a weird rash,
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none of which I'd ever had before.
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So I used to joke with Hallie that the only explanation could be
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that I was allergic to her.
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I thought the only thing that changed, right?
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She had somehow stripped me of my source of power.
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I told people that I used to have beautiful flowing hair.
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But that she shaved me.
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I started calling her Delilah to our friends.
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I did.
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I did.
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It turns out that after we moved out,
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we lived there for our first year.
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After we moved out, the owner of the complex
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pulled up all the carpets
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and found that our entire apartment
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was covered in mold underneath the carpet.
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Turns out I was allergic to that.
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It was so gross.
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But honestly, the apartment was cheap.
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I can vividly remember Hallie doing her best
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to make dinners using the food
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which our meager budget could afford.
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Tuna fish sandwiches were frequent
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because if you can only afford one thing,
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it's probably cans of bumblebee tuna.
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One evening, Hallie came to me and she said,
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honestly, this was a real night.
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She said, I hope you're good with whatever we have
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currently in the pantry
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because we only have $17 left in our bank account.
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We don't get paid for another nine days.
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Date nights.
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Our first year of marriage typically consisted
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of walking the mile or so from our apartment
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to the nearby Blockbuster Video.
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If you guys are younger than 30,
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it doesn't make any sense to you.
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We'd rent movies from there,
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especially on Tuesdays.
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Tuesdays was date night
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because you could rent a movie for only 99 cents.
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We were broke.
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We were broke.
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But you know what?
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It's funny.
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I look back at that first year with such nostalgia.
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I don't remember anything but laughter, friends, and trust.
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Why?
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Because we were living on love.
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We were within a week of starving,
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but we were crazy about each other.
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And honestly, nothing else mattered
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because we had nothing else.
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And it's interesting.
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When you have nothing else,
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you're forced to lean on the only thing
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that ever mattered anyway.
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But what the Apostle John is going to do
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is ask you,
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what is the only thing that really matters?
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When we read our text this morning,
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you're going to come away saying,
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I either love people or I don't
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because I either love God or I don't.
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And honestly, not a lot else in the Christian faith
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actually matters than that.
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Are you crazy about the Lord?
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And if you are,
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then you're going to be crazy about his people.
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You can back all of that theology up
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to some very simple statements of love.
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And notice, even the word that he begins with in verse 7,
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beloved, beloved,
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that the Greek word, therefore, beloved,
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has as its root the word agape.
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Agape.
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It's one of those Greek words that everybody knows.
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Agape, love.
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Before urging them to love one another,
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he reminds them of his sincere love for them.
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Don't forget, you are the people whom I love.
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As he has just encouraged them to fulfill God's commands,
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he now addresses the most important one of those commands,
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that life in Christ is a life,
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of love.
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Not only must we, as he said in verse 6,
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determined to walk as Jesus walked,
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but we must also love as Jesus loved.
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And the way he describes this command is kind of funny.
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Because he says, I'm giving you a new command,
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which is really an old command,
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but it's kind of a new command.
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You're like, wait, what does that even mean?
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In these few verses, he's going to answer three questions,
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three questions in our text this morning.
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One,
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how is the command to love old?
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Second,
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how is the command to love new?
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And then third,
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what does it mean to live on love?
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What does a living on love life look like?
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And so, let's go through those three questions.
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First,
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how is this an old command?
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Look at verse 7.
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Beloved, I'm writing you no new commandment,
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but an old commandment,
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that you had from the beginning.
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The old commandment is the word that you have heard.
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At the same time, it is a new commandment
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that I'm writing to you.
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And now, in one sense,
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love other people is an old command,
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and that all of these people had heard it before.
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They learned it before.
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In fact, the verse 7 even says,
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from the beginning, you've heard all of this before.
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Pastor Sam has been expertly leading our church
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through the entire scriptures on Wednesday evenings.
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This last week, he taught us Deuteronomy,
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what he called the most important book in our Old Testaments.
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He said, it's the most important book in your Old Testament
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because it contains the most important verse
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in your Old Testament.
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Do you guys remember which one it was?
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It's this one.
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Hear, O Israel.
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It's called the Shema.
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Shema just means hear.
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Listen up.
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Listen up.
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The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
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And then he says,
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you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
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with all your soul,
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with all your might.
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Listen to this.
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Listen to this.
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Listen to this.
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Listen up verse was the first in priority
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among over 600 commands
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which the Lord had given to his people Israel.
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They hung it on their doorways.
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They strapped it to their hands.
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It was the command which bound together the nation of Israel.
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It was the command which made them distinct
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from the polytheistic nations around them.
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Remember at the time and around the world,
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the peoples of the world, the nations,
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worshipped many gods.
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Gods of the sky and God of thorns,
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gods of the sun and gods of rain and gods of dirt
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and gods of animals and gods of plants and bugs and bees
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and everything else.
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But this nation was to be set apart
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in that they were one nation under one God.
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There is only one God in Israel.
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And this was that great declaration.
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The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
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Additionally, the apostle John had taught it before,
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this idea of loving the Lord your God.
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In fact, many times in his gospel,
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a brotherly love was as old as the gospel itself.
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The disciples had known brotherly love
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from the outset of their Christian faith.
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And so it was not a new invention.
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And so in that sense, it was old.
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But, and second, how was this command new?
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So it makes sense that it's old.
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It's been around since Moses.
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But how was it new?
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The command to love one another was new
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in a number of ways.
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In one sense, it was new
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because Jesus Christ emphasized this command
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in a way it had never been emphasized before.
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If you had asked an Old Testament Jew,
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should you love God?
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He would say, yeah.
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Absolutely, you should love God.
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If you followed up with,
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and should you love your neighbor?
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He would say, of course.
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But if you then asked,
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now are those the only two things that you have to do?
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He would issue an emphatic,
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no.
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In fact, there are 611 additional commandments
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which are equally valuable.
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When Jesus was asked,
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which of the laws of Moses was most important?
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He was quick to quote the Shema.
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Remember, a man came to him and said,
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of all of those 613 commands,
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which is the most important?
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He was very quick to say,
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love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might.
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And then he said,
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the entirety of the law can be summarized
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in that.
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That statement,
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as if to say,
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if loving the Lord is the only thing you do,
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that's enough.
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You don't have to do anything else.
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This kind of stunned his hearers.
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They were taken aback a little bit.
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And in that stunned silence,
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you may remember that Jesus went on to answer
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a second question,
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which was not asked.
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Do you guys remember?
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In this silence,
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he answered question number two.
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What takes second place then?
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If that's the most important,
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I wonder which one is second place.
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And you remember what he said?
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What'd he say?
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Love your neighbor as yourself.
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He was quoting there,
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Leviticus 19 and verse 18.
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Love your neighbor as yourself.
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Now, the way that Jesus explained it
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was that the entire Old Testament,
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the Old Testament,
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I looked at this week,
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is 622,700 words.
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622,
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over half a million words.
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The entire Old Testament,
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over half a million words
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can be summarized,
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Jesus was saying,
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in four words.
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Four words.
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Love God, love people.
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That's it.
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You want to know what the entire Old Testament is about?
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Love God, love people.
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And so you're saying, wait.
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I've been attending Thrive on Wednesday nights.
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I've been doing the equipping track.
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I'm reading.
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I've been reading the Pentateuch,
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engaging with it.
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Reading from Old Testament theology, Paul House.
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I've been watching the videos.
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I am completing the writing assignments.
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And now you're telling me
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I can just skip to the New Testament
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if I understand four words.
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Love God, love people.
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Now listen, don't tell Pastor Sam.
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But technically, yeah.
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According to Jesus, that's it.
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That's it.
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All of the rest of those commands
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can be summarized into those two statements, four words.
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Love God, love people.
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All of them boil down to
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how do I interact with my creator
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and then how do I interact with the created?
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Jesus' point.
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And what makes it a new command in some sense
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was that love of God and love of people
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are such all-encompassing commands
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that if we will but do them,
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everything else in Scripture and in life
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will work itself out.
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That's it.
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Love the Lord
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and then love the people the Lord made.
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And so, although the command to love is nothing new,
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it's as old as Moses,
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the emphasis which Christ gave it was certainly new.
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So that's one.
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New emphasis.
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But are there others?
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Yes, there is another sense
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in which the command to love was new.
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Remember, Jesus didn't just say to love your neighbor.
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He added that important phrase,
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love your neighbor as yourself.
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And do you guys remember what was next?
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A man asked him in the crowd.
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This is all Luke chapter 10.
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If you want to read it with your kids,
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grandkids this afternoon, you can do that.
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It's Luke chapter 10.
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Love your neighbor as yourself.
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And so a man followed up.
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Well then, who's my neighbor?
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Who do I have to love like I love myself, Lord?
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And do you remember what Jesus did?
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He told a story, right?
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We call them parables.
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He told a very important story.
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One that you all know, right?
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Which one was it?
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The Good Samaritan.
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What happened?
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Tell me the story of the Good Samaritan.
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A man got robbed, right?
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Some guy set out to walk from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
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It's about a 20-mile walk.
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If you're going to do it,
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I would recommend that same route.
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Don't go from Jericho up to Jerusalem.
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It's uphill the entire way.
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Jerusalem is at 2,000 feet elevation.
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Jericho is at 1,000 feet below sea level.
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So if you're going to do it,
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go from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
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Just like this guy did.
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Shows you that he was smart.
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Okay?
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Take a cab back.
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All right?
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But from Jerusalem down to Jericho,
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20-mile walk.
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It is through some rough terrain.
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There's not a lot of towns through there.
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You're getting into the Judean wilderness.
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And those tracks were rough.
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There were a lot of places for burglars,
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vandals to hide.
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And it was pretty commonplace
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for people to get robbed on that route.
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And so this guy sets out from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
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He's walking along.
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He is sacked by robbers.
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You remember?
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They took everything he owned.
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They beat him to a pulp.
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They left him for dead.
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The end.
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All right?
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What happens?
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A priest walks by.
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Right?
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You're like, oh, surely.
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The priest.
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The guy's a pastor.
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He has to help.
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All right?
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No.
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Somebody else walks by.
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A Levite.
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You're like, surely a Levite?
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He's from the right tribe and everything.
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I mean, this guy's got...
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Nope.
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Walks right past him.
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All of the people stand aghast.
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Like, not even the priest?
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The priest helped him?
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Nope.
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And then walks by a Samaritan.
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Samaritans were the villains.
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Samaritans were the guys with the beady eyes
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and the little pencil-thin mustaches
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who stole from people and whatever.
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I mean, that was it.
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That was with the Samaritans, okay?
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They were the worst of the worst of the worst.
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They were half-breeds.
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They weren't accepted by the Gentiles.
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They weren't accepted by the Jews.
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They weren't allowed to worship in the temple.
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You remember Jesus one time
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talked to a Samaritan woman,
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John chapter four.
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Do you remember this?
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The woman at the well?
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She says,
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Our temple is up here on Mount Gerizim.
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Why'd you build another temple?
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There wasn't supposed to be another temple.
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Well, because she wasn't allowed in the real temple.
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They had to go build their own.
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The Samaritans were the worst.
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And so Jesus says,
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This Samaritan guy walked by.
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He grabs this guy.
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He sticks him on his horse.
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He walks him down to the inn.
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He pays for everything,
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pays for medicine,
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and then says,
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Keep a running tab.
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Whatever he needs,
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I will come back and pay it.
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At the end of the story,
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everybody's like,
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Well, okay.
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I think what you're saying is,
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My neighbor is anyone.
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Anyone then is my neighbor.
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Anyone who I happen to come across,
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that's my neighbor.
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And Jesus says,
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Yes.
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And so tell me again, Christ,
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how are we to love them?
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As you love yourself.
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It was Jesus who said it this way,
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A new command I give you.
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That you love one another.
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You're like, that's not a new command.
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That's Leviticus 19.18.
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That's been around for over a thousand years, Jesus.
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Maybe you've not read your Old Testament,
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but you're actually quoting from Moses.
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A new command I give you.
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And then he says it this way.
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It's new in that he is shedding new light on it.
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It's new in that it's self-sacrificial.
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He says,
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As I have loved you,
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so you also must love one another.
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So how did Christ love us?
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You know, there's obviously a lot of words that you could use,
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a lot of descriptors,
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ways that you could describe his love for us.
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But I think my favorite is that idea of self-sacrificially.
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Laying down his life for another.
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Now, similar wording is given to husbands in Ephesians chapter 5
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when it commands us to love our wives
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as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
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Self-sacrifice.
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So loving others means
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means laying down your property,
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laying down your time,
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laying down your rights.
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I texted a friend this week
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who was a pastor in a place where it never snows.
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I told him that I felt sorry for him.
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He asked why.
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And I said,
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because you never get to shovel the driveways
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of the widows at your church.
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Honestly, it is one of my favorite things to do.
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When some of you text me and say,
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can you come and shovel my driveway?
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Please don't.
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Don't stop doing it.
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I love it.
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Don't text somebody else.
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Maybe one of my sons.
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They can go.
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You can text Pearson.
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He'll go do it for you.
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But it blesses me every time.
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Why?
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Honestly, it's just not that hard.
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And honestly, it blesses them so much.
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It takes 20 minutes.
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And they'll text and say,
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Pastor Danny, do you have time to come shovel my driveway?
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I got to do it again last weekend when it snowed
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those seven, eight inches.
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Nobody was expecting it.
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My phone said,
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one inch.
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That's what my phone said.
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Friday night.
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And then we woke up.
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I'm like, what in the world happened?
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There was way more snow than that.
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And especially depending on the neighborhood you're in.
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Some of them got nothing.
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But the one that I was at had about eight inches of snow.
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Can you come shovel my driveway?
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Absolutely.
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I would be happy to do that.
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Especially when it's really light and fluffy.
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Because you just walk.
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That's all I did.
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I just walked on her driveway, opened down.
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That was it.
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Wasn't a lot of shoveling involved.
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But I enjoy it so much.
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Why?
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Because she enjoys it so much.
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It's the most selfish, selfless thing I get to do.
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And I think of this love of Christ.
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What is love of Christ?
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How did he love us?
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The self sacrificially.
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That means caring that others succeed.
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Even at your own expense.
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I want you to win even if it means I don't.
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That means forgiving others when they've wronged you.
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Even when they don't deserve it.
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Perhaps without them ever apologizing
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and asking for the forgiveness of which you so freely offer.
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That command to love.
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Was not only given new emphasis,
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it was modeled by Christ in a new way, self-sacrificially.
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And here's another way.
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How was it new?
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It was given a new standard.
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It was given a new standard.
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Look again at verse eight.
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It's a new command I'm writing to you.
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He says, which is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away.
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And the true light is already shining.
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Whoever says he's in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
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Whoever loves his brother.
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Abides in the light and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
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But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness.
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And does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
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And the language here is strong.
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You can hear it.
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Light is associated with love.
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A darkness with hatred.
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And notice there are only two options given in our interactions with each other.
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You either love people or you hate people.
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Those are the only two.
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There is no indifference.
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To hate a brother or sister in the church is to prove that there is darkness in your heart.
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To love them means there is the light of Christ in your heart.
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And so consider this.
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The true value of our love of others can only be determined when it is tested on those who we do not wish to love.
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Let me say that again.
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The true value of our love for others can only be determined when it is tested on those whom we do not wish to love.
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In other words, the proof of our love can not be determined by asking,
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Do I love my friends?
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Rather, it will be proved by asking,
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Do I love the people who drive me crazy?
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Do I love the people who are annoying?
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Do I love the people who only ever ask and never offer to give?
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Gary Burge in his commentary on 1 John says it this way,
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The tests in this exhortation are cumulative.
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In other words, they build on each other.
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To know God and to abide in Him means to obey.
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To obey is to exhibit Christ-like love.
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But the ultimate test of such obedient love is whether we are able to love the unlovely.
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If you're walking in right relationship with God,
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you will love people the way that God loves them.
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And especially when it's hard.
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And so I want to challenge us in this.
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And this is every bit as much a challenge to me as it is to you.
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But the next time you walk into the church sanctuary,
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instead of looking for your friends,
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search out the people who look like they could use a friend.
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You notice the word in verse 10.
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The word there is no cause for stumbling.
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Do you guys see that?
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The word stumble.
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We've studied this word before.
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It's the Greek word skandalon.
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It's where we get the word scandal from.
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The word was used of traps.
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It was used of tripwires, triggers.
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Here, the word scandal refers to some behavior amongst us.
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Christians that would cause another person to fail.
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Now, I defined love as laying down my rights,
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wanting others to succeed even at my own expense.
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Self-sacrificial victory for others.
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That was the definition of love.
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And here he says the opposite of that would be to cause someone else to stumble, to fail.
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The Apostle John is referring to any behavior on our part
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that would drive people out of the church.
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Amazing.
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May it never be said that we had caused the spiritual downfall of another.
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Can you imagine?
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What if something we did, something we said,
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caused somebody else to fail spiritually?
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If our brothers and sisters in the church can only say one thing about us,
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let it be that we are loving.
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If our neighbors can only say one thing about us,
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let it be that we are loving.
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If our co-workers can only ever say one thing about us,
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let it be that we are loving.
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If our enemies can only say one thing about us,
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let it be that we are loving.
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If our friends can only say one thing about us,
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let it be that we are loving.
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The summary of the law is that we genuinely love God and genuinely love people.
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So what does it look like lived out?
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What does living on love look like?
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And I'm going to define it this way.
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And with this we close.
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What does living on love look like?
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It means clothing yourself with love as a garment.
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Clothing yourself with love.
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As a garment.
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Let me ask you, what is your morning routine?
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When that alarm clock goes off,
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what do you do?
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You wake up.
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You get a cup of coffee.
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You do your Bible reading.
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You check the news headlines.
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You get cleaned up.
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You brush your teeth.
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You put on your clothes.
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You head to work.
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Right?
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That's probably the normal sequence of events.
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That's what I do.
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I do it every day.
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Let me ask you,
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did your kids ever get mixed up on that order when they were little?
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Did your kids ever brush their teeth before they ate?
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Did your kids ever put on their shoes before they put on their pants?
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My personal favorite,
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did they ever put on their pants before they put on their underoos?
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You're like, nope.
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Only superheroes wear their underwear on the outside.
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Go try again.
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Right?
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Look at how the Apostle Paul describes getting dressed as a Christian.
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This is the language he's using.
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It's Colossians 3.
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He says,
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Put on then.
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You hear that language?
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Here are the clothes that Christians should put on.
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Put on then as God's chosen ones,
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holy and beloved,
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compassionate hearts.
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Those are like the undergarments.
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Compassion.
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The thing closest to your skin.
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Compassionate hearts.
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Kindness.
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Humility.
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Can you imagine?
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You're just putting on your t-shirts.
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You're putting on your pants.
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Meekness.
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Patience.
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Bearing with one another.
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And if one has a complaint against another,
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forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you,
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so you also must forgive.
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And so you're putting on all of your clothes,
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and you're getting ready.
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You've got your shoes on,
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and everything's tied up,
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and you've put on your hat,
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and you're getting ready to walk out the door
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on a brisk February morning in Denver.
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And then he stops you and he says,
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You're forgetting the most important part.
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Above all,
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and I like that.
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This is the overcoat,
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if you want to think of it this way,
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of the Christian life.
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This is what covers everything else.
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Above all of these,
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he says,
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put on love,
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which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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Love is the jacket of the Christian's wardrobe.
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Now underneath,
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closer to our bodies is compassion,
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and humility,
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and kindness,
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and forgiveness.
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But as we come into contact with those,
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both inside and outside the church,
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the very first attitude they should encounter in us
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is which one?
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Love.
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It's the very first thing you see
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when we walk in a church on a February morning,
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is the jacket.
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It's the very first thing that we encounter.
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And so try this exercise,
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and this might sting a little bit over lunch.
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You'll have to do it, I suppose,
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with people who aren't already sitting in here
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because they'll know the answer.
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But at some point, try this.
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Ask those who know you well.
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And then ask those who know you moderately well
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to describe you.
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How far down the list is love?
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At some point,
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I mean, if you're really pushing them,
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keep going, keep going, keep going,
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hopefully at some point they say it.
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Right?
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And if they say it very first,
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you know what?
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I know Pastor Danny.
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Love.
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I don't know if that's what they'd say,
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to be honest with you.
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I don't think it is.
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I had to take an inventory this week
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as I was preparing this.
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What would Hallie say?
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Is it the first thing, loving?
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I don't think so.
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The first thing my sons would say about me?
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Eventually, I hope they'd say it,
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but I don't think it's number one.
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I think I might be out of order there
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on my getting dressed as a Christian, right?
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Putting over, above all of those things,
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putting on love.
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Is it the first thing that people encounter
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when they meet you?
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It was Jesus, after all, who said it this way.
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By this, all people will know that you're my disciples.
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If you have love for one another,
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it is the love we have for him and for each other.
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I'm gonna pray for us.
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I just ask that the Lord would make us a people
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who are defined by love.
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And God, that is our desire this morning.
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God, as we are considering these proofs,
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these tests of genuine Christianity,
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that we are not just Christians in name only,
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but Lord, that we want to be a Christian,
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a group of Christians who live on love,
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who love you and love others.
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That is the very summation of your word.
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God, that if we do those two things well,
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we will be walking in that newness of life
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that you described.
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And so God, that is what I pray for us,
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for our church,
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that we will be a church of love,
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of devotion, of commitment.
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And Lord, all of those other things too,
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compassion and kindness,
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forgiveness toward one another.
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Lord, we love you.
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We're so thankful for your word
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and for how it speaks so clearly.
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God, be glorified in its preaching.
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And Lord, I pray that love would become
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the very foundation of our lives,
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of our salvation.
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Lord, love for you and love for others.
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In Jesus' name, amen.