What if butter and love have more in common than you think? Just like butter enhances everything it touches, so too does love when it's expressed in its purest form. This series, Nine, delves into the fruit of the spirit. We start with love, exploring its biblical significance as the supreme virtue that brings meaning to our lives. Together, we'll discuss the need to foster a love for God and others, just like how a gardener tends to his plants.
What if butter and love have more in common than you think? Just like butter enhances everything it touches, so too does love when it's expressed in its purest form. This series, Nine, delves into the fruit of the spirit. We start with love, exploring its biblical significance as the supreme virtue that brings meaning to our lives. Together, we'll discuss the need to foster a love for God and others, just like how a gardener tends to his plants.
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message. Some of you might have been watching online for a while and you were like, maybe I'll try it, and you tried it today. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:I think we're going to have a lot of fun today, but I want to try practicing our amens again real quick before we start, remember, so I think you have to say amen, but it makes it a whole lot more fun. You probably enjoy it a whole lot more. So let's just, let's just try Amen on the count of three One, two, three, amen, yeah, when you like something, the preacher says you're just telling Jesus hey, I like that. When you say amen, now, what about this one? Remember, we said, well, okay, on the count of three One, two, three. Well, yeah, we don't know what it means. Nobody knows what it means. It just means like, okay, maybe I, I think that too. Yeah, what about this one Right in the belly? Let's try that. One on three? Okay, one, two, three Right in the belly. Okay, now we've all practiced. You're warmed up now, so I'm expecting a lot of amens as we go into this morning's message.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to say some words, and they've got some. They've got one in particular thing in common. They probably got some of them have some some more things in common, but all of them have one thing in common. All right, I'm going to say some words and you just start to shout out words when you think you know what the common thing is. Okay, here we go Pancakes, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, chocolate chip cookies, biscuits. What do all of these have in common? So far, they are delicious, that's true. I'm going to give you some more Apple pie, brownies, butter, popcorn, grilled cheese, sandwiches, cinnamon rolls you can say calories for all of those, terramisu.
Speaker 1:What is the one thing they all have in common? Here's what it is it's butter, butter, baby, and butter makes everything better. And if you might be one of the few that would say, carter, I don't think it makes everything better, I would just say you're wrong, it makes everything better. What do you got? You got some toast. Put some butter on that thing. Make it a little better. What do? You? Got Some ribs on the grill. Throw some butter on there. Make it a little bit better. You get some new cologne. Put some butter on that thing.
Speaker 1:Man, everything is better with butter and it's important to remember everything's better with butter today, because it's going to sound weird, okay, but I want it to be memorable, so let's go. Butter is like love is the butter of the kingdom. Okay, love is the butter of the kingdom. Love makes everything better, no matter even when you got something really hard. Sometimes butter is hard, but it still makes things better. Even when things are hard, love makes things better. Loving is sometimes hard, but no matter what you've got going relationally with somebody, no matter what you've got going on with God, a little more love makes it a little more better. So I want to talk to you today about developing our love for God and our love for other people and prioritizing that.
Speaker 1:We're in this brand new series called Nine, and this is about the Nine Fruit of the Spirit. We started this last week and we're not going to review a ton. You can go online and find out what we talked about, but one of these we said was hey, man, it's you against you, it's your sinful nature. We've all got this as humans against our godly nature. That is imparted to us when we come to know Jesus Christ. That's the person of the Holy Spirit. We said hey, we got to pay attention to our corner man. That is the spirit of Christ, who's guiding us, directing us. And we're going to go a level deeper now.
Speaker 1:We're talking about how love is supreme in the scriptures. In fact, I'll make the case. You guys know this most of life really isn't meaningful without ones you love. If we're not learning how to love people better, it doesn't matter how much you have, it doesn't matter where you go. The marrow in the thickness of life comes from sharing it with people that we love. Now, if you're a Christian, it goes one level deeper, because the spirit of God is actually trying to train us to grow in love, like he's actively doing this in your life right now. His vision is that you and I are better at loving next year than we are right now. And when we resist, when we don't prioritize love on some level, we are resisting the Holy Spirit and what he wants to do in our lives.
Speaker 1:So we said this scripture, we're going to spend the whole time in this series on this one verse. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love. And then we went on joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control was the last one. And you can picture these, think about it this way. These are like bookends. You got love on one side and self-control on the other side. In between those are all the fruit of the Spirit and they all kind of come from love, like love is the first, love is the wellspring, love is the preeminent Jesus characteristic virtue that we want to be spewing out of us, like we saw that blue sauce that was coming out last week. We're getting Jesus's love all over everybody and love is the first one. It's where everything comes from. And at the end of that bookend you got self-control.
Speaker 1:And I say that because, while the love does come from the Spirit of Christ in us, there is still a part we play. There's still a self-control, meaning you have to decide to do it or not do it, or how much to do it. God's given us a Spirit of self-control. Sometimes we want to say I just feel this way and so I just do this. And hey, man, your feelings are important and they're important to God, and God gives us a gift of feelings. We can feel different ways, but our feelings are not God, and feelings aren't really supposed to be our compass. The Spirit of God is to be our compass. He's given us a spirit of self-control, and so, if you think about it this way, we've been given this gift of love and different expressions.
Speaker 1:We have to control it, though In the same way your car engine it is really making the thing go. It's where the power is coming from, but you still have a gas pedal, and your pedal either makes it not go at all or go, or go a little or go a lot. So we're responsible here. We begin with a lot more power sometimes than we think, and this has always been the vision of God from the very beginning. God wants to partner with humankind. He doesn't want to just do everything for us. He does do stuff for us, but he gives us responsibility. He says, okay, I'm teaching you what to do, now you do and I will empower. Love is like dude, it's such a big deal.
Speaker 1:Love is the most important thing in the New Testament. I mean, paul spends all this time talking about 1 Corinthians 11 and 12. He's talking about hey, man, you know, god gives us gifts of the spirit and different talents and ways that he wants to use us, and they're powerful. But don't be deceived. Love is like the thing. Love is the preeminent thing. Jesus said hey, disciples, they're going to know you by your love.
Speaker 1:I think we could even make the case from things like Matthew 25 and 1 Corinthians 13 that in heaven, in heaven, when your name comes up, you're more known by your love than by your gifts or talents or personality. Are we hearing that You're more known in heaven? Now, here we're. Like I'm known. This is what I'm putting on my social media, this is what I want everyone to know about me. Here's my billboard, and we want them to know all about our talents and what we're great at. And in heaven, that's like who cares about that? The most important thing.
Speaker 1:Paul said dude, if I don't have love, I ain't got nothing. It don't matter what else I did, love is the thing. So I just want us to take this seriously Like love is a big. And we get so used to love that we don't think of it like it's a big deal. It's a big dog gone deal. It is the thing, thank you, sir, that we need to be focused on. So love is the engine. We've got to push the pedal, though.
Speaker 1:Jesus comes to us and he pours out the spirit of love through us. It's the proof that we're His. It's the proof, remember, jesus said you'll know them by their fruit. You'll know them by their fruit. That's primarily how he wants us to understand ourselves and how he wants other people to identify whether or not we're really his or from him or for him. God is in the business. Now here's what's fun about today God is developing me and he's developing you. It's not just a one-shot deal. It's not like well, that's how good you are at loving. He's developing our love over seasons and over a lifetime. See, the version that you are is not the version that God is done with. It's just the version that you are. You're on your way somewhere and God's into this development process where he's stretching us to get our love able, to be able to come out a little bit more than it does.
Speaker 1:But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love. The Holy Spirit does it. We participate, but the Holy Spirit does it. When we come to know Jesus Christ, we trust Him for forgiveness of our sins. We know that I might even be good by today's standards, but I'm not good enough to merit God's favor. Only Jesus Christ can give me that. Only he can cover my sin, and when he does that, he fills me with the whole person. The whole person of God is in this temple, up in here, and in all y'all's temples and in all y'all's temples.
Speaker 1:And God has given you a love generator. That's what the Holy Spirit is. He's generating love, he's the producer of the fruit and he wants to generate it. And, by implication, what he's saying is so, just FYI, your love is not enough. Your love for the things you're called to do, you and I, the things like your purpose in life, your mission, your destiny, things God wants you to do. You do not have enough love to do them, but, thank God, you've trusted Christ. You have the love generator on the inside and he's going to be supplying it and making it work. That's why Romans 5, 5, I love this verse. This hope, the hope that Jesus is to Christ, does not disappoint us, for God has poured out His love into our hearts by the means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us. He's poured out His love in our hearts. You say, carter, I don't think I can love. I think you can. I think you can because it's not even from you. He's poured out His love into your heart to get His love all over everybody. He's the gift that gives us the gift to give the gift of love away how you like that Our love is incomplete, but with Him it's absolutely everything it's supposed to be and needs to be.
Speaker 1:When I was a kid I don't know if some of you guys remember this we had this little racetrack that had…. You take these little cars, you put them on the racetrack. There's like these little metal bands in there just conducive to just enough electricity to make the thing go. You'd squeeze the trigger of your little gun thing and it goes, and you just go around the track. Everybody know what I'm talking about. Yeah, and if you squeezed a little, it would go a little. If you could squeeze a lot, it would just shoot right off the track. Man, that's how that thing would work and that's how it is a little bit with us.
Speaker 1:See, god is the power. The Holy Spirit is the power of the love. We control it by…. Okay, I'm going to push out this much or this much, but we just need to understand all of the love always comes from God, the love God wants to bring through us. He never wants us to think so go love for me. He says come with me and let's go love. That's how he wants us to think about it.
Speaker 1:So that means if you're going to volunteer at church or somewhere else, yes, you're doing it, but God is giving you the joy, god is giving you the generosity to do it. If you're going to mentor people or disciple people, you're going to be intentional with people. That's awesome. You're doing it, you're pulling the trigger, but God is the one putting the juice in. He's the one who has the wisdom. He's the one who's giving you the ability to discern and to have empathy. He's the one who's supplying. If you're helping other people learn how to manage their money, okay, you're doing it. You go and you look at the budget together, but he's energizing you. He's putting the power of love, of financial understanding, of ability to helpfully see their situation and help them.
Speaker 1:God is the one who's doing it, even if you can't even do anything else, even if all you can do you say car I can't even go anywhere. All I can do is pray. When you pray, it is God through you. If you'll invite him, he's the one directing you, giving you the bright burdens to pray, applying the power of prayer to people's situations. He's the one helping you care enough about others at all. When you just start to randomly care about something a friend, pay attention, that might be the Holy Spirit of God. He's saying man, I'm juicing this thing, let's let this car run. Man, let this thing fly.
Speaker 1:The Holy Spirit, he takes his time to develop. There's times when you maybe have a big project coming up, or you're about to go work on something and you're like I'll tell you what I need. I need a great big espresso. Or you get this triple shot pumpkin spice latte, whatever you got. You're like this will get me through you down that thing. And you got like a good hour, you're going to cook. Man, you're going to go for it. That's great, that's a way to get stuff done. That's not really how the Spirit of God develops us. He's not just into one. He's not just like hey, man, you know one layup and you're good, that's not how he's doing it. So we get one thing right and we're like, hey, man, look, I just loved Sweet Graduated and the Lord's like great, but I'm into the longterm game, I'm into developing you over the long haul, okay.
Speaker 1:So on the screen, let's see those Easter eggs. Okay, on the screen on the left you've got some Easter eggs that are kind of they're a little bit pale. They've just clearly been in the, the Easter egg coloring dye. They've experienced a little bit. And then on your right you've got those who spent a lot of time deeply soaking in the dye and the Spirit of God gives us developmental processes where, yeah, you love once, twice, three times and you've got…. He's dipped you enough in some Holy Spirit training that you're a little bit Holy Spirit, jesus-y, colorful Doesn't make any sense, man, am I making sense? I hope so.
Speaker 1:But see, he's got a long game planned, as he was like let's keep dunking you over and over and over and over. You're going to have to keep repeating it, keep doing it, keep getting it right, even when the wrong thing is happening to you. And pretty soon, man, you are glowing, looking like Jesus. It's a way deeper dye, it's not just a one-shot and you're done. God says I know you're going through some crazy stuff. Consider, let's open ourselves up to the possibility that right now God is developing some of us and you're like, why am I going through this? Because God says you need another dunk and another dunk, and another dunk. You say God, but I got it right. He said another dunk, another dunk. I know you got it right sometimes, but you sometimes get it wrong too. I'm after dyeing your whole soul to look like Jesus. So our fruit, our fruit, gets squeezed and our love gets tested. He's going to test our love again and again and again. And the way we get it right I should say the way we get developed, the way we get through it, is to keep on doing right when we don't want to.
Speaker 1:So I remember in my early 20s I had a series of jobs where I had a boss. No matter what job I had, I had a boss that was so mean and was so death speaking and was so like man. I don't even do you have any like. That's what you're thinking. Like, dude, I don't even think you know what you're doing. You're just bossing people around, you're making everybody on the crew feel bad about themselves and I keep having these string of bosses and somehow I just kind of knew I was like I think I'm in like a development process.
Speaker 1:I think the Lord wants to see, will I submit to ungodly authority so that someday I might be able to wield authority in a way that represents Christ? Hey guys, it was tough. There are so many days I mean I'd go back to the car and I'm just like, oh God, I need to. Just this guy just beat me up, man, he discouraged me and everybody else. I really believe the Lord gave me faith. I need you to keep dunking in this, keep dying the soul because and see, god's a little bit different about stuff.
Speaker 1:The world says, yeah, you know, submit to your boss because they're the boss, but you can talk about them behind their back and you can just, you know, think they're a scoundrel and you can diss them. God's like no, that's not how I do authority. I want you to be a blessing to that person when you submit to them. I want them, I want it to be obvious that you are honoring them even though no one else is honoring them. That's how God dunks it, because he wants to see the Jesus colors all come out.
Speaker 1:Well, I kept going through this man and going through it and then one day I was like, oh man, I got a great boss, praise God, and it really just never went back there. But, guys, there are probably four bosses in a row that were just crushing me. But maybe I needed to be crushed. I mean this affectionately. Is it possible that some of the situations that are crushing you right now it's not that God wants to be mean to you, but it's in order to crush you a little bit, to crush out the flesh, to release the fruit of the spirit? Come on somebody, come on baby, let me give you a couple. Okay, so what's so hard about tests is that we sometimes don't know that we're being developed. But other people can tell we're being developed, like we're like what is going on here, and then we ask somebody else and they're like well, I don't know. So here's one that I feel like I see people go through and they don't really know that they're in a fruit test.
Speaker 1:But a love test. One is reliability. Are you reliable, no matter what? See, once upon a time I know it's hard for younger generations to believe this, but it really wasn't all about spontaneity. It wasn't really all about whatever you feel like doing, there's a character thing just called dependability, reliability meaning, because I love Christ and I want to demonstrate his love to other people, I'm just going to show up. I'm just there. You can just count on me. I'm not going to like, at the last 30 seconds, decide something else and say something else came up. I'm not projecting this on anybody, but I'm just telling you the Lord doesn't care if you don't like that test. He cares about you but he's not going to let you skip it. He's going to keep letting you run into difficult things and hassles and unfortunate difficulties that you run into and you're like what is going on? Well, it might be the Lord's trying to teach you. It's not just to be reliable, it's because reliability is love. That's why, because he wants us to love.
Speaker 1:Here's another one. Here we go, my friends. We all come from somewhere. We've all got hurts and nicks and cuts and we all probably look at certain situations. We're like it ain't going that way. We try to control stuff.
Speaker 1:The problem is sometimes we don't totally realize when God is trying to break us of a spirit of control. We have all kinds of things and people that are trying to control stuff are very unhappy because so-and-so isn't keeping them happy. So-and-so isn't keeping them happy and God isn't keeping them happy. If everyone just do what they wanted them to do and let them just control the whole thing, everyone would be happy, they think. And because God's never going to do that, you just stay perpetually unhappy. You're unhappy with your spouse, you're unhappy with your family. You're grumbling about this, you're whining about that, and part of the lesson is it's not that you can't have an opinion, that this isn't fun, but there still comes a point where God is like you need to let go of your desire to control other people, to control the universe, to control God, and just give yourself over to love. Let yourself be dunked into. I don't have to control this, I don't need them.
Speaker 1:You say, carter, well, how's my husband ever going to change? Then I don't know. I guess it's going to take God. What do you think about that? It's going to take God. God's going to have to do it. And the longer that we keep being like no, I'll do it, he's like go ahead, let's see. Let's see what happens. I don't think it's going to work.
Speaker 1:Somebody say God is developing me, god is developing me and love is hard, but it makes everything better, just like the butter. So we're getting tested, we're getting better at love, and one of the most important places to love is to love God. Right, jesus said amen. The most important commandments love the Lord, god, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. First and foremost, we got to love God and the Holy Spirit will give us the love to love God. Isn't that stinking awesome? So I mean, let's just start with, like some emotional. There's an emotional component to living God and then there's a volitional component to loving God. Let's start with the emotional part. This is just the God. I love you. And here's where we all got to keep traveling toward.
Speaker 1:We do love God because of things he's done for us, but the deeper version of that is God wants us to love him for who he is, irrespective of what we think he has done or not done for us. He wants us to love God for who he is. That means we love him with our mind. We meditate, we stew about the things that God who he is, not just what he's done. Now, he's done a lot. He's died for my sins. He awakened me to my need for him. He forgives me on a day-to-day basis. All of that's awesome, but I just want to reflect on we have to take time to reflect on God. Here's why else you're awesome One that's tripping me out lately, I mean it's kind of basic, but it's still helpful to think about increases my love for him.
Speaker 1:God is omnipresent, god is everywhere and if you just slow down, I mean you know, you know that, but just think about it for a second. Okay, it's not even just like God is so big that we're kind of like floating around in God and like we're. You know, now we're floating down to his elbow and now we're up back to his shoulder, like God is everywhere, in every place, all the time. So what that means is when I'm sitting in my car, the whole God is with me in my car. When I'm out of the back porch, the whole God is with me on the back porch. I don't get a little piece of them, I get the whole thing all the time. When I go scuba diving, he's down there. If I take a plane or a spaceship, I can't take a plane to Mars. I'm like take a plane to Mars. If I take a spaceship to Mars, he'll be there and the whole God will be there.
Speaker 1:My friends, we've got to not just fill our minds with the stuff that's scrolling past our eyes. Fill it with the glories of God and we will fall more deeply in love with him. This is what's trippy about God man. You can't really fall in love with God just by trying harder to love him. You fall in love with God by meditating on how much he loves you. So it's not even just that he's omnipresent, that he's everywhere. He's everywhere for you. It's personal. He's there with you. It's not just some script that he's running. He's there with you all the time, every place, because he values you, because he wants to be with you. He could not be with you, but he wants to be with you, so he chooses to. Oh my gosh, this is so good. So what about volitionally? How do we love God? Well, that means when we get into hard places, we decide to love him anyway.
Speaker 1:So when you're spiritually dry, you're like I don't feel like seeking God. Man, forget this. I haven't felt the presence of God. I don't know if ever or even if I did, it was like a year and a half ago. I don't feel God, the way we decide to love God is.
Speaker 1:We say you know what? I don't feel him, but I'm going to keep going. I'm just going to keep on pressing in. Look, I'm going to believe like he likes me and he wants to talk to me, and I'm going to wait on him, because he's God and I'm not. And if he's got a good purpose for this, I trust it, even though I don't necessarily understand it. If I've got doubts and questions and everybody gets doubts and questions from time to time, instead of just being like, well, forget it, god didn't answer my question immediately I'm going to say you know what? I'm going to seek wise counsel. I'm going to seek out the people that maybe have figured out some of this stuff, but I'm going to trust that God is going to use my doubts even to draw me closer to him and help me love him more and believe more deeply in his reality.
Speaker 1:If I've got some ethical dilemmas at work or moral dilemmas and I'm watching, it's going a certain way how do I love God? I say man, I love all y'all. I've got to go this way, though, because God goes this way. I ain't going that way. You say well, that's hard God. Yeah, love is hard, but it makes everything better. I don't know if it's going to make everything better. Trust him, he'll make things better as you just keep on doing it.
Speaker 1:What about seasons of life? Sometimes we're just in a busy season of life. We have a lot of family responsibilities and you might be in a place of, like dude, I got so much going on, I ain't got time to seek God. Look man, I'm just going to go to church. I can't do this Bible thing ever. I'm not going to have time in the morning with him. I'm just trying to stay alive and I get that.
Speaker 1:As a dad with five kids and like a lot going on in families, I totally get you, baby. Here's what I would encourage you Moms. There might be one morning where you were like I'm so dog-ontarred, I don't know how I'm going to get up and seek God and you just like you, crawl your way over to the chair and you, like you, pop open your Bible and you read three sentences and you go. You just fall asleep, just like that. How many moms you know what I'm talking about? Anybody ever done that? When you crawled over and read your three sentences, instead of rolled over, you were loving God right there. That was good, that was awesome. That was you going for it rather than forgetting about it.
Speaker 1:See, my friends, we don't need to bring Jesus perfection. He's already perfection, but he wants to know our hearts. He's like am I a value to you or am I not? Sometimes, all we have to do to love God is just say you're a value and am I going to do it perfect? I'm going to fall asleep. Sometimes I imagine myself falling asleep in Jesus' lap and I'm like, hey, man, I like my kids in my lap. I'm believing God likes it when I fall asleep trying to talk to Him.
Speaker 1:Well, come on somebody. Maybe you're weak, maybe, like me, you're sick, or you were sick for a long time, and it's hard to even get there. It's hard to do much of anything. Can I just lovingly challenge you? How do we love God? How do we develop? How do we bear this fruit? Just do what you can do. You do what you can do and God will do all the rest. But you've got to do what you can do. Don't just give up on it. Don't just like, give yourself the out. Develop the character. Uh-oh, my fruit's growing. I'm pressing into something hard. Now I'm beginning to develop. Now I'm beginning to look a little more shiny, more deeply Jesusly colored.
Speaker 1:What about when you're having an identity crisis? What about when, maybe you're a little younger, maybe you're looking at yourself and you're looking at your body and you're like, well, my body's this way, but I don't know Inside of I don't know if I'm a boy or a girl. I don't know which one I am. Can I encourage you? First, god loves you just like that. He doesn't love you when he loves you now, whole thing, just like you are. I just want to encourage you. Give God time, be patient and ask the Lord to teach you who you are. So that's really the answer. It's not to go see what so-and-so says you are. It's not to see what so-and-so will do for you. It is just to say God, I'm your servant, I am waiting. Teach me who I am. Who do you say I am? Jesus? I'm going to give you a couple years. Lord, you get to speak into this. You're the master builder. You're the one who made the instructions. You tell me who am I?
Speaker 1:What if you're in a different kind of crisis? Have you're in a midlife crisis or a core life crisis and you're like man. I thought I'd be somewhere else by now. I thought I'd be different. I thought I was going to do this. I thought my life would look like that and God, I'm disappointed. This isn't what I wanted. God loves you, just right there, that's okay. What he wants to know is are you going to love me by bringing it to me or just turning inward and allowing yourself to fall into a puddle? It's okay to be a puddle, but turn that puddle up and look at the face of Jesus and say it's really the same thing. Lord, I had my plan about what was going to happen. Now you teach me. You teach me who I am. Who am I supposed to be in this season? Maybe I just had some wrong presuppositions? I just invite you, tell me about Jesus and tell me about me.
Speaker 1:The development process is difficult. Even maybe you're in retirement or some version like that, where you don't have a lot of structure. Like gone are the days when you had to be here, there and everywhere at a very specific time. Therefore, I have quite a few and you're wondering how do I grow in love? Here's one way just make a schedule and say Lord, glorify your name with this schedule, teach me what to do in this season. I'm in a new season, it's your season and maybe it's a little slower pace than the past one, but you are God and you are able to speak, so teach me how to be led by you in love. Somebody say God is developing me.
Speaker 1:All right, here comes the last section. We're talking about loving God. Now we're talking about loving our neighbors. Remember last week, one of the things that Paul said in our scripture unit was he says be careful, eugolations, that you don't bite and devour one another. He says you guys are so like into being perfect and comparing yourselves to one another. You're gonna rend each other apart. Instead, love one another. Instead, access the fruit of the spirit so that you can love one another deeply and well.
Speaker 1:And if we're just pan out and look at what does it mean to love our neighbor? That's what Jesus told us to do love your neighbor, man. Love your neighbor. We just have to know. Okay, it's a little different than what some of us might be thinking. Loving your neighbor is really yo. It's not just loving your family, it's not even just loving the people you like who are around you. That's not the love that Jesus is talking about. It's loving the people that are in distress, that you may not know at all, that are somewhere within your ability to see them.
Speaker 1:So perfect example is the Good Samaritan right. Okay, there's these two religious people that had an obligation. They should have helped this dude that was robbed and vandalized and left for dead in the street. And along comes a guy who doesn't know him, is not of the same religious background as him, and says I'm gonna take responsibility. I sense I see the need. I feel pain, someone's pain. It's not even my pain. I see that it's there, though I'm gonna take responsibility for helping this person I don't know. I'm gonna get them to a place where they can get nursed back to health. This is what loving our neighbor is.
Speaker 1:First and foremost, it's asking God for an awareness. God, would you help me feel pain, help me feel people's pain, and I care about what's happening on the other side of the world? I do, but I don't want that to distract from my responsibility here in my sphere. Okay, god has neighbors for them over there and I can pray for them, but there's people around me that are hurting now and I don't want that to keep me. I don't want that to keep me away from them. God, help me discern tune in the sense of people's pain, so that I can lean in, so I can find some way to love them, whether it's an encouraging word, whether it's just a little bit of time together, whether it's a little gift. Whatever that is, I want to be aware, I want to. I want to lather on some butter on that situation. Don't say man, I know this is hard, how about something a little more tasty? We'll slap a butter right there. I know that's gonna taste good as I just give myself to it.
Speaker 1:When we're loving our neighbor in the New Testamental way, in the agape way, in the agapau that's the word that we're talking here, it's the verb of love, it's sacrificial love, it's love that does what's right for the person, even if they don't know that it's right for them, even though it's very costly for me. That's agapau. Agapau, that's some powerful love right there. That's the love that we're giving somebody, and one of the ways that expresses itself is through pardoning love. This is where you just say you are pardoned. You hurt me, you offended me, I got a little stepped on by you and now you are pardoned. And this is.
Speaker 1:It involves praying for the people that hurt you and the people you might consider maybe you're literal enemies, like Nazis or something like that, but people that you have hurt you and you kind of think about them in an enemy category, praying for them. And you're praying God, forgive them and don't count what they did against me, against them, and that's really, really hard. That's what Jesus did, though. That's what he did when he was on the cross. He says God hey, they don't know what they're doing, father, so forgive them, stephen. He's being stoned to death, and while he's being stoned, he's like Father, forgive them, don't let this be counted against them. Can you imagine how hard that was? I'll tell you for me, man, it's hard for me to pray that prayer. Okay, like I a little bit want them to feel it okay, like God, forgive them, but let them just know how bad they were. Okay, lord, just remember, though, like remember I forgave them and remember how bad they were. That's not what Jesus did, that's not what Stephen did. It is, lord, actually, don't remember that ever again. I'm taking it away, and that's just really hard. I'd much rather oh God, you know well, lord correct them in a way that it's still godly and helpful to the kingdom. Don't you forget about it, jesus. We've got to press past that. Say God, just so that I mimic Jesus and aga pow the devil in the face. I need you to go ahead and pardon them and I'm declaring over them they're not guilty.
Speaker 1:One of the things that can help us we just reflect on this is the ABCs of love. Abcs of love. Let's see that on screen. This is just something to meditate on, to reflect on when you've got a little bit of static with somebody or you're having a hard time, or maybe you've got a sandpaper person in your life. So I mean, they're just there's hard to get along with you. Just bring their face before your mind's eye In Jesus' name. I accept them the way they are. I believe they are valuable. I care when they hurt and God, when I don't help me, do it, help me care when they hurt. I desire only what is best for them, not what's best for me. I erase all offenses. That's interesting to see on the screen at church. It's powerful to take into your prayer closet and say God, make this true of me, because it's not entirely true of me yet. Any of those stand out for you. Here's two more thoughtful love.
Speaker 1:This is where we agapow somebody in a good way by saying I'm going to think about how I can love you better in this season. Sometimes we get used to people. We're just like, well, that's just who they are. I've known them for a long time and we don't realize that people grow and change, just like we've been growing and changing. And sometimes it's helpful whether it's to a long-term friend, whether it's to a neighbor you've known for a little longer now, whether it is a family member, whether it's a spouse, to say I know we've been around one another for a long time, but is anything different that I need to be aware of so I can love you more precisely, more exactly. This spouse has definitely figured this out. Your spouse changes and they need you to love them in different ways. Even as you have kids, they change and they don't really. Even though you might cling to a previous season, they don't need you to love them according to that season. They need you to love them according to this season.
Speaker 1:It's thoughtful. It's thoughtful when we affirm people, when we take time to think through somebody's ideas and their responsibilities. Hey, let me tell you, like a little bit older folks, folks are a little bit traveled down the road. You can encourage younger people. Affirm their responsibilities and assume you may not understand everything about that or you may not remember how hard it was. Affirm their ideas, as they try to be significant in front of older folks. Affirm that that is a good idea and you're proud of them and younger folks. If you want to thoughtfully love older folks and I think at least think this even better if you say it, you know what some of the older folks need to hear.
Speaker 1:Your battles mattered. I know nobody sees it anymore. It was a really big deal. I might be here because of the battles you fought that nobody sees anymore. I recognize you took a lot of punches. Maybe you spent a lot of money, maybe you had character oh, it was so beautiful and nobody knows it but I know that you're mighty in the land. We didn't forget about you and we need your model and we just want you to know we're only here because you were there. They need to hear that. That's the way we honor the mothers and fathers. They need to know that. We still know that. And then sacrificial love.
Speaker 1:Finally, this is where we're going to close and what Paul says. He says don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. No soapbox Carter, just say it. I fear that there's a lot of folks nowadays that are trying to be the old guy who you don't understand that serving is love. Use your freedom to serve one another in love.
Speaker 1:When you think about church serving you think about well, I'll do my favor. When it's convenient for me, I'll help out a little bit. That's not what that said. Serving is love and planned serving and long see. We always want to be spontaneous, like it's romantic or something. Whoa, here I go, I'm following the winds of my feelings. That's baby stuff, dude. That's baby Christians.
Speaker 1:Adult Christians say I'm going to serve others in love long term, over the long haul of my life, because it is what Jesus says love is. This is what it looks like. It's loving people that are far from God when you come in here or you work out there to help them find their way to Christ, and when you don't just do it on a whim, you do it again and again and again and again and again. My friend, I don't know what you thought, but that's what serving God is. It's love, and we got to grow it. So, church still on our journey.
Speaker 1:The fruit of the spirit is not a feeling. Love is volitional, it is emotional sometimes, but it's a decision. It's keeping our eyes on the corner man, on Jesus, telling us what to do. It is definitely, though, if you're going to have your eyes on the corner man, oh, dear heart, you better get in the ring. To the degree that you can, you physically are able to do it. I understand that everyone's life is the same, but God has equipped you with love to serve people somewhere.
Speaker 1:Fruit of the spirit is so much more important, really, than the gifts of the spirit, and you and I and our church is going to be remembered in heaven, not for what we could do or what was amazing or what was impressive. We're known for how we love. Let's pray, god. I thank you so much for all the awesome ways that you have revealed yourself to everybody within the Son of my voice, whether they're listening later on by podcasts, whether they're watching online right now or they're right here in the room. I thank you that you have a very special purpose you want to fulfill through their lives, and you want to use your love not just their love to do it. Father, we pray you'd fill the gas tank that you'd give us power and help to step on the gas To love people with all we've got in, the power of the Holy Spirit, as we are led by you and your Word. It's in Jesus' awesome, beautiful, mighty, perfect name. We pray Amen. Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out Fears that Church. We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person. Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fears Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now, or visit Fears that Church for more information. If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or whatever. You would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person. Thanks again for listening.