WHEN CHRIST IS THE FOUNDATION OF OUR LOVE

We explore why trying harder to love burns us out and how abiding in Christ changes the root that grows true love. We reframe repentance as waking up to union, shifting from performance to participation so love flows without strain.

• love as participation in Christ, not imitation
• effort management and shame cycles
• union, identity, and fear-free love
• repentance as metanoia and re-abiding
• transactional love versus unconditional love
• fruit of the Spirit as natural overflow
• rest over striving, awareness over behavior

Transcript

From Imitation To Indwelling

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you wasn't here, uh if you didn't get to make it Wednesday night, we had a good conversation Wednesday night about uh what we preached on on Sunday and what we talked about, the you know uh Does our love look like Jesus? We had a real good conversation about it. Uh some things I may I may talk to you about this morning, some of the topics that come up and some of the questions that were asked. Some things I won't talk to you about, because that's withheld for Wednesday night. Because we do go a little bit deeper sometimes, and uh we talk about a few topics and may get off on something that uh we don't always talk about on Sunday mornings. So uh if you can be here on Wednesday nights, it's uh we have some good conversations. So this morning we're just kind of taking a step further. When Christ is the foundation of our love. So last week we asked the question, you know, does our love look like Christ? And we talked about him being the good that Christ has to be the foundation of where this love stems from and where it where it comes from. So this morning we're gonna look at when when Christ is the foundation, when we finally make him the foundation and we stop trying to produce it and create it on our own, you know, what does that look like? Uh you know, where where do we get to? Why is that important to know? Um again, as I've said last week, we don't we don't love like Jesus by trying harder. And that's the mindset that we get into sometimes. We love like Jesus because his life is already living on the inside of us, he's already indwelt on the inside of us. That distinction, really, when we can see that distinction, it changes everything. It changes the way we look at love, it changes the way we show love, it changes everything about that word. So many of us were taught, and I'm out I know I was, that the Christian life is about really effort management. Um, and what I mean by that is we're taught to be more patient. If you're more patient, you're more loving. To be more kind, to be more loving. We're taught to try to produce those things. Why? Because we're Christians and that's what Christians are supposed to do. Now, understand what I'm saying here. There's nothing wrong with those things. We want to be patient. We want to be kind, we want to be loving, we want to be all those things. Uh, and we but more than anything, we want to be more like Jesus. When we fall, here's the problem with that, the way I said that. Be more kind, be more this, be more that. The problem is when we don't reach that bar that we set for ourselves for that bar that the church sets for us, we sometimes get to a point of feeling like I wasn't good enough. Something's wrong with me. We either feel crushed by guilt because I didn't reach that place, or we feel motivated by shame. And I say motivated because what happens? We feel shameful, and I get up the next day and say, I'm gonna do it today. I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna be more patient, or I'm gonna be more kind. And again, I'm not I'm not tearing those things apart. We should be. But when we in ourselves start working to create that, I think we got a wrong motive behind it. That's why I use the word motivation. We've got that's the wrong motive behind being kind and being patient and all those things. The gospel doesn't begin with a command to imitate Jesus. Now, you gotta listen to this here because how many times in the church have we said, and I know I have, and you've probably said it, and you've probably heard other people say it, that we just need to be like Jesus. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with saying that, but listen to the mindset that it sometimes creates. It creates a mindset that we are just simply trying to imitate him. And nowhere in Scripture does it command us to imitate Jesus. It begins with an announcement that Jesus has already united himself with us. He is living on the inside of us. So this sermon today answers the quiet question that some of you may not ask out loud last week, but you may have asked to yourself. You may have said it. I see my love fall short sometimes, so what now? If we were honest, we all fall short. The Bible tells us we fall short. Okay? Maybe my love doesn't always look like Jesus. Maybe the definition that I've I've produced doesn't look like what Jesus looks like. So we're honest about that. We admit that. So what do I do now? So that's kind of the question I'm gonna hit on this morning. Last week we said, does our love look like Jesus? This week we're gonna be honest. And uh because my many of us probably walked away last week when I asked that question and said, well, sometimes, but not always. Okay, that's the truth. Sometimes I feel like I look, I try to, I, I'm I'm in line with what Jesus would do. And then other times I have to be really honest. Jesus wouldn't do that. I have to be honest with myself. So sometimes, but not always. Or maybe I want to love like that, but I just don't know how. I was talking to somebody else, and that's exactly what they said. Well, Wednesday night, uh, one of the people here said, How do you love like that? So that was a question that she had. Or I feel like I I fail more than I succeed. I try my best, I study the word, I want to be like Jesus, but I feel like I fall short more than I reach that bar. But here's the good news. Jesus never exposes our shame to try to or exposes our weakness to try to shame us or to try to guilt us. He never does that. When he exposes something, when there's an area in my life that I'm falling short, and Jesus exposes that in my life, it's not so I can beat myself up and condemn myself. It's he's revealing something to me. He's revealing truth to me so that I can heal myself in that area, so that I can improve myself in that area, so that I can figure out what's going on, why am I falling short in this area. This week isn't about trying to love harder, it's about learning where love actually comes from. So I got a couple of verses here I want you to see. Uh again, very familiar verses, but they they play a big part in understanding this. Galatians 2, verse 20. Most of you could probably quote this one. It says, I've been crucified with Christ. Here's the key point. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So it tells us right here, He lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Skips to the next verse right here before I say anything about that one. 1 John 4 and 19. We love him. Why? Not just because we're supposed to be good Christians, and that's the Christian thing to do. We love him because he first loved us. Now we can all we all know that verse. We learn that verse, that's one of the first verses, besides John 3.16. That's one of the first verses we we learn. Actually, we probably learned this first. We just don't know the verse. But everybody tells us when we were little kids in Sunday school, love him because he first loves you. We sing songs about it. We talk about it all the time. Jesus never asked us anywhere in the Word to manufacture his love. Now, what do I mean by that? To try to create it or to imitate it. We often treat love like a like it's a moral task. And I said this while ago, we we fight to be more patient, to be more kind, to be more forgiving. Those are things that as a Christian we try to do on an everyday basis because we in our mind we think if we do those things and we produce those things, then I'm showing love. Okay. But Scripture never says to try harder to be like Jesus. Instead, it says, Christ lives in you. Christ is already on the inside of you. The problem is, this is this, I think I make this too hard sometimes because it's really simple. We try to, we we picture a God up there somewhere or Jesus over there somewhere, and we're loving and being kind and being patient and being forgiven, hoping that that will get me to him. And he turns around and says, I'm already in you. Where are you trying to get to? I'm already there. And if we could just stop and take that simple little verse and say, He's already in me, therefore I don't have to keep trying to produce something that's going to get me closer to him. Now, that's not to say, I want him, I want you to understand this. That's not to say we don't need to be patient. That's not to say don't be kind or don't be forgiving. But I'm just saying that those things do not get you closer to Jesus. Those are come out of who we are. We do those things. I'm patient because he lives in me, and I'm I'm living, letting him live through my life. As the scripture says. Or spiritual discipline is what I've heard it called many times. Or let's just go a little further and call it religious consistency. Let me be consistent religiously. Love's not something we generate once we've done enough right things. Love is a person. Love is Christ. We we said it the other day, God is love. So it's a person. And the Christian life is not about producing love, it's about participating in what? In him. Allowing him to use me, allowing him to speak through me, allowing my life just to be an example of him. Love is a person. And the Christian life is not about producing love. We've got to catch that. It's about participating in him. Look at John 15, verse 4 and 5. This is there's a lot of stuff in here. I could stop here and just preach on this verse right here. But there's a couple of things you need to see in here. He says, abide in me. We can stop right there. That's just summarized everything I've already said. Abide in me and I in you. You know what that means? It means abide together. I'm with you and you're with me, therefore we're together. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branch. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. I love this verse. We don't imitate the vine. I said, well ago, we don't imitate Jesus. We don't imitate the vine. We abide in it. Just like this verse says in John. So if we look at ourselves sometime and say, Well, my love is not always what I want it to be, or I'm not always exhibiting the type of love that I would like to exhibit, I would call that a strained love. It's a little bit strained at times. But think about this. Strained love is a sign that we're disconnected from the source. It's not something I need to beat myself up about. It's something I need to be honest with myself and say, have I disconnected from the vine? Why? Because the branches cannot produce fruit if you cut them off from the vine. Okay? So if I'm out here and my love is not looking like what Jesus is, I need to ask myself, have I in some way disconnected from the source? And a lot of times when that happens, we get out here, we disconnect from the source, and that's when I start saying, Well, I gotta do this to look better. I gotta do this to be more kind. I gotta do this to be more forgiving. And I've disconnected from the source and I start producing these things on my own. So again, there's nothing wrong with those things unless I'm producing them on my own, thinking that I'm producing love. Because I can't produce love. It will not happen like that. So strain doesn't mean that we're failing. If your life, if you answer that question, you say, Does my life look like Jesus? Does my love look like Jesus? And the answer was no, you're not failing. Don't condemn yourself, don't beat yourself up. Strain does not mean we're failing. It's often a signal that we're trying to produce fruit instead of abiding in the vine. We're trying to produce our own fruit. We're trying to do things that make me look good, that make me look like a good Christian, that make people look at me and say, man, he's such an awesome dude. Why? Because they just see the things that I'm doing. And again, nothing wrong with those things. But I do have to look at the motivation behind them. If the motivation behind me forgiving people and being kind to people and being and all that is simply so they'll think I'm a good person, it's a wrong motivation. It don't mean being kind is wrong. It don't mean forgiving is wrong. It means the motivation behind it is wrong. But if I'm doing it because I know Jesus lives on the inside of me and I'm abiding in him, and he is love, and out of that love flows forgiveness, and out of that love flows kindness, and out of that love flows this other stuff, I'm not producing anything. I'm just being. I'm just being who he says I am. Big, big difference in that. When love feels forced or conditional, or I like to use the word transactional. What does that mean? Transactional means I'll love you if you show it to me back again, I'll continue to love you. But what do we do? Most of the time when we love on somebody and they don't give it back, we turn our back. Because we're not going to keep putting forth effort for something that you don't give back to me. That's just human nature. That's transactional. That means I'll love you if you give me back what I want in return. That's a transaction. That's not a failure, it's feedback. Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. I believe that. That's a tough word right there. And I believe that when he said that, apart from me, you can do nothing. I believe he's also talking about loving well. I cannot love well apart from him. It just it don't it don't come out like it's supposed to. Jesus loved from union, not obligation. He didn't love to try to prove anything. He didn't try to prove himself. He didn't love to earn people's approval. He didn't love to fix people first. He loved from a place of understanding who he was, understanding his identity as a son. He loved from a place of unbroken union with the Father and complete freedom from fear. Now, those are things that every single one of us can do today. Why? Because you're a son. Okay? We no longer are caught up in fear. We have unbroken union with the Father, and we have a secure identity in Christ. The same things that allow Jesus to love, we have access to right now. So my question is, why can't we love the same way? Why does our love not look like his? Now I'm saying this because that same union, it belongs to us. Now, if we see ourselves outside of Christ, and we see God sitting on a throne way up there somewhere, and I'm trying to get to him, then I'm not unified with him. This is why it's so important. I believe this is why the finished work is so important. Because the finished work tells me what he did on the cross brought me back into union with the Father. If I believe that, then I'm unified with him. I'm in union with him. But if I don't believe that, then I'm still trying to get to him. And the only way I can do it is to produce. I'm telling you, I grew up with that kind of love. It was produced in me, I call it performance love. That I always performed. The better I performed, the more you loved me. The better I was, the more you appreciated me. I grew up with that mindset. So I understand this, and that's why I guess this makes so much sense to me now. Because I'm already one with the Father. I'm not trying to prove myself to him. I'm not trying to earn anything. How can I earn something that Jesus already gave? And you may say, well, everybody knows that. They might, but everybody ain't teaching that. Some people saying you got to do this, and you got to do this, and then you got to go over here and do this. And the more you do all this, the more the Father will come closer to you. I'm already in him, and he's already in me, according to what we just read. I don't know how you can get any closer than that. I don't know what you can do. So I'm saying this because, again, that same union that we look at with Jesus and the Father is the same union that he died on the cross to give me and you. It's no different. Another verse right here, Colossians 1 and 27. Just a small part of this verse I want to bring out. To them, God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. Here's the key point. Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Notice that was to the Gentiles. Christ in you, the hope of glory. So the question shifts right here. I don't ask myself anymore, am I loving enough? Am I am I loving on people enough to show Christ? I don't ask that question anymore. The question I ask now is, am I trusting that Christ is loving through me? Am I allowing myself to be a vessel where love itself, which is God, he says, I am love, and now he lives on the inside of me. Am I allowing myself to be the vessel that he works through? Because the love is not coming from me. He is the love. I'm just the one he's working through. It changes a whole mindset right here. Now, some people say, No, no, no, we need to be love, we need to do this, we need that's work. Nothing wrong with it. But why don't I just allow Jesus to work through me? Still love. But it's a true love coming out through me because of who I am versus a love that's coming out because I'm trying to produce something and I'm trying to prove something. Both love, but the motivation behind it is different. See, we're pulling back the curtains here. I mean, that's this is where I think a lot of people don't like our my teaching. Because I'm not just telling you the basic stuff go be love. I'm pulling back the curtain and saying, look. Look at the motivation behind your love. It's great that you love. I used to get people here for marriage counseling all the time and they loved each other. But when you started digging and you pulled back the curtain and you started looking at the motivation behind their love, ooh, it was fractured. It was messed up, which was the reason they were in marriage counseling. They loved each other. They truly did. But the reason they loved each other was messed up. So we start peeling all that away and saying, let's get back to true love. Let's get back to unconditional, which means I love without conditions. I love you even if you don't love me back. I love you even if you hate me. I love you even if you don't like me. That's unconditional. That's godly. That's the love that you can't really replicate because my nature doesn't teach me to do that. My nature tells me if you don't like me, guess what? I don't like you. If you don't love me, no love lost here. I can walk away and not love you. But that's not what unconditional love teaches us. It says, I love you regardless. In spite of yourself. I love you anyway. To truly answer that question, am I trusting that Christ is loving through me? To truly answer that question, we must understand the word repentance. We talk about repentance all the time. We are not, and in this church, you're going to hear repentance a little bit different. We are not talking about coming to an altar and just spilling my guts on every bad thing I've ever done in my life. If you feel the need to do that, do it. But that's not what we're talking about. Okay? We're talking about repentance as in what the biblical definition of repentance is. Repentance is often framed as feeling bad for doing something wrong. So therefore, I run to the altar on Sunday morning and I repent. I tell every God every bad thing I've done. That's the way we teach repentance. Repentance is a change of mind. That word metanoia is to change the mind, to change the way I think, a reorientation of what we trust, where we live from, who we believe is actually at work in our lives. Is it Jesus at work through me? Is it Jesus at work through me, or is it me at work trying to get to him? That's another sermon. But that's something we gotta be honest with ourselves, and most people do not want to be honest with themselves and ask that question because we're scared of the answer. Because I can tell you, for years it was me trying to do everything I could do. Preaching the right sermon, looking the right way, talking the right way, being around and influenced by the right people. Nothing wrong with those things unless you look at the motivation behind them. So repentance again is a metanoia change of mind. When we ask, am I trusting that Christ is loving through me? Man, he is working this morning. Good Lord. Am I trusting that he's working through me? Right there asking that question and being honest about that question. We are right dead in the middle, in the center of repentance. Right in the center of it. Repentance is not about turning away from bad behavior. We have got to get that out of our minds. And some people would say, well, no, you don't need to do that because we need to fix the bad behavior. Listen, if I truly repent based on the biblical definition, the behavior will fix itself. But what we do is we try to fix the bad behavior and never focus on the true repentance of changing the mind. And we got somebody that can behave better but don't think no different. You know what they're gonna do in a little while? They're gonna go right back to that behavior. Why? Because they're still thinking about it. So all we're doing is saying we're flipping the script, we're going behind the scenes, and we're not worrying about the behavior right now. We're saying let's change the thinking. Because the thinking is what leads me to the behavior. So I'm gonna go ahead and go to the root of it and not worry about the surface. That's all we're saying. We're not saying disregard the behavior. We're not saying the behavior is okay. We're just saying we're not gonna focus on it right now. Why? Because if I spent so much time on the behavior but never change the thinking, what did I actually accomplish? Nothing. So we're just we're just skipping that step right now and saying we're gonna go behind deeper. We're gonna go to what's really causing it. Repentance is not about turning away bad behavior, it's about turning away self-reliance. When I rely on myself to get things done, when I rely on myself to produce love, when I rely on myself, and there's an underlying reason why I'm nice to you. There's an underlying reason why I'm so forgiving. Okay? And here's the thing: we will turn every one of those things back in. We'll find a Bible verse to support it. We will we'll pull a Bible verse out, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So therefore, if I want people to forgive me, what do I need to do? I need to forgive. Yeah, but if you don't mean it, what good is it? You didn't just fulfill that Bible verse. You were doing something because you wanted something in return. You were being forgiving because you wanted somebody to forgive you. That's a transaction. That's a transactional thing that we're always talking about. It's the moment, the moment we recognize I've been trying to love from myself instead of from Christ. I've been acting as though I'm I'm the vine. Come on. I'm the vine, I'm the source, I'm the one that produces. When in reality, I'm the branch, according to scripture. He's the vine, but I'm the branch. When I start acting like the vine, there's a problem. God is in me, but I'm not God. Do we need to say that part again? God is in you, but you are not God. You are the branch. He is the vine. Cut the vine, the branch off from the vine, and it produces nothing. Stay connected to it, and it's unlimited. What it can produce. In that sense, strange love that I talked about a while ago is often a call to repentance. Now, I'm not talking about repentance that says I should be more loving. There's nothing wrong with saying that, but just think for a minute. My goal here, and it's always been this, and it's always gonna be this, is just to make you think. To make you kind of see it a different way, challenge you to think about it. So think about what I just said. I should be more loving. That don't sound bad. Most people would probably agree with that. I should be more loving. You should be more loving. But think about what comes behind that. Guilt because I'm not as loving as I should be. I feel guilty. There's a lot of different things that come along with that. So when you look at these questions, you we've got, I think we've got to ask the right questions. See, what I'm talking about here is not saying I should be more loving. What I'm talking about is the repentance that says, I've stopped abiding in you. God, I've stopped abiding in you, and I've tried to do this myself. I want to come back to you. What is that? That's just truth. I'm not beating myself up about it. I'm just being honest and saying, I've tried to do this on my own, God, and I can't do it, and I've made so many mistakes, and I messed so much up, and I'm tired of living like this. I want to come back and abide in you now. That's just a confession. No guilt, no shame, just a true confession. Repentance becomes a return to the truth. Apart from him, what the scriptures say, I can do nothing. But with him, scripture says anything is possible. So sometimes I just repentance means changing my mindset, realizing I'm in a place that I don't need to be in. I'm in a place where I've tried to do this myself, and I'm changing my thinking and saying, God, I gotta come back to you now. That's all it is. I'm not beating myself up, I'm not condemning myself, I'm just recognizing the reality of where I'm at. Kind of like the prodigal son did. He realized he was in the pig pen and he said, No, no, no, I belong in daddy's house. And he got up and he went back there. This reframes repentance from punishment where I'm not punishing myself, but I'm reconnecting. I'm not beating myself up, I'm just being truthful, and now I'm saying, Father, I need to reconnect back with you. I need to reconnect back to the vine. It's not God demanding better behavior, it's God inviting a deeper dependence on Him. To repent is to stop asking, how can I love better, and start confessing, Jesus, I've been trying to do your work on my own. So instead of going, instead of looking at it as a question, can I love better? Can I be a better person? Can I forgive more? Can I be nicer to people? Instead of asking that question, why not confess? What is confession? Homeligao. Speaking the same thing. Father, your word says that if I abide in you, anything is possible, I'll produce unlimited fruit. If I do not abide in you and I'm disconnected and I'll produce nothing, Father, I want to come back and abide in you. I'm just confessing what the word just said. So now I'm in agreement with him. And it says, Well, to touch and agree, anything is possible. So all I'm doing, all repentance is, is changing my thinking so that I can come back into agreement with what the word actually says. So repentance is really the daily decision to release control and to reabide. To reabide in the Father. To agree again with reality. Christ is the one who loves. I am the one who trusts that he's in me. And love flows not because I'm strong, but because he is present. I don't love people because I'm just some awesome person. I love people because of who's in me. I love especially the ones I love who don't like me, the ones who I love who I know who want to hurt me or who have said something about me or whatever. And I love them anyway. I promise you that ain't because I want to. Because again, human nature says, I don't I don't want to like this dude. I ain't got nothing to say to this guy. But the love that's in me says, love your enemy. Show him respect. Teach him the word. That's why repentance doesn't lead to shame. It leads to rest. And from that rest, love grows naturally. I gave the example a while ago and said we're not going to worry about behaviors. If I worry about the thinking, repentance, then behaviors will take care of themselves. Same thing right here. If I just rest in him, the love, the forgiveness, all these things that we're going after, they just happen naturally. I don't try to produce them. I don't try to make them happen. They happen on their own. So even if your love doesn't look like Jesus at times, don't let it turn to guilt. The biblical repentance is change of mind, a return to truth, and a re-anchoring in identity. Repentance is not beating yourself up. Listen to this. Repentance is not beating yourself up. Repentance is waking up. It's waking up to the truth of who we are. It's waking up to the truth that He's in us. It's waking up to the truth of our identity that's already found in Christ. It's not found in my own strength. It's not found in who I am. It's found in the Christ, the Holy Spirit, that lives on the inside of me. That's the difference. When I can wake up to the truth. So repenting is nothing to do with beating yourself up. Repentance is waking up. We say that all the time, and people don't understand what we're saying. We're saying you don't have to do this, you don't have to do that. All you got to do is wake up. What are we doing with this finished work that we're talking about? We're trying to wake people up. We're trying to wake people up to the fact that Jesus already died on the cross. Everything is done. He's not coming back to do it again. And if we can wake up to what's already occurred, then we'll walk out what's already happened. We're not waiting on him to do it one day in the by and by. So all we're saying is wake up to the fact of what's already a reality. Now I know people don't like that, and people twist it and turn it and they call us all kind of stuff. But when you start looking at the truth of the word, it's really simple. He's already died on the cross. He already said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. I give my spirit to you. It is finished. And he gave up his life. And then he rose. They buried him and he rose. He came out. And then he went into heaven and he sat at the right hand of the Father. And he sat down, not because he was tired, he sat down because it was finished. That's the posture of rest. And this is not in the Bible, this is mine. This is the way I say it. This is the way I see it. He sat down, and nothing you go through is going to make him get up again. Because he's finished it. What he wants to do is for you to wake up to the fact that it's already finished. Repentance is not beating yourself up, it's waking up. So I've said that about 10 times already. I'm saying it because I want you to hear it. Now here's the question: waking up to what? I pretty much just said it, but I'm still going to cover my notes right here, real quick anyway. Waking up to the fact that you're already included and you're already loved. There's a lot of things that we can say on that. But if you could just wake up to the fact that you're already included and you're already loved, what does it mean to be included? It means he died for all. What he did on the cross was for all of humanity. Now, there's people that will argue. Literally, it blows my mind. There's people that will argue with you. We have a pastor right here in this community who they didn't say it to me, they said it to somebody else. And that person came back to me and said, We got two people in our community preaching the inclusion theology, and it's a straight from the pits of hell. And I'm like, no, dude, it's straight from the Bible. Really? How can you look at God and worship God and know God and say He's not inclusive? Inclusive just means He includes everybody. When He died on the cross, who did He die for? Everybody. That means everybody was included. Just because you don't like the word inclusive, don't change the fact that He died for everybody. He said all. And it blows my mind how we can look at the devil, we can look at the serpent, and it said that he did this in the garden, and all of mankind was affected. And we don't have no problem believing that. If we teach it like that. My theology don't, but a lot of theology does. All here, all here. It meant the same thing. It meant all. We just gotta look at it for what it says. That's why love looks different when Christ is the foundation and Christ is the source. Love, listen to this now. Love becomes patient when fear is gone. Love becomes generous when it rests in the abundance of Christ instead of the fear of emptiness. Love becomes forgiving when judgment is gone. We just talked about judgment a few weeks ago. I don't have to worry about judgment and all that kind of stuff. If I can take that off the table, then I can forgive people easily. Because Christ is the foundation of that forgiveness. That doesn't happen just because you're disciplined, but because you're free. In closing, I want to read one more verse right here. Galatians 5 and 22. Because this is important. The fruit grows naturally when the root is healthy. So look at what this verse says. But the fruit of the Spirit, we always talk about this. We quote this now. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness. Those are the fruit of the Spirit. Man, we throw these things at you like a spear. We beat people up with this verse. This is talking about the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. The fruit grows naturally when the root is healthy. If the root is Christ, if the foundation is Christ, we don't have to worry about trying to produce this. It's already produced in us. We just gotta wake up to it. Does our love look like Jesus? Was last week's question. This week's question is a little different. Am I letting Jesus love through me? Am I letting Him love through me? Because when we stop striving, when we stop pretending, when we stop basing love on willpower, love starts looking like Jesus again. So this week, don't monitor your behavior. Don't do a behavior checklist on yourself. Monitor your awareness. Am I letting Jesus work through me? Maybe I am in this area because it's a little easier. But when this this this fool on the road cuts me off in the middle of traffic, I need to let Jesus come in a little bit more with that. That's just being aware. There's some areas it's easy, there's some areas it's a little bit more difficult. So we're just saying be aware. Pay attention. Where are you letting Jesus be the love, be the foundation of your love? And where are you choosing yourself? Because we do it. So when love feels hard, don't ask what's wrong with me. Ask where did I disconnect from truth? This really challenges us. I'm closing right here. This really challenges us to realize that Christ is not asking more from us. Let me say that again because that goes against what we teach. Christ is not asking for more from us. He's offering more of himself through us. He's not asking me to go out and do it. He's asking me to rest, to slow down, to stop working so hard and just let me work through you. Will you calm down and be my vessel? Will you stop working so hard and just let me shine through you? Sometimes we work so hard we work Jesus out of the picture. Because it's all about us. And he's saying, just stop, rest, let me take over. All I want you to do is just be open to let me work through you. And as you let me work through you, you're gonna be more loving, you're gonna be more forgiving, you're gonna be, you're gonna show more kindness. It's gonna be effortless because it's me as the foundation. But you gotta open yourself up. Stop running, stop working so hard, and just open yourself up and let me come and be the one that works through you. So that's what I mean. He's not asking you to go out here and work harder, he's asking you to rest and let him come in. He's already in. Let him work. Let him be the one people see. It gets hard. When I first started preaching, man, I wanted a sermon that people was gonna hoot and holler. And you know, I would work hard to get sermons that was gonna grab people's attention. Because it was about me. I was standing on a stage. I was talking to the I mean, it's easy for that to happen. And then you slow down after a while and you start figuring this thing out, and you're like, you know, it ain't it ain't about me. It's about me standing here saying, Jesus, speak through me. And then years ago I started praying that. I said, Lord, just whatever, whatever you want today, speak through me. Help me to say it and help me to say it right. That's what I prayed before I preached. Help me to say it, help me to say it right. What does that mean? Help me to say it the way you want it said. Because I can come up with something, I can say it the way I want to say it, and sometimes they get me in trouble saying it that way. So just help me to close my mouth and let you speak. And if we can do that and allow Christ to be the foundation of our love, we don't have to work so hard. And I know most people in here would raise their hand and be in agreement that I would rather rest and not work so hard. When it comes to anything. I would rather just rest. We're giving you an opportunity. He's giving you the opportunity. But we gotta take it.