Loving Difficult People Like Jesus: Biblical Brotherhood Ep. 3

In this episode of the Biblical Brotherhood series, we talk about the hardest part of real brotherhood: loving people when they disappoint you, frustrate you, wound you, or make a mess of their lives.

Using Cain & Abel, 1 John 3, Proverbs, and the example of Jesus, we unpack:

- What biblical love actually looks like
- Why real brotherhood gets messy
- Loving people without enabling them
- Why truth and love must work together
- The difference between manipulation and genuine love
- Why many men avoid the responsibility of loving others well

Jesus didn’t just love people when they were easy to love. He loved sacrificially, truthfully, and consistently.

That’s the standard.

#biblicalbrotherhood  #christianmen  #threeinthefire  #mensministry  #christianpodcast  #ironsharpensiron  #leadershipdevelopment  #discipleship  #masculinity  #jesusrevolution  #christianityexplored

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the message that you have heard from the beginning. We should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. You want to be, you want to be a brother to somebody? You want to walk in biblical brotherhood? The Apostle John says, rule number one, don't murder your brother. Kind of sounds like a duh. Maybe a little of the deep wisdom of Captain Obvious, but is there more to this thing as we start to drill down into loving your brother? I'm Duncan Brann. Welcome to Three in the Fire. You are in for some fun because we got some fun folks here. Thanks for joining us. And uh please be sure to like, share, and subscribe before I forget to tell you that. Do that right now so you don't miss one cool thing that is coming your way. We got so much that is in the tank. Stuff that you are gonna love. We got events coming up, all kinds of things. So in the furnace with me, though, today, me compañeros, my personal Kane and Abel. And I'll uh I'll let them decide which one of those is which there. Uh Josh Davis, Max More. Welcome back, fellas. Good morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Morning, Dunkey.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Max. Morning, guys. Morning, Kane, morning, Abel. All right.

unknown 1:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

So we're continuing our biblical brotherhood series today. This is our third installment now. Um, our third one here uh in the tank. We'll have one more episode after this, and that'll finish out this series. Uh, but just a quick recap for everybody. Um, so we talked about in that first episode, episode nine, we talked about the why, why we do biblical brotherhood, how God uses it, how God blesses it, uh, how it is so powerful in the life of a believer, and really one of the ways that God positions us in spiritual family. Okay. Last episode, episode 10, we started talking about the what. What goes into being a biblical brother to somebody? How does God define that? And we specifically looked at the will of God. Jesus said in Matthew 12, 50, you know, whoever does the will of my father who is in heaven, the same as my mother, my brother, my sister. So Jesus defined this as the will of God, doing what God's word says. That was part of it. But today we're going to get to the other half here in episode 11. Loving our brother. And we've, as you know, we've been looking at this template really with Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. They're the first set of brothers in scripture. And so they kind of give us a framework of what this looks like, how to do it and not do it. But uh before we jump into our text today, um, and our if our audience wants to turn there, it's going to be 1 John 3, 10 through 18, everybody. I wanted to throw out a question, though, to you guys to really help stir the pot and kind of get us thinking here. And that is this have you ever had someone in your life, a brother in your life, that you just had a difficult time loving? And it could have been for any reason. Maybe there was an offense. Um, maybe you maybe you just had just met this person. There was just a vibe that you were getting from this person that made you uncomfortable. Discerning was kicking off, and you're just going, this person's not being real or something. Any number of reasons. Um, and I'll let uh Josh, why don't you take it first here? Is there has there been a brother in your life that you've ever had just difficulty loving?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah. Probably more than one.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

I was a very pregnant, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah, yeah. When you sent me this question, you know, I really had to think, uh, okay, how do I, how do I approach this one? Um you know, when it when I think about uh what it means to love somebody, and I just think of uh, you know, the scripture, we've heard it all at every wedding, but love is patient, love is kind, and it starts there, love is patient and kind. And um, and what that means is uh kindness is um to do something strictly for the benefit of the other person. Um and patience means to wait as long as it takes. Um, and so when you're loving a brother, you have to be patient and you have to be kind. And um, you know, that that can be a challenge for me sometimes in in relationships with um with guys because uh I'll feel like I'm repeating myself constantly, you know, and it's like um look, I you keep asking me the same question and I'm giving you the same answer, and this is how you can solve your problem. Why do you keep coming back to me with the same issue? You know, yeah, and and that can be hard. That can be hard. And uh exactly. And so, so I really have to remind myself that that uh I've gotta be patient and I've gotta be kind and it's and and stay alongside him as long as it takes. Um, because there will be a point where God will reveal that to him, um, and then and then it will change. Um so there's there's a lot of instances like that for me because there's a lot of guys that come to me um with with problems and issues and and they need help and they're stuck. Um and and and then there's other situations too in ministry settings where um where you bring a team together and we're all to minister together, um, and everyone's got different gifts and talents um and they're in different places and maturity levels. Um, and it can be a challenge sometimes uh to work with with uh guys that um are are struggling themselves in emotional maturity, uh very outwardly emotional, because I'm not very outwardly emotional. Um and so those those kinds of situations can be challenging too because I'm we I'm leading the group and we are pulling a rope in the same direction. And so we need to be unified and we need to be working together. And so sometimes that can be a challenge in dealing with and and loving guys where they're at, wherever they're at in their spiritual maturity, emotional maturity, um, and in ministry experience. Um and you know, in in those situations, you have to be um for me, you know, I have to remind myself to be unoffendable um and and not let those things bother me. And and again, be patient and kind with those guys, walk alongside them and help them grow. So those can be challenges, you know. So not murder them, right? Not murder them, no. And those names or anything like that, in general. So yeah, those are settings where, you know, a patience and kindness. You gotta start with patience and kindness.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

That's a great word. Um, there's a young man that I was mentoring, and you know, in not all cases where you're mentoring, does their uh a relationship doesn't necessarily uh develop, but in this case it did. And uh we became good friends. And um he made an incredibly stupid decision. And matter of fact, then he followed it up with another incredibly stupid decision. And these were decisions that he did not disclose, but we then found out about them. And uh at the time of discovery, whenever I found out that he had done what he had done, uh, and there were some legal implications here, I was so mad at him. I did. I I contemplated, I will come and kill you because the um, not really, but because of the what felt like a breach, right? A breach of the trust of hey, why didn't you, why didn't you tell me this was going on? Why didn't you share with me this was going on? And then because of the the nature of what had taken place, I I I thought not wanting to be associated with him because of the of how what he was charged with. And it it was one of those things where I I my first impulse was, I'm gonna distance myself from this young man. And uh and and if things work out, then I'll come back, right? And I thought to myself, what a what a cowardly way to handle that. Um and I I have to admit that whenever we had first interaction, I I was angry. I was angry at him, and uh I wanted to I wanted to lash out and give him about five tons of I told you so, and what were you thinking, you know, more from like a a father to a son. Like that was the stupidest thing you could have done, right? But uh thank you, Holy Spirit, for reminding, right? There have been times where the things that I have done were not to the severity of this action on his part. But they still were stupid, right? And then I followed them up with more stupid. And so the the um the thing that I was able to pull from that was that, okay, okay, I'm getting a chance now to see the other side of this. And that the most important thing that I could do for this guy was to still love him, still unconditionally love him, even though there were things that he was accused and charged with doing that were things that I would I would not want to be associated with. But the only way was to continue to just show him that same kind of love, which was okay, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue to to meet with you, I'm gonna continue to talk with you. And each time that we would talk, there would be a process in me of the resistance, you know, reducing over time. Because there was initially there's this huge amount of resistance of, I don't want to be part of you because of what you've done. And then over time, it has reduced to the point where um the enemy, obviously, is coming in and trying to tempt me to go, are you sure you want to be connected to this guy based on what he did? To continue to show the love. And I am no I'm no expert on this topic, but when we when we discussed this, I thought, okay, that for such a time as this, right? That this example with this young man was where it it appears that God was like giving me the opportunity. Okay, this is the other side. This is what the guys did with you when you did stupid and then more stupid. Here's what here's how the guys treated you and gave me an opportunity to go, okay, then I'm going to yeah, decide, right? I didn't feel like doing it. I'm going to decide to love him and to continue to show consistency. And what was difficult was in the conversations, and when he would bring something out about a consequence that he was facing, man, I wanted to jump on that and just beat him over the head with that consequence of, you know, if you wouldn't so stupid, you wouldn't be facing this consequence. But that also is not necessarily the best move, right? So there was wise counsel listening, trying to be as sympathetic as possible. And there were times, though, and this it had just occurred over this last year, where I I either edged over the line or completely stepped over the line and wanted to to give him I told you so type of stuff. And that's not, I mean, there's a place for that, but I don't think it's in me showing love for this guy. There wasn't a there wasn't a great place to beat him over the head. He was already pretty well beaten by what he had done. So anyway, that uh that was that would be the example I I think would fit best in this description.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I appreciate you guys sharing the internal wrestlings with that because I I think that's a really a really huge connection point for everybody in our audience too. We got to be real that um the loving people like Jesus tells us to love them is messy. It's gonna get messy. Um, you get into you get into the muck, you get into the sewage of all of our lives. Yes, and and then you just gotta commit and stay in it. So I think that's a good place right there to pivot now into our text. So at first John 3, 10 through 18, here, everybody, this is what he says. He says, By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love that he, Jesus, laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has this world's good and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him. How does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but indeed and in truth. Wow. That's a powerful challenge, a gauflet, really, that God John throws down there for us. And so he says, I'm gonna give you this ironclad proof that a guy saved, that he's a real brother in Christ. And then he uses this word evident. He said, Now it is evident. And in that Greek word there, pheneros, it's it means manifest. It means blatantly obvious. I mean, it's a word on the nose, right? Okay. Uh the it literally comes from a word that means shiny, like it's shining back at you. So there's no mistaking this, he says. The evidence is right there in front of you. And then he gives the two evidences. He said, one, he says, you know, a real biblical brother, he practices righteousness. He does God's will. And it doesn't mean, of course, that he doesn't slip, he doesn't screw up sometimes, but he has a genuine, wholehearted desire to pursue God's will, whatever the situation looks like, his own and for other people. And then the other half is he loves God's people. He loves God. He's he's excited about the things of God, he's excited for God's people. And John defines love here in just a second in our passage, um, and and which is important. We, and we've already started doing a little bit of that because we know there's a lot of definitions of love that are floating around out there. But he'll he'll finish that out for us. But he gives us these two proofs. He's a genuine biblical brother, he does God's will, and he loves God's people. And I think it's a really good, simple sentence for us right there. A biblical brother, he does God's will, and he loves God's people. Now, we've all this is where it starts to get starts to get meaty. Um that John says that there's the the one who does not love his brother. Okay. This is what jumped out at me first. He says, there's the one who does not love his brother, and he uses a singular, not a plural. He doesn't say loves the brothers. He says that later on, but he says, the one who does not love his brother. So he goes to a singular immediately, and then he jumps over and he says, Now let us not be like Cain, who murdered his brother. And what I think John is trying to drive home to us here is this idea of look, if you want to walk in a biblical brotherhood, you got to start under your own roof. Don't tell me you can love these brothers, that brother out there, if you can't start with those in your immediate circle. Start at home. Don't don't tell me about how you're gonna spread the gospel to the entire world if you can't preach in your own house, right? That's the idea. And so immediately what we're talking about here is this means loving your spouse, no matter what crazy things she might be doing or how she's treating you, holding a grudge or something like this. You're working through something difficult as husband and wife. It means loving our kids if they're being rebellious, ungrateful, spoiled, um, all of those things. Loving grandpa if he keeps bringing up, you know, Fox News, CNN, and politics at the holiday table, you know. Um, and and and loving parents, if they're being controlling or manipulative or demeaning to us in their speech, um, that boss, that coworker, there's this, you know, we immediately, as soon as I said this, we've all got this circle that we can immediately think of of those hard to love kind of people. And John says, Yeah, that that one that you want to just strangle. You know, like Cain did? That's the one that I'm talking about. If you can't love that brother, you can't walk in the love of God. And the the really important thing here is this is this way that he defines love, this word agape, it means wholehearted and unconditional. He says, you got to go all in on this thing. It's not half-hearted, it's like, okay, well, I'll stick my toe in the water and see if it's okay. Um, he says, no, you got to really got to go all in here. And you got to stay committed to it. You're in for the long haul. That's what the love of Jesus is, it's the love that he's modeling for us here. It's unconditional, wholehearted. I love you with everything I've got, and no matter what. Now we I think we really start getting an idea here of how much this can cost us, but also the picture that Jesus painted by his own life. Thoughts there that you may want to throw in or add some color to this.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

I was thinking as you were reading the the passage from 1 John 3, um, that typically I'm gonna speak uh for myself and and maybe gather some other men on in this as well. That uh when when we're reading about throughout the Bible, reading about righteousness, or we're reading about the wicked are this and the righteous or that, right? That I believe that we we reading me, I I replace righteousness with good. I'm good. In other words, I I don't murder people. I I'm not a thief. I try to be as honest as I can, right? And it's the it's it's the lower standard. When when John's talking about righteousness, he's talking about the righteousness of God, the righteousness of Jesus demonstrated. And we, I don't want to call it dumb it down, but we water it down to where, okay, is he a good guy? Yeah. Okay, well, he I'm I'm righteous, right? I mean, aren't we all righteous? Yeah, we go to church, we're righteous. Not and not necessarily so. Sometimes we're self-righteous. But that that basis that you were talking about, that that if that is one of the indicators, if that is one of the things that says, hey, here's what a true follower looks like, then it's gonna be hard for me to truly love my brother if I'm coming from a watered-down version of what is righteousness, right? The thing that I would say is that the fear of righteousness is, man, is that gonna put me as a guy, is that gonna put me in the fanatic area? Because I don't want to be identified as some kind of you know, Jesus freak or religious weirdo, right? So I only want to be as righteous as I have to be and not all the way in.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

And that would mess up D B thoughts there, Josh? Yeah, no, I think um a couple things stand out. And the first, um, you know, you said it the your first ministry and responsibility is at home. And I see it all the time. I've seen it recently and heard it recently. You know, everyone, you know, guys get fired up and and they want to go out and they want to minister and save people. And do all this stuff while neglecting their responsibility at home. And that's not the right order of things. And so we have to understand that God entrusts people with us, and we are going to be held responsible for that. And so that that should be our first, our first ministry should be at home with our wives, children, and those that God has entrusted with us in that way in our families. And then, you know, go out and if He's calling you to do other ministry things, then do those things, but not at the expense of your family and not loving your family. And it reminds me of in James 1 where he says, be a doer of the word, not a hearer only. And so, you know, our uh we're not saved by our works, but our but our works and our behavior do prove um that we are saved. It shows that we really are, that we really do, really do believe what we say that we believe. Um and and so I think that is very important there, that very end. Um you know, it's don't be all talk, you know. Yeah. Go and and do this. Uh walk out, um walk out and live, live the word, walk out and live what you say you believe. Um don't don't just talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Amen. I mean, so so John sets up Jesus as the standard again, no surprise there. And and I think if we it's really important here because we we're floating all around it, but there are, there's all these definitions out there. Everybody wants to have, well, my truth. Well, with that, we want to have my definition of love, my brand. And we want to say, well, that's God's standard also, and it's not. Jesus is always, always the standard of God. It's always about what did he do? And so I'm supposed to look like that. And if we look for just five seconds at scripture, yeah, we see Jesus encouraged people in scripture. Yes, he spent time with them, yes, he comforted them. We want to talk about the positives. Sometimes we want to we don't want to talk about the other side of that, though, of the tough love of Jesus. Jesus also got in Peter's face when Peter was going to stand in the way of the plan of redemption and said, Get behind me, Satan. You don't have in mind the things of God. Matter of fact, you got you got in mind the things of men right now. You're posing here. That's that's not God's love. Jesus flipped tables, he braided a whip and cleared the temple of guys who had come in, come in and made it a den of thieves and robbers. This is my father's house. This is a house of prayer. What are you doing? So that was you, oh, that wasn't very loving. No, that that was actually loving God and loving people enough to clear out some things and cause a stir. And of course, uh, John 8, 1 through 11, there's a stone-brandishing, accusing mob standing before a woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus runs off the mob, but he doesn't leave off the other half. He looks at the woman caught in adultery and says, I don't condemn you either, woman, but go and sin no more. And so this thing about God's love is we've got to look at how Jesus did it, or versus how we think that he did it or wanted him to do it. It's it's how he actually does it in Scripture. I've said it this way before. If you've got a friend who's gonna drive his car off a cliff, love doesn't go, oh, I support you. No, that's not real love. No, real love speaks up and says what the person needs to hear, even if they don't want to hear it. Yeah. Proverbs 27, verses 5 and 6 says, open rebuke is better than hidden love. Okay. Profuse uh faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy. So why is King Solomon there? See, he says, no, no, love, love might look kind of like a spiritual clock on the head to a brother who's just going off in the weeds here. He's destroying his marriage, he's destroying this relationship, he's doing something wrong. So you might have to say the tough thing. Doesn't mean we don't package it in a good and and gentle way or something like that. Um, but might might mean we have to throw some things around a little bit. So I want to press further, though, because Jesus John just doesn't set Jesus up as the standard of love here in the passage. He also gives us an idea of what hatred looks like and what hating our brother can look like. And he says in verses 12 through 15, he starts fleshing this out here. He says, we shouldn't be like Cain who murdered his brother Abel. So, you know, like we were saying earlier, a guy might go, hey, cool, I haven't killed my brother. Um, and Jesus' response would be, well, hang on just a second. I want to talk about that. Because back in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5.27, Jesus says something here about lust and adultery. He says, You've heard that said, heard it said that you should not commit adultery, but I tell you that if you even look at a woman with lustful intent in your heart, you've already committed adultery. So Jesus says, hey, it's not about the thing. I want to talk about what's going on inside of you. I want to talk about your heart. And back here in John, this is what he does here also. He says, No, I'm not talking about if you've murdered somebody physically. I'm talking about what's going on in your heart. I want to know specifically in this situation about loving your brother. How do you talk about this person when they're not in the room? How do you treat this person when you see him in public? Have you forgiven them for that lousy thing that he did to you? You know, or are you holding a grudge? Or are you behaving with some passive aggressiveness here or something like that? Are you treating him differently? Has he been downgraded versus Jesus offering the sop to Judas right across the table? We just betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus is still the measuring rod here. The whole measuring rod of how God measures us loving our brother is not whether we did the bad thing, it's are we loving like Jesus? That's that's the measuring stick right there. And that's what I think is is so important for us. Responses here.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah, we, you know, we we we try to play defense all the time, and very rarely do we play offense. And the offense is doing, hey, do what Jesus did, right? Don't just avoid the bad things. I'm not killing anybody, I'm not whatever the case may be. But are you actually, are you doing what Jesus did? And and we are notorious as men for going, well, you know, you can't, you can't do what Jesus did because Jesus was perfect. Now I'm not perfect, so I can't be like Jesus, right? And that that cop out is is along with the same thing that I think most of us take, uh, you know, love, love your neighbor as you love yourself. We take that as a a holy suggestion. Hey, well, that's a sacred suggestion, but it's not even possible. There's no way you could do that, right? Which is not true. Yeah. And we buy into that, and it's not, it fits into that innate passive nature that we have as men, which is if I can, if I can pose or if I can abdicate something and not have to take the responsibility, I will do it. Unless I've got somebody there to poke me with a stick and say, hey, isn't that your wife over there that you need to be taking responsibility for? Or shouldn't you be loving your family and your wife and do things with your family? Shouldn't you be doing that instead of focusing on I want to go out and and support this ministry that's somewhere in Africa? What about your ministry at home? What about your first ministry? What's that look like? So I I I completely agree that that we we look at the ministry of Jesus and it should be the standard that most of us we discount it and we we make the choice. I uh it was put to me this way when I remember in athletics, you make the choice to to play fat and lose close. You know why we we can't be Jesus, so get as close as possible, right? Which is again the lie that we believe and we we buy into and operate from. Yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

So as we as we s as we start to wrap things up here and in this passage as well, John John is is pressing into this idea of practical love now, um, really following the Jesus model and what it looks like in in your immediate area, right? He says, by this we know love that Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers in in verse 16 there. Verse 17, but if anyone has this world's good and sees his brother in need, but closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. And so John's really saying, look, if you want to love like Jesus and if you really do want to be a brother, let's talk about meeting the need. What is the need that's that's glaring you right in the face that your brother has at this moment? Okay, if it's a brother who's broken the law or something like this, he needs a friend who's gonna stand by him no matter what. Right. It's a brother who can't put food on the table. He might need some financial help here. He might need some help figuring out his budget or something like that. See, Jesus, as the gold standard, he stepped forward at the time of our greatest need, which is what was our our sin debt with God, and was willing to pay the price that it cost in order for us to be reconciled to God. That's why He's the standard. He said, I will lay down my life, I'll absolutely die for you. I'll be accused of everything that you did. I'll take on everything that you did. I'll let my own father forsake me so that you could become an adopted child if you say yes to this thing that I'm offering called salvation. And so it's a beautiful model that he gives us, but but we can, we can do this by the power of the Holy Spirit. We can live this out. And it doesn't mean that we don't have to use wisdom and discernment if we're stepping into situations. God wants us to get the facts, look around, be wise stewards of the money and the time and the resources that he gives us, because let's be real. People aren't always honest when they come to us and they lay out the situation. So we we need to dig in. And that's part of helping them be accountable also and helping them grow up in Christ, too. But I was thinking of some things over the years. Roland and I, we've been able to bring entire families into our house in previous seasons to open up our own doors and bring a father, a mother, and kids into our house and help them. We've been able to help help put people into cars, um, pay off debts, donate clothes, toys, money, you know, and have emptied savings accounts various times to do this stuff. We we've all got examples here in the circle, I think. Pay for kids to go to youth camp, all this kind of stuff. And if we're gonna follow the example, it is about meeting the need of the moment. That's how we love life Jesus. We lay down our agenda, our life, maybe our savings account, whatever, to do this thing. And so putting a bow on this thing, though, Jesus has laid it out for us, and John has summed it up. And he says, the a biblical brother, these are two guys, a biblical brotherhood, it's two guys or two gals who are both committed to doing the will of God, practicing righteousness, and loving each other the way Jesus loves each other. Final words before we close it out for today, guys. Josh, anything any thoughts here?

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Um, you know, just on the last, the last part that you touched on there, um, you know, in in that passage in scripture, it says, by this we know love that he laid his laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. Um it just reminds me of of in John 15, 13, I think it says it a little bit more. Uh greater love, yeah. Yeah, it says it says, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. So there's no greater expression of God's love than to than to sacrifice what you want in favor of someone else's needs. I think if we can live that way um in in our lives, if if we can if we can lay down what we want in favor of what our wives need, if we can lay down what we want in favor of what our kids need, if we can lay down what we want in favor of what our brother needs, then we are serving and sacrificing and expressing the love um of Jesus in just a great way. If we can just do that thing, that one thing. And then, and then. Max, final word?

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Yeah, I would say that it's important as we love our brother to realize that we we we don't necessarily need to approach it with a return on investment mentality. I'm gonna love him so that he'll love me in return, or so I get something out of this deal. We as men are very conscious of return on investment. And it's like, well, you know what? I helped, I did this great thing for him. And he didn't even seem like he was gratitude, you know, he was grateful about it. Okay. Well, there's there's no get there's no guarantee that that's gonna happen. Jesus didn't demonstrate love to say, love those who can love you in return. He didn't say that, right? Yeah, he said, love your brother. And when your brother's unlovable, love him. And when even when he doesn't return the love, we still have to love. And that's where it gets the man work, right? I mean, that there's some heavy lifting in that. Yeah. And so the the other thing is that don't love with the intention of controlling their behavior. I I want you to do this for me, so I'm gonna do this for you. That's not love. That's manipulation. And that we could probably do a whole series on that. But important to note here that when I love my brother, I love him so that it it pleases God. Not pleases him or pleases me that it pleases God. Right, Mode.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Wholeheartedly, unconditionally. That's that's the rule. That's what Jesus has set up. Guys, let's walk in in biblical brotherhood. Let's be devoted to doing the will of God, holding each other to that standard that Jesus has set and loving like he loves. Thanks for joining us again, everybody. For Josh Davis, Maxima Werder, I'm Duncan Brandon. Thanks for joining us here on Three in the Fire, a Sentinel Ministries podcast. We'll see you next time. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out there. Hey, before you go, if this blessed you, if this has spoken to you, please give us a like below. Click that little thumbs up right there, share, and subscribe. We need you guys to help us get the word out about what's going on here at Three in the Fire.