September 21 - Dr Mark Turman - Loving Those You’d Love to Hate

Dr Mark Turman - Loving Those You’d Love to Hate

1 Peter 3:8-18 CSB

00:00 Introduction: The State of Violence
01:03 Critical Race Theory and Its Implications
01:55 Freedom of Speech vs. Speech as Violence
03:31 Historical Context of Violence
05:14 Biblical Teachings on Hate and Love
07:15 Peter's Message of Unity and Compassion
12:36 Living a Life of Truth and Integrity
20:34 The Power of Words and Their Impact
26:12 Darren Babcock's Inspiring Story
31:48 Pursuing Peace in a Broken World
39:05 Conclusion: Embracing Love and Sacrifice

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: The State of Violence
• 1:03 Critical Race Theory and Its Implications
• 1:55 Freedom of Speech vs. Speech as Violence
• 3:31 Historical Context of Violence
• 5:14 Biblical Teachings on Hate and Love
• 7:15 Peter's Message of Unity and Compassion
• 12:36 Living a Life of Truth and Integrity
• 20:34 The Power of Words and Their Impact
• 26:12 Darren Babcock's Inspiring Story
• 31:48 Pursuing Peace in a Broken World
• 39:05 Conclusion: Embracing Love and Sacrifice

Transcript

[00:00:00] Introduction: The State of Violence

Often in the last couple of days. Well, yes, the world is always violent. There are always wars, there's always, uh, attacks. But is there something different about Charlie Kirk? Well, maybe there is. I don't know that it's his age. That could be an argument. It's terrible that the life of a 31-year-old was taken by a 22-year-old.

There's something terrible and unique about that, I suppose, but that's not really it. You could say that it might be the location in the middle of a public college campus that is supposed to be a place of open dialogue and ideas and discussion. That might be one of the things that's unique, the fact that.

That it was a 22-year-old who became so violent toward Charlie. But I think about all of those reasons. Perhaps the most is one that was articulated by Dr. Denison a few days ago. In one of his daily articles, he tried to give us some frameworks, some, some handles about why this is different. 

[00:01:03] Critical Race Theory and Its Implications

One of those reasons is, is that this is a display of what we've come to know as critical race theory.

The idea sociologically, that all of our relationships boil down to this dynamic of one person or one group oppressing the other. And the thing that you must do if you are in the oppressed position as an individual or a group, is you must overcome your oppressor. The only problem with it is, is that that theory of relationship among human beings.

Sets us on a course that ultimately leads us to nowhere but destruction. Because once you become the victor over your oppressor, you're now the oppressor who needs to be overcome by someone else. That's one of the ways to understand violence. It's one of the ways to understand what happened to Charlie Kirk.

[00:01:55] Freedom of Speech vs. Speech as Violence

Perhaps the better reason, however, is that our culture, particularly our younger generation. Has adopted the idea that speech is violence. And if speech is violence, then you are empowered. You have a right to stop the person who is speaking in a way that you don't like, that you find offensive or repugnant or scary.

For all that we know today, that seems to have become the motivation of this 22-year-old assassin, but it runs straight ahead into this core value that you and I have in America. The idea of the freedom of speech, that speech is not violence, speech is the articulation of ideas and that we ought to be able, as Charlie Kirk often stood for.

Perhaps the most quoted statement of Charlie Kirk that I've heard in the last 10 to 12 days is that we have to keep talking because if we stop talking, we will resort to violence. What an ironic statement for Charlie to say a statement, by the way that I've heard from both his fans as well as some of his critics, we have to keep talking.

We'll turn to violence now. 

[00:03:31] Historical Context of Violence

We've been here before, folks. I was born six months prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. My family did a great deal to protect me from a lot of the violence that would come later in the sixties around Robert Kennedy and around MLK, all the way up through Watergate, even to.

The attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. I can tell you exactly where I was, exactly what I was doing, sitting at a table eating a sandwich. When I heard the report about John Hinkley trying to take the life of Ronald Reagan. My family did a great deal to shield me from that, but that was an even more violent era than even this one perhaps, except we now carry TVs in our pockets.

We can get immediate updates in live brutal video if you're so inclined, and we're more aware. But the reality of it speaks to our hearts that our pride as well as our fear, has become the soil of our anger in which the seeds of anger grow ultimately into this very short and powerful word called hate.

That hate both then and now bears the fruit of violence. And if we continue down this road, our lives will become more empty. Our democracy will in fact be threatened as it always has been. 

[00:05:14] Biblical Teachings on Hate and Love

It's a powerful word, hate. Jesus used this word on a number of occasions, probably every time he used it. The apostle Peter was within earshot.

Let me give you some examples. Jesus said this, mark 13, 13, you'll be hated by everyone because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. John 1714. Jesus is praying just before he is arrested and taken to the violence of the cross, he prays. Father, I have given them your word, and the world hates them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Luke 6 22. Jesus says, blessed are you when people hate you. When they exclude you, insult you and slander your name as evil because of the son of man. Listen to this, rejoice in that day and leap for joy. Jesus says, take note. Your reward in heaven will be great for this is the way their ancestors treated the prophets.

Then he goes on just a few verse later, but I say to you who Listen, love your enemies. Do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Years later, years later, perhaps two decades later, those words of Jesus were still tumbling their way through the soul of Peter.

So he took pen in hand and did what he probably thought was not the easiest thing for him to do. He probably thought, you know what? The apostle Paul's much letter at, much better at writing letters than I am, but I'm gonna give it a shot. And so he takes pen in hand and he writes, first Peter to a dispersed group of believers all over what today we know as Asia Minor.

[00:07:15] Peter's Message of Unity and Compassion

As he thinks about what to say, to share with them and to encourage them about, he comes back around to these words of Jesus. You can hear them echoing in the words that he writes. First Peter chapter three, verse eight. Would you stand together and just listen as I read these 10 verses to you from the word of God, Peter is inspired by the Holy Spirit to write.

Finally, now this is how we know that both Paul and Peter are Baptist. He says, finally, which would make you think he's coming to the end, except he writes two and a half more chapters after he gets done. That's how we know he is Baptist. Finally, he says, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble.

Not paying back. Evil for evil or insult for insult. But on the contrary, giving a blessing since you were called for this. So that you may inherit a blessing for the one who wants to love life and see good days. Let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit and let him turn away from evil and do what is good.

Let him seek peace and pursue it because the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do what is evil, who then will harm you if you are devoted to what is good. But even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed.

Do not fear what they fear or be intimidated, but in your hearts regard Christ, the Lord as holy. Ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you. Yet do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame for it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will than for doing evil.

And then finally in the 18th verse, he points us to the example of Jesus. Christ also suffered for sins once for all the righteous, for the unrighteous that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. God's word for God's people on this. Good morning. Would you have a seat?

God has some goals for us, something he's called us to as his followers. Three simple words. Begin our text in verse eight, that God aspires a better life for us, A life that is characterized by unity, by real, intimate, and connectedness with each other, where we enjoy what the kingdom of heaven is all about, which is wonderful deep connection with God and with each other.

The reason that Jesus said the greatest in all of the law of Moses is this. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself to have unity. And sympathy compassion for each other, caring for each other, which is perhaps the greatest thing about PK Chapel is that we show up here to reconnect with each other, to find out about each other, to pray for each other, to care for each other, to walk with each other through the brokenness of our lives so that we come to grow more and more into what will be our eternal experience that of being family.

Of being sacred siblings with each other in the presence of God, in the family of God, that we have been brought into by the adoption of grace without any merit on our own, and that that experience can be ours more and more, even as the world spends into violence and destruction, the people of God can live a different life and shine that light into this broken world.

If. If we will commit ourselves daily to the practice of tender humility, that's God's aspiration for us. And so in the ninth and following verses, he tells us that if we're gonna pursue this kind of a vision of unity in sympathy and family through tender humility. Then we have to reject some things. We have to reject revenge.

We have to reject evil, both in our words and in our works, so that we can live a life that God can bless and that God can bless others through. We have to commit to following some things and rejecting others. So three simple ideas this morning for how you do this starting this afternoon, and all for the rest of your life.

These are things that you've heard before. These are things that ought to be familiar to you. But Peter comes back to remind the people then and us now that this is what we've been called to. This is the best and blessed life of learning and practicing God's love for us toward other people. What does that look like?

[00:12:36] Living a Life of Truth and Integrity

It means that you speak the truth. It's then followed up by the fact that you live the truth. And outta speaking and living the truth, you intentionally diligently, aggressively, passionately pursue the building of peace in every opportunity that God gives you, whether it's great or small. The first thing he says that if we're gonna live out this vision, vision of a blessed and happy, and joyful life with God in each other, we have to commit ourselves to speaking the truth.

And speaking the truth in love. Ephesians four 13. This is the way, the path toward happiness, wholeness, and also loving relationships that a, a blessed life is a truthful life. A lying life is not loving. That's why even from the earliest days of the Bible, we learned the 10 commandments. 10 commandments, uh, give us a framework for how God wants to bless our lives.

Number eight says, do not bear what? False witness don't lie. Now, why do we do that? Why are we so prone to this? It's not like you can just simply put people in small categories or simple categories of either. He's honest or she's not. The bottom line of it is, folks, we all lie. We may not mean to, but we come to it very early in life.

By the time we're four or five years of age, we start to realize that our grandchildren amazing as they are. All a sudden they start skewing the story. They start not quite telling you all the facts. Sometimes they just look you dead in the eye and bold face lie. Why do we do that? It's part of our broken nature.

I was talking to my older brother on the phone last night while he was driving home to Austin. He's like, why are we drawn to all of the bad things in life? Why can't the news ever be about something good? It. Why is it always about people lying and cheating and stealing? It's because that's the brokenness in in us no less a hero folks than Abraham, who is called the father of faith in the book of Romans.

You remember the story of Abraham, that he's trying to follow God and he leaves this place called Ur the Chaldeans, and he's going to a place that the Bible says that he has never seen it before. He doesn't know where it is. He doesn't know how to get there, but he's gonna trust God to lead him there.

And so he picks up his wife and his family, allows his nephew a lot to come along, and they start making their way. They end up in what feels like enemy territory. And Abraham is worried that he's not gonna get through this particular nation on his way. And he's worried, in part because his wife, Sarah, is so beautiful that he thinks that they're going to want to steal her away from him.

And so he says to Sarah, Hey, if you get asked, tell them that you are my sister, not my wife. What he didn't count on is that God was so watching after him that God went to the ruler of that nation that he feared and said, don't leave. Don't touch that woman. That woman belongs to that man. Don't get near her.

And that king was so afraid that he acted in obedience and he goes to Abraham and says, what do you do in lying to me? Abraham lied because of fear. All of us are like Abraham, but we're also to a degree like Judas. Why did Judas lie? Why does Judas come up to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane acting like his friend, and approach him and hug him and kiss him on the cheek and act like their best buds?

Why is he lying like that? Because he's manipulating the situation to achieve his agenda rather than pursuing God's agenda. This permeates all of us, and we need the spirit of God's help. Not once, not twice, but every single day to be people of the truth because it is truth that enables us to love. Well, one Corinthians 13, six, the chapter on love.

Love does not delight in evil or injustice or unrighteousness or lying, but love rejoices in the truth. But if you come to sense as I have, would you agree with the person who said that In our culture today, lying is no longer a sin. It's a strategy. It's a strategy, and the church must be different. The church must be a place of truth spoken and lived in love.

Now in this journey of experiencing this tragedy as a nation around Charlie Kirk, I've, I wanna just encourage you go and read Dr. Denison's articles over the last 10 days. He will give you enormous help. If you haven't been following his reading. We did a podcast about this together. You can find that on the Faith and Clarity podcast that might be helpful to you.

But there are critics of Charlie Kirk. There've always been critics of Charlie Kirk, and if I could boil that down to you in a summary as I understand it, it would simply be this. Charlie was, in many ways great at speaking the truth, but it didn't always feel like it was loving. And if you go and trace basically the 12 year ministry of Charlie Kirk from the time that he was 17 or 18 until the time that he left the earth at 31, what you'll see is he gets warmer.

He gets more loving in his comments as you trace his ministry across college campuses. Because guess what? All of us were, well, we were all know-it-alls when we were 22, weren't we? And if you're not 22 yet, guess what? You get to be a know-it-all before long, but after you pass 22. And if God calls you into marriage and then he allows you to be a parent, by the time you're 30, you're gonna realize.

Oh, there's a lot I don't yet know and understand, and the world's a lot more complicated than I thought it was, and there's a lot more good people than I imagined, and there's also some really, really evil people that I didn't even recognize. But whatever the case, we must commit ourselves to being people who speak the truth, live the truth, and do it in love.

Rejecting evil, including the evil of insulting each other and trying to one up each other in the way that we use our words. I think Dr. Denison is right. Speech is not violence, and if we succumb to that idea, our democracy will not operate properly. We have to be people who can speak what we believe in church and out of church.

But we would all agree, would we not? That there are ways that at times it feels like you can weaponize your words. We know that it's not right to go into a, a peaceful theater and yell fire. Right? It's not right to use your words to incite others, but sometimes we do. 

[00:20:34] The Power of Words and Their Impact

When I came into the church as a teenager.

One of the best bonuses of coming into the church where there were pretty girls there and one of them is sitting right here. I can remember every year my pastor would preach on how to build a good marriage, and one of the things he talked about was the way you use your words, one of the best piece of marital advice he ever gave me.

One of the best piece of life advice. He said, watch the zingers. Many a marriage and many a friendship, and many a relationship has been destroyed by a series of little digs. Watch the zingers. You want more information on this? You know, go read the letter of James. He talks a lot about what you do with your words.

Later on in this passage, verse 16, Peter says, keep your conscience clear. One of the most sobering things Jesus ever said about what comes out of your mouth. Matthew chapter 12, verse 36. I tell you on that day of judgment, people will have to give an account for every careless, worthless word they speak for.

By your words, you will be acquitted, and by your words, you will be condemned. Our words are powerful. I don't think they're violence most of the time, but they're powerful. And if we commit ourselves to the truth, then that truth will cultivate trust in relationships all around us. And that trust will ultimately give blossom to unity, to real, meaningful relationship, even with people who don't see the world exactly the way you do.

That has to be followed up folks with living the truth. There has to be correspondence between the message and the messenger. Broke my heart again this week. The all too familiar story, a pastor that I know not far from where I live. After building a wonderful ministry for 25 years, reaching hundreds, not just hundreds, thousands of people.

They just recently and a few months ago celebrated their 25th anniversary as a congregation. And it was announced by the church leaders last Sunday that their pastor had become involved in sexual immorality and had resigned his place of ministry. Now folks, sometimes the criticism of the unbelieving world is justified because of the way that we're living, and it's not relegated simply to pastors and church leaders.

Sometimes it's every one of us in the pew, what my pastor used to call plain vanilla Christians. And the world is not expecting perfection from us. They know that we are works in progress just like they are, but there has to be an eng, a growing sense of alignment, of cohesion between what we say we believe and how we live.

And if there's not, then our message of good news from Jesus is not going to land well. We have to be people who read the word of God and who believe the word of God and who will reject evil and do good no matter the circumstances or the cost. That's why when Peter begins this beautiful, powerful, short letter, the first thing he says is, you are to be holy, even as God is holy.

Well, how does that happen? It happens by you and I surrendering our lives to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in every single moment of our lives. Because if we look in the mirror, we will realize that every one of us, every one of us, is capable of any and every sin given the right set of circumstances.

And if you don't believe that, then watch your back because the devil is gonna give you an opportunity to prove it. Every one of us is capable of any sin given our nature and the right set of circumstances. So Peter says in chapter two, verse one, get rid of five things. He says, get rid of malice. Get rid of deceit.

Get rid of hypocrisy. Get rid of envy. Get rid of slander. Get rid of these things and let your life be characterized by the beauty of God's goodness coming through you. Because the message needs to be enforced and reinforced by a credible messenger. Now, love what he says in verses 13 and 14 when he says, do not be intimidated.

Don't be intimidated by the devil. Don't be intimidated by the world. Don't be intimidated by anybody because if you are living your life. In the truth of God, by the grace of God, with the spirit of God, that integrity will chase intimidation and fear out of your life. If you wanna be free of fear, live obediently to Christ.

As the author, John Mark Comer says, live no lives, so that you are ready to explain your hope in Christ anytime the opportunity comes. Sheila, you got the next picture of this little family. You don't have that picture. Well, that's sad that we don't have the picture. How did I not get you the picture? 

[00:26:12] Darren Babcock's Inspiring Story

I'll tell you the story anyway.

If I had a picture, it would be a picture of a mom and a dad, about 30 years old with two beautiful kids. Uh, about six and four. This would've been the Babcock family. They could have walked into the door of the chapel any day and you would've like, oh, they're one of us. Somebody new to me. But there's a lot more behind that family.

When Darren was 31, he had started a business up in this Seattle Pacific Northwest area with his wife. They got married not long after college and they had these two beautiful boys and they were just taking life by the tail until one day his wife, Marcy, got sick and went to the doctor, was diagnosed with a severe form of cancer, and she died within a few months, leaving Darren as a widower with two small boys to raise.

His family, both in that area of the country and back here in Dallas, rallied around him and encouraged him to come back to Dallas so that he would be in a network of support. So they started moving in that direction. It would take a number of months, and in those intervening months of grief, Darren lost his mind and went off the rails.

Into alcohol, drug abuse, and every kind of broken living that you could imagine. And he arrived in Dallas in exactly that condition. His family rallied around and did everything they could to support the children and to try to bring him out. He finally ended up through the intervention of some spiritual leaders as well as his family.

He ended up in a rehab center and ironically, his mom. Started sending him Jim Denison's daily article while he was in rehab, and God used that to facilitate a spiritual awakening in Darren's life. Darren came out of addiction and he started attending a church. He got discipled by a pastor in Dallas. And one of the ways that he got discipled was they would leave their church and their neighborhoods in the Frisco, McKinney, north Dallas area, and they would go to South Dallas and they would serve in some of the most broken parts of South Dallas around Fair Park that you could ever imagine.

After doing that for a number of months, Darren said, pastor, we're doing this all wrong. We come down here once a month or once every other month, and we give these people about four hours of. Break, and then they go right back to the hell that they're always living in when we're not here. So by this time, Darren's boys were grown, gone to college and starting their early life.

Darren sold his 3,300 square foot home in Frisco and moved, he moved into the village called Bonton, south of Dallas, one of the most broken communities in our entire country, predominantly African American and Hispanic. Bonton at that time was so dangerous that any person that didn't live in Bonton was not admitted into the neighborhood.

They had gates, flood gates, and other kinds of barriers that would keep people out because if you went in as a non-resident, the chances of you coming out were pretty small. Bonton was such a violent area. That even the police department would not go into this neighborhood for the most part. Darren moved into this neighborhood and one of the rules that the local said he had to agree to was this, no matter what happens, you can never call the police.

And Darren agreed. And if you go on the internet and you do a search for Bonton Farms, you will see the redemptive work of Darren Babcock and a whole host of other people who have literally transformed that neighborhood over the last 15 years. They changed the high school graduation rate from something around 40%.

To now 75% of the students going through school in their neighborhood. They created a farm, a small farm in the middle of Bonton in South Dallas because no grocery store would dare open up in this neighborhood. They still haven't opened up in the De Bonton neighborhood, but what they've done is now Kroger gets everybody's grocery list online and it all comes on a couple of big trucks to one of the churches, and everybody just comes to the church and picks up their grocery.

Wouldn't that be a great way for us to do grocery shopping? All because one man felt the spirit of God move in his life to live what the Bible said. Now, that may not be God's calling in your life, but something similar may be what God expects. I love Darren's phrase, his motto for life. Live a life that demands an explanation.

Live a life with Christ. That demands an explanation. 

[00:31:48] Pursuing Peace in a Broken World

One last thing, and that is we have to pursue peace diligently, passionately. Because the world is full of brokenness. This morning I pulled up on my phone the Dallas Morning News just to see if the world had ended and I didn't know it. In the left hand column of the main page of the Dallas Morning News this morning is the long, long story of a little community.

20 miles north of my hometown. East Texas. The town is called Hawkins. Anybody ever heard of Hawkins? Hawkins has 1400 people in it. My parents used to drive up the Hawkins Highway and they would stop right before they got to Hawkins in the Tyler State Park, and that's where they dated when they were teenagers.

What was the story about? A near two year battle in the city of Hawkins that has resulted in the firing of every police officer, which numbered four in total. The firing of the police chief, the likely, uh, criminal case coming against the mayor and several other elected officials so that now this small little community.

Is in absolute turmoil with almost no elected officials and no protection for their community from law enforcement. It's so bad that the Texas Rangers have had to come in, not the baseball team, by the way, and restore order temporarily, as the librarian in Hawkins said, there are people here who will never be able to work together again.

Peace is a joyful, beautiful kingdom value. Jesus said to love those who hate you. He could never say of us, should never be able to say of us that we are to love those that we hate. Because hate should not be in our vocabulary. It cannot be in our heart if Jesus is Lord. If we follow a savior who laid down on a cross and willingly opened his hands so as to become a sacrifice for us.

We cannot hate anyone if this is the king that we follow no matter what the situation, no matter the person, because his presence, his lordship and his love empowers us to a courageous witness, even to people who hate us. So he says here in the 16th, first. Keep a clear conscience before God. I love the way the message translates this.

Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They will end up realizing that they are the ones who need a bath. Isn't that great? Live a life so dedicated to Christ. Whatever mud gets thrown at you, and there will be mud that it'll just slide right off like Teflon and they will end up realizing they're the ones that need the bath.

That doesn't mean you're gonna like everybody. There's gonna be a significant difference. You're gonna experience it time, from time to time. There's a difference between loving people and liking them sometimes, but no matter who they are or what they've done, that you would avail yourself of the blessing of God by loving others the way you've been loved, by not just being a peacekeeper, but by being a peace maker.

Her, and that requires effort. That doesn't require simply the avoidance of conflict. That requires the intentional engagement of blessing. I think it was Andy Warhol who said one time, most of us walk around in life with a perpetual drop dead list. I hope you don't have one. Or if you do that, you will rip it up.

Today. Jesus said that this was so important that if we were coming to worship. If we were coming to sing songs about God and love God, and worship God, and pray to God and listen to God's truth. If we were on our way to worship and knew that somebody had something against us, we were to stop going to worship and go and to try to make that relationship better, they have to balance that.

The Bible also says in Romans chapter 12, as much as is within me, I will be a person of peace. You can't control all the factors sometimes. You have to ask God over and over God, over and over again. God, is there anything you want me to do in this situation right now, in this season and in this day? Is there anything that you want to empower me to do to try to make this relationship better for the glory of God and for the good of others?

One of the organizations that you might want to check out works in the civic and political realm. It's an organization called Braver Angels. You'll find chapters around Texas and even across the nation. The mission of Braver Angels is to bring people with all of their disparate and, and various political ideas to bring them together into conversations with one another that are calm and civil and respectful to allow people.

To, to debate and to discuss their ideas and to try to move forward together in their neighborhoods, their communities, their cities, and even the country braver angels. I think that'd be a good tribute to Charlie Kirk and to many others if we started acting more like that. You know, I'm old enough to remember that if you wanted to call somebody and you didn't have their phone number, you would dial.

Three little numbers. Does anybody remember those numbers? One, four. One, one. Oh, see, there's not even an agreement. Who many? How many of you say four? One. One. How many of you say one? Four. One. One. And some of us, I remember the great, the great crisis that came when I was a teenager, that you now had to put a one in front of the four.

I remember that didn't happen all across the country, but in some segments of the country, you had to add a one. To the 4 1 1 and the 4 1 1 would get you to a thing called directory assistance. Do you know it doesn't exist anymore? In most places, there's no such thing as directory assistance. Some people, when I was growing up, we thought they were really important because they would tell us that they had unlisted numbers.

Ooh, you had be like, did you work for the Secret Service? Or what if you had an unlisted number? Guess what? God has your number, even if you think it's unlisted, even if you've tried to block him on your spiritual phone. He's got your number and he's calling you and me to be people who love the people. 

[00:39:05] Conclusion: Embracing Love and Sacrifice

We would love to hate.

Listen to Jesus one more time and we'll be done. You have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For, he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good. He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous for if you love those who love you, what reward will you have?

Don't even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don't even the Gentiles do that. Be perfect. Therefore. Even as your heavenly father is perfect, let Jesus's example inspire and empower you for here is the gospel message in one verse.

For Christ also suffered for sins, once for all the righteous, for the unrighteous that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh. But made alive in the spirit. Would you pray with me? Jesus, we don't know how to do this and we are not naturally inclined. We are people who sometimes prefer to speak deceit in lies rather than truth, because it might cost us or make us uncomfortable.

Lord, we find it even harder to live the truth consistently on some days. Lord, instead of being peace makers, sometimes we are, we are war bringers on a small or sometimes large scale. God, we need you to change us. We need you to continue to transform us no matter how long we've walked with you. That Lord, your life and your love would inspire and instruct and guide us.

That Lord, you suffered for us in a very severe way. You became a substitute for us on a cross that should have been ours. Your sacrifice was so perfect, so beautiful, so incredible as to be sufficient for all of our sin and for all people across all time. Because you and you alone are the one who can successfully bring us back to God today and forever.

And for that, we praise you. God, bring your love and your light to us in these hard and broken days that we might love, even those who hate us, that they might become by that love one of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, do it in your name and for your glory. And for our good. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.