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Good morning. I love it when I get a feisty crowd. It’s good. Nice. I’m glad this side seems more awake. You guys go get some more coffee. We’ll wait. A couple minutes ago, we’ve been studying the book of First John together. And let me just recap all of John for you. Love, Jesus. Amen. John is writing his book to a new generation of Christians, and John is dying off. He’s the last apostle who followed after Christ, and he he saw a church that within the first few decades, spread so fast out of the city of Jerusalem that it came to spread all over the Roman Empire. And it was because they loved Jesus. They had placed their faith and trust in everything that Christ was. And we do a disservice to ourselves this morning as we study first John and we look into the details of what First John is all about. But we forget the main theme of what First John is, and which is simply love Jesus. John outlined for us the way that we know and recognize that we’re loving Jesus in our life in three ways, he said, first of all, who is the Jesus that you believe in? Is it a biblical Jesus? It’s important. The object of your faith is just as important as the sincerity of your faith. And so John posed the question, who do you say that Jesus is? Do you love that Jesus? The second is, can you recognize from your life that you are loving Jesus? And the third way he gave us to tell is through the way that we are loving one another.
When Jesus comes into your life, it tells us in the Bible that when you place your faith and trust in him, he makes you a new creation, and the Spirit of God dwells in you, and it gives you a new passion and desire for relationship with God and to love other people, because the love that God has extended towards you. Matter of fact, when we were looking at it last week, it got so detailed in the way that he desired to describe for us our love for Christ. And it says in first John four four, you are from God, those who have trusted in him little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And what John identified for us last week is it’s so significant in your position in Christ that what God wants you to see yourself as is a warrior for him. Now, we know that we don’t do battle against people because what it tells us in the Bible, in Ephesians chapter six is that we wrestle against principalities and powers, against spiritual forces. And John said in John chapter four and verse one, test the spirits of God to determine whether or not they are from God, because not every spirit is from God.
Saying that you are spiritual isn’t necessarily a good thing, because one third of every spirit is a demon. In Second Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 14, it told us that even Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light. In verse 15 it said, and his servants as angels of righteousness, or as servants of righteousness. Meaning Satan loves to do nothing more than to pose himself as something positive, something that looks good. But the object of your faith is just as important as the sincerity of your faith. So who do you say that Jesus is? And understanding your position in Christ is important for this world because Jesus said when he built his church, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, meaning that within the church there is such a powerful force that those who are encumbered behind the gates of hell, that the church has such a power in the name and authority of Jesus being overcomers, as this verse says, that you go behind the gates of hell, and you snatch out those who are believing in those false spirits and begin to share with them the love of Jesus. This morning, as John taught us last week about the importance of the truth of our faith, he also shares with us the importance of how we communicate our faith. And today he talks about love.
And I got to say, in talking about love in the Christian life, it’s one of the things that we are most calloused to as people, because it’s one of the things that God pours heavily upon our lives, and we don’t recognize how much we really need something until it’s absent from our life. This love is significant. This love is important. Now think about what God has called me to in just living in Utah. My responsibility just as a believer, not as a pastor of a church, but as someone who loves Jesus. What God has called me to in this verse. To be an overcomer and to live as an overcomer for Christ in this world. I didn’t move here to die. I moved here to live. Does that make sense? No matter how difficult the battle may seem to me in my own spiritual life and world, I didn’t come to here to to die, but to realize in Christ that God has called me to so much more and that I’m an overcomer in him, and to stand out and stand up for Christ and lovingly share who Jesus is and what Jesus can mean to the lives of other people. I think when he mentions that word overcomer, he says it to all of us. I think when Paul said in Galatians 220, he mentions it beautifully when he says, I am crucified with Christ, meaning he did die, he died to self.
But he says, nevertheless, it’s not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. Meaning that the passion and purpose for which he lived in this world was more than just himself. It began to think outside of himself and to look at this world as God sees this world, and to love others the way that God had called him to love, to love others the way that God loves them. And so with that introduction in first John chapter four and verse seven, John begins to share with us about this love. It says in verse seven, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. I’m going to say something profound with this verse. Ready? We were created to love. That’s it. I’m done. We were created to love. And you know, the way that biblical love works itself out is through relationships. In loving, we recognize that what love needs is relationships, because the attitude of love is about giving itself away according to biblical love. And if biblical love is about relationships, then what happens when we love the way that God desires for us to love is that it begins to create community. God desires for us to love one another. I love how God mentions this. He wants us to recognize that from the very get go of the Bible. When he begins creating, he creates. In the first two chapters he says it’s good, it’s good.
He designs the first day and he says, it’s good. It looks so good. Second day it’s good. It looks so good, right? He gets to the end and it’s day seven and he’s got man there. And then all of a sudden he just says it’s not so good. It’s actually says it’s not good in Genesis chapter two and verse 18 Now, morally, God is not speaking here saying he created something and it was bad. What he’s saying is that the creative work isn’t done, and he wants us to as people to recognize that. And so what does God create after that? There you go. I knew that was going to come. He saves the best for last. That’s what you ladies say, right? The best for last. And you guys say second place is the first loser, right? But what he tells us is when he creates us is that he creates us equal, both male and female. He designed us, but he created us equal. And here’s what God wanted us to recognize. When God created us, he created us in his image, which means there are certain characteristics of God that we as people possess, that we can reflect to God in our lives and our own understanding. For instance, different than any other creation, God has given you a spirit, and in that spirit you can create communicate with God. No other creature can do that.
You also possess characteristics that are similar to God to help you relate to him. God is gracious and we can understand what grace is because we as people can mimic that God is truthful. We can understand what that means as God is truthful because we can understand truth ourselves. But most importantly, God is love. And the attitude of love is about giving itself away. And so when God created Adam in his image and he got to the last day of creation and he said, it’s not good, what he’s saying to us as people is that while being created in his image, it does no good to have no other human being to reflect his image. To love is important, and in being created in his image, Adam needed someone to reflect the beauty of God to to show and to share that love for which God had created him, And not only did he need the opportunity to reflect that to someone else, he needed to see the beauty of God reflected back to him through the life of another person. And God said as he created, it’s not good. And we need to recognize the importance of community. And within community is love. The way that we identify whether or not a community is healthy is really seen in the way that they love each other. Is it a biblical love God in creating us with this ability to love? He says he created you with a spirit.
He says that we are to love one another. And the greatest commandment that he gives in all three three of the four Gospels, he says that we are to be fruitful in our lives together and to multiply. Man was not good to be alone, that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works. And Ephesians 210. And so when our interest becomes to love one another, our interest also becomes to be around groups of people, right? Especially God’s community, because God’s community is about understanding what it means to grow in that loving relationship with God, and then encouraging one another to pursue the same thing in our lives, to loving God and loving others with everything that we are. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. Culturally, today, what we hear within our society is that if you really want to learn to love, you got to look within yourselves. Biblically, the Bible says that’s hogwash. It says if you really want to learn to love, look to God, because God is the one who produces the love, the love for which you were created to share and mimic in this world. Look to God for that example in this world to display. I believe that the Bible teaches that you can’t love without first being loved, or it’s difficult to love without first being loved. But I don’t think that the source for which we find love is within ourselves.
I think it’s found in God. After all, he’s the one that created you. He knows you better than you know yourself. In fact, in first John chapter four and verse 19, it tells us God is that love. And for us as people to understand what love is about, it requires us to look to him. You ever notice as people, when we get depressed, one of the worst things that we can do is begin to isolate ourselves. But when you are depressed, one of the things that you want to do is isolate yourself. The Bible tells us that there is a need for us to get outside of ourselves, look outside of ourselves to experience what love is all about. To understand that you are loved. Look outside of yourselves because God is love and God loves you. To understand for the purpose for which you were created, it’s going to desire for you to be with the community and understand how to live in those loving relationships. Let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God. For God is love. I like the way he phrases it in this last half in verse eight. He isn’t saying that the one who who doesn’t love isn’t born of God. I think it’s possible to trust in in God and then walk away from him or not love him.
But he says the one who does love is interested in an intimate relationship with him. Remember it said in first John chapter four, what God has called us to do in all of first John. Really it says in especially in one in verse five, God is light, and in him there is no darkness. And he calls us as people to walk from the darkness into the light. And when we walk from the darkness into the light, the thing that should mark ourselves as a love for God and a love for other people, when that becomes our desire, we’re saying to the Lord, Lord, I’m done knowing the darkness. And what I want to know is you. And so the one who does not love does not know God. For God is love. You think about the way that you came into existence today, us as human beings. We came into existence today simply because the last phrase of chapter eight or excuse me, chapter four and verse eight, God is love. Before there was creation, there was love. The Beatles had it right. We should play that right at the end of the service. Before creation, there was love. How do we know that? Because the attitude of love is about giving itself away. And before there was anything in creation, God’s nature was love. And in his nature of love, he desired to give himself away.
And the way that God desired to give himself away was by making another creature who had the ability to choose free will and to mutually respond to God with the same love that he’s extended to him. God created you in love and in your free will is given you the ability to choose whether or not you should love him back. Without free will, you can’t have love, because love is about the choice. And so in order to understand love, we’ve got to ask ourselves, really, what is love? Because culture today tells us what love might be. But a lot of times it’s not technically what the Bible would call love. Matter of fact, if someone comes up to you and says, I love such and such, maybe the the thing that we should respond to this is what is it that you call love? We said last few weeks ago during the Super Bowl. There’s going to be a lot of guys on Super Bowl Sunday that say, I love wings, right? And in the same breath, when their team scores the touchdown, they’re going to turn to their wife and say, I love you too. And some of them mean that they love wings the same way they love their wives, right. Because they have no understanding of what love means. And so it’s important for us to ask ourselves the question when the Bible talks about love, what is love? Because society will tell us in a lot of counseling experiences that you’ve got to find love within yourselves.
But the Bible tells us that that’s not the source of love at all. You’ve got to be loved, to love and understand what love is, to love and response. But it’s not found within yourselves. And so it says in John chapter four and verse nine. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent his only begotten son into the world, so that we might live through him. He begins to give us an example. Before I explain to you exactly what love is, let me give you an example of how love demonstrates itself. It’s in Jesus. It tells us that God has sent His Son in the world that we might live through him. Christianity isn’t about dying. It’s really about living for the first time in your life to find the reason for which you were created. The source is found in God through Jesus, and in that relationship that we experience with Christ for the first time. It tells us in John chapter, chapter four and verse nine that we begin to live. It says in verse ten, in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Meaning Jesus didn’t love because of what he got in return.
Jesus chose to love because love is about giving itself away regardless of what you get in response. Some of us love for the purpose of hoping that someone else changes, and when someone else doesn’t change, then we stop loving them. That’s not biblical love. It says in verse ten, while you were yet sinners, you still are loved by God. God loves you that much that even when we’re spitting up on his face, he loves and loves and loves. God’s not waiting to be provoked. Love doesn’t wait to be provoked. Love does the provoking. And it shows that demonstration to us in that relationship through Christ. And I get to verses like this. Sometimes when I read them, they seem discouraging to me because I look at a passage like this, I begin to realize that I’ve never really loved like Jesus is loved. You know the only way to begin to love in our lives, the way that Jesus has called us to, is to look at the example of Christ. To understand what it means to sacrifice for the sake of another. To give of ourselves for another person’s well-being. And I tried this week as I thought about this. This is a place of often repentance, maybe of my own heart, but looking at God and saying, man, God, how could I ever begin to love like this? To see the way that Jesus is loved transformed this world to thousands of years later, people that don’t even believe in him still talk about him.
How could we ever begin to hope like this and maybe even say, God, I’m sorry when I fail to love like this, but Lord, may I just continue to use your example to spur me on to be what you’ve called me to be in this world. Try to think of an example this week of the extent of this love. Could you imagine a lot of judicial terms are used in the Bible when it refers to our guilt before God, meaning there’s a lot of phrases where you come before a judge and a judge pronounces you guilty. The word justification and righteousness are used often in the Bible, and the desire is that we want to come before God as a great judge and be found justified or right before him. The Bible tells us the only way that we can do that is Jesus. But could you imagine if you yourself was in a court or in a courtroom and someone’s on trial and that person on trial has conducted a heinous crime against you? Maybe they murdered your child, and you’re sitting there as the judge gets ready to pronounce the judgment on this murderer. And as he pronounces the judgment, you come forward and you stand up in the courtroom and you walk up and you say, now that you’ve pronounced a judgment, judge, I want to take his punishment.
And you didn’t care whether or not that individual had remorse for what he did or not. As a matter of fact, what if the individual didn’t care if you ever forgave him? That’s Jesus’s love. Regardless if you want to seek his forgiveness or not, he still came to this world to offer it. Love is not provoked. Does the provoking. Love doesn’t love because of what it might receive. Love loves to give itself away because within the nature of love, it’s about giving yourself away. Try to think this week, to what degree could I love people like that? How many people in my world am I ever going to impact with that type of magnitude and love? Even in Jesus’s life, when you saw the example in him living in this world, he he really only had three close friends. And outside of that he had the 12 apostles. Peter, James, and John were his inner circle. He sought to to love to that degree. And maybe the question we ask ourselves is, how many people in your life do you love like that? And I’m not just talking about your family. Think outside of your family. How many people have you sacrificed for? Have you thought selflessly over and sought to to love to the degree that Jesus loved? It says in verse seven, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
And so the spurring becomes for us is that we don’t look within ourselves. We look to Jesus for that example, and we begin to love one another because Jesus becomes that example. Love because you’re loved. It’s difficult to love without knowing your love. But the way to find that love isn’t within us. It’s within Jesus. Cultural love teaches us in our society to love the things that are lovely. Jesus is love teaches us to love even our enemies. We were to ask this morning, what is love? The Bible defines for it. First Corinthians chapter 13 and verse three. Paul outlined just a beautiful description of what love is according to the Bible. He says, but if I do not have love, it profits me nothing. And that’s good. Being created in God’s image, that he recognizes the significance of God’s desire for us to love one another. And he says, love is patient. Love is kind. It’s not jealous. Love does not brag. It is not arrogant. Love does not act unbecomingly. It doesn’t seek its own. Love is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but it rejoices in truth. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. It hopes all things. Endures all things. Love never fails. Meaning love more than an emotion is a passion. Because love is the decision of your will. Meaning, there are times in your life where you’re going to wake up and someone’s going to done something to you, where you’re not going to feel like loving them emotionally.
But love is not an emotion. Love spurs emotions. But love is a decision of your will in which it never fails. When you desire to love something in your life, you never walk away from it. Real love tells us in this passage is about sacrifice. You think about this message this morning about love, coupled with what we saw last week, that when God calls for you to be an overcomer and to share his truth, and to do so in love that you think about in your mind right now, who is someone in this world that you just want to see, come to know and trust and walk with Jesus and know that they’re loved by Christ. Who is that person that you think about often? That more than anything, you wish God could just come into this world and and rock their world for him. And just say this morning that someone needs to fight for them, and that God has brought you into their life to possibly be that person, to love them and to share that truth for them. Because John begins to share this. This is amazing how this works. In verse 12 he says, no one has seen God at any time. Exodus 3320 tells us why. He says, if you look on the face of God, you’ll die.
The reason we’ll die is that God is holy and we are sinful. A sinful being can’t come before the perfection that is God. And when we gaze upon God’s face, we lose our life. And so he says here in first John, no one has seen God at any time. It says, though if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. What John is saying to us as a community of people is that God’s love is still living in this world today. We talk about God’s love. It’s not always past tense as Jesus died on the cross and that’s his way of love. God is actively still loving today. And how is he loving through his community? We often say here, the greatest miracle that God really works in this world is in us. So when the Bible promised that when you trust in Jesus and the Spirit of God dwells within you, and a miracle begins to take place in your life, when that miracle begins to take place in your life, you begin to love other people. You demonstrate the nature of God in living. And so what John is saying is that we need to recognize that we haven’t just been loved by God, by dying on the cross, that we continue to be loved through one another because God’s Spirit dwells within you. And what God calls you to do is to be his minister into this world.
He wants to work in you and through you to love other people. We want to see the magnitude of God’s love working in this world. It’s about looking to his church to be that response. This is what makes God’s community so important. Verse 13 he says, and by this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of His Spirit. We can recognize that God is living in us through this love, that we’re abiding in Christ, because our desire is to love one another. You know, my one of my favorite ministries here at church are the ones that we just get down with our community and and love people. For instance, the sub for Santa ministry that we do in Christmas. I love that ministry opportunity because we get to love people who really need love. The mill care team that we do when people have babies. I think the Goldens right now are being cared for by the church. I love that our church family takes the opportunity to go to people’s houses that are in need, especially after they have kids or they’re sick and we love each other. You know that the Bible calls us not to just be humanitarians, but to also share the truth of God in the most loving thing that we can do for someone is to share with them the truth of who God is.
And so John says that we need to act in love, but not only act in love, that we need to share the love. We need to share what Jesus has been to us as an example, and who Jesus can be in their lives. And so he says in verse 14, we have seen and testify that the father has sent the son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed that the love which God has for us, God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. God’s desire for us to share a message. We don’t just stand behind loving deeds. We also need to open our mouths and say where those those things that we do come from. I like what he does in verse 13, notice what part of the Godhead he mentions here because he has given us His spirit. See that in the very last word. And in verse 14, we have seen and testified that the father has sent the son. When we’re loving in a community the way that God has called us to and we’re sharing his truth, the triunity of God is at work and we begin to point one another to Jesus. God has sent His son, and whoever trusts in that abides in God.
This week I had a wonderful opportunity of meeting with an individual who recently came to know the Lord and came from a background of, of which he was confused on who Jesus was. And so I sat down with him at a table after we’d met for a few weeks, and I said, so we’ve studied the Bible together. And and he had placed his faith in Christ and was just trusting in Jesus. And I said, what? What is Christianity to you? What does Christianity stand for? He stopped for a moment and just said, you know, I really think it’s just Jesus. It’s about placing your faith in Jesus and just trusting in him with your life. That’s really what it is. And we as people tend to complicate it with so much more beyond that. I was blown away. Because as I asked that question, you never know what’s going to happen. And so I’m racking my brain thinking, okay, what’s he going to say? What do we want to talk about? From what he’s going to respond with this question, what does he understand? And I’m expecting, you know, all these theological ideas to come out of his head. And all he just says is, is Jesus. But that’s it. When you boil a relationship with God down to its finest point, it’s just Jesus. Jesus gave his greatest commandments to love others and most importantly, to love him.
We can’t love others until we understand what love for him is about the way that God has called us to. God has put you on this world to experience a relationship with him. I begin to so much appreciate after we had this conversation and I was studying First John this week, what he said to think as we read the book of First John, the problem that’s happening in the church is that people are creeping in saying that they know Jesus and beginning to teach about a false Jesus that isn’t Jesus. And on top of that, they’re living a life that contradicts who Jesus is. And John is looking at all this mess within the church, and he could address all the theological issues that they’re facing and, and talk about every detail. But what he gets down to when he boils it down to the finest point is this simply love Jesus. We get so caught up in the junk that comes with religion and life, we forget the most important thing is just to simply love Jesus. And it says whoever loves him abides in him. We have come to know and believe in verse 16 and have believed the love which God has for us through Jesus. And God is love. And the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. If you come this morning and you’re saying more than anything, I want to be close to God and understand why I’m here and why I exist and what God’s purpose is in my life, and I’m going to say to you, the answer is Jesus, just with everything that you have.
Seek after Jesus and love Jesus. Just trust in Jesus. Forget everything that everyone else tells you. I mean, lay the religion and the junk behind and just run after Jesus. You’re not going to go wrong with that. Amen. And John is telling this church I’m I’m looking at the garbage that everyone’s presenting to us and saying, This is God and it’s not God. Love Jesus. I think we’ve driven that point home. You think about history and the effects that Christianity has had on a world because it loves Jesus. Do you know the hospitals that we go to today to care for our needs started in Christian churches and the Roman times, it was believed that when someone got an illness, they were cursed of God. And so since they were cursed of God, they were thrown out of their homes and taught to fend for themselves. Take care of yourselves. You’re sick. You’re cursed of God. We don’t want your curse to spread on us. Was Christians that first recognized that what God desires for them is to even love their enemies, and in their desire to love, they began to build hospitals onto their churches to love each other. Christianity saw the abolition of slavery in the first centuries because of their love for one another.
During the time of Jesus, you’ll see that when he interacts with children and with women, people look at children and and women in a lower degree than, than men. And Jesus began to teach a love and respect for all people. The first groups that started to largely adopt kids across the country were Christian agencies. Science started because of Christians. The idea of science behind science driven was God created this universe and we want to know our creator better. The way that we want to know our creator better is to look into the things that he created. And as we dive deeper into science, we’re going to come to appreciate what God has done more and more. It’s a far cry from where we are today in science, but that’s how science started. The first universities in America were Christian universities, for the purpose of teaching the Bible, that we could further educate ourselves to learn the depths of who God was. The printing press. When the printing press was first invented, it was invented by a Christian man whose desire was to be able to print a Bible, that we could hold it in our hands today, in our own personal studies, get to know the God who created us. All of these inspired because of God. The Red cross was founded by a Christian woman who wanted to love her enemies, and she figured out a way to help them in their time of need.
You think about the way that Jesus has changed this world and what John says for us as believers, when we begin to focus on the love that God has for us, it begins to produce wonderful things. And so he says in verse 14, by this love is perfected within us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because. Because fear involves punishment. And the one who fears is not perfected in love. John’s response to us as people is simply this if you’re worried about the way that God is going to respond to you, it’s perhaps because you don’t know God. Because God is love. And when your desire is to abide in him, what you begin to experience is God’s love. And you’re not worried about any judgment that might come your way because you’re living in his love. You’re living life for him, experiencing his love, enjoying that relationship with him. And and when it comes to punishment, you have no concern because all you’re after is just Jesus in this world. And so he says in verse 19, last three verses we’ll look at together. It says, we love because he first loved us. We don’t love in this world because we’ve found love in ourselves.
We love in this world because we’ve found a greater love in Jesus. Do you ever think if you sought to love yourself by looking within yourself, that the greatest you’ll be able to love yourself is simply by and through your accomplishments? Like, what am I worth? I’m only as worth as much as I can do, and if it’s not much, you’re not going to feel like you should love yourself very much. Jesus has extended his full arm of love and just lavished it upon you. And he says, the response of us has been to love because we’ve looked at his example. Verse 20, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this is the commandment we have from him. Let the one who loves God should love his brother also. I hope this morning that you understand the importance of God’s calling you to love. I hope you see the importance of God’s community that gathers together to love the way that Jesus is loved, and the encouragement we should feel to provoke one another to love the way that Jesus has called us to love, and the passion that we should feel as we go out into this world and love the others of this world the way that God has called us to love.
It’s Jesus provoking in love that caused us to change in this world. And it’s our love to this world that will see this world change for Christ. We pause in a moment like this because love is a verb, meaning it’s about action. And the the fault that we could fall in this morning is we could raise a giant who are all about love and walk out of this door and have no plan to live it in our lives. Think beyond your family for just a minute. Love your family. God wants you to love your family. But God also called you to be fruitful and multiply, to use your family to minister in this world. Who can you think of in your mind right now that you would desire just to love for Jesus, and someone that you want to know Jesus and to grow in that relationship? Because what God has called you to do is to be an overcomer. For him to go out in truth and love and share that you think for a moment if you fail to think of anyone that you can choose to love the way that Jesus has called you to love, then we will fail to live the passage of Scripture that God has called us to live. If you were to start this morning and just open up the Bible and read what God has called us to do, you know what we’re going to get a picture of? God has called us on a mission in this world.
God has called us to respond for him in this world, to go out into this world and make disciples for him. The goal of this world is to make disciples the affections of us as a church, as other people. We always have other people on our mind and loving them for Christ as God presents them to us in this world. Who is it that you can love in this way? Never. Everybody bow your head and close your eyes for just a moment. What I would like for us to do as a church family is first ask the question have you been crucified with Christ? Meaning, have you laid yourself down to Jesus to love Jesus, to trust in him? Now as an opportunity to do that, because you’ll never love this world the way that Jesus desires without first loving Jesus in your life. Second is have you lost yourself in Christ for others? Meaning, for the first time in this world, now that you’ve died to self, to live to Jesus, are you living in this world for others? Are you loving them the way that God has called you to love? You think about someone that’s close to your heart, and maybe pray for them this morning, that you could begin to love them the way that Christ has called you to.