Love Acts Like This

1 Corinthians 13:4 | July 26, 2020

So, how are you today?

• Are you tense?
• Are you moody?
• Are you irregular?

Then, you might be a verb.

A verb is a word used to describe action.

There are three main categories of verbs:

• Action verbs
• Linking verbs
• Helping verbs

Now, I am not a citizen of Grammaria, so, please don’t try to police any of these proposed propositional predications.

An action verb is more direct with the subject of the sentence and would be something like…

Jimmy ate the slice of Meathead pizza.

A linking verb links the subject with a noun or an adjective and would be something like…

Jimmy appeared happy with his slice of Meathead pizza.

A helping verb creates some possibility with the subject and would be something like…

Jimmy is going to eat another slice of Meathead pizza.

At the very least we know that Jimmy was able to avoid the Noid.

A student was writing a list of helping verbs on the board.

He wrote:

• Am
• Are
• Is
• Have
• Has
• Had
• Do
• Does
• Did

Then he turned to his teacher and said, “You know if they keep helping them, those other verbs are never going to learn how to work for themselves.”

He’s got a point.

Most verbs are designed to be more than just words on a page.

And there is one particular verb that is designed to be the most important verb of all. 

In fact, if you avoid this verb, not only will you be a big meathead, you will be completely shut out today from all that is good and holy and happy and healthy.

In fact, without this verb, you will be shut out from those things forever. 

So, what is this verb that packs that much power and that much punch and that much importance and that much influence on every second of your life?

The Apostle Paul is going to help us find an answer to that question in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 4.

4 Love…

 

That’s the verb that defines the status of your soul right now. 

Love. 

• Not Valentine’s Day candy love
• Not Rom-Com movie love
• Not even Meathead pizza love

 

No, Paul is writing about the deepest kind of love that can be found among humanity.

• It’s not intimate love
• It’s not family love
• It’s not friend love

It’s what’s known as agape love.

Agape love is self-denying love.

Agape love keeps loving even when love is rejected.

Agape love is when you choose to give value to another person.

And you don’t give them value because they cheer for the same team you cheer for or they support your opinions on politics or pandemics or plans for reopening schools.

Christians choose to love and value other people because they have been chosen and valued. 

John, the disciple of Jesus, puts it very simply like this…

1 John 4:19

We love, because He first loved us.

Agape love is the reflection of the perfect and pure love of God.

Now, our love will never be perfect and pure, but we know what perfect and pure love is because God loved us first. 

And if we are in Christ and we have been saved and rescued and redeemed by the love of God then we will choose to love.

So, first and most, love is a verb. 

Actually, love is the verb.

The most important verb in the universe and in your life is love. 

So, what does that verb look like in action?

Paul tells us…

 

4 Love is patient,

Ugh!

Couldn’t he have started with something else?

Patience!

Paul does not know how to win friends and influence people because nobody wants to hear anything about patience. 

But love, real love, is patient – that means it is long-suffering.

• It means you are willing to put up with a lot
• It means that you aren’t quick to get angry and retaliate
• It means that you aren’t quick to let people get on your nerves

No problem – that sounds super easy, right?

Actually, especially in July 2020, that sounds a bit impossible!

So, how do we love with that kind of patience?

Well, you can’t if you are not saved. 

Does that mean that impatient people are not Christians?

As always, the question is habit. 

Are you known by almost every person in your life as an angry, impatient person and you’ve been that way most of your life?

If so, then for the good of your own soul, you might want to reevaluate that sinner’s prayer from when you were a kid.

But all of us struggle from time to time with impatience. 

But do we struggle with repentance and a desire to change?

Is it our habit to ask our spouse and our kids and our parents and our co-workers and our fellow church members to forgive us?

Or do we just say, “Look, that’s just the way that I am.”

Or do we think, “Well, if they would have done it the right way to begin with, I wouldn’t have to be so impatient.”

Sorry, you won’t find either of those permission slips in the Bible. 

What do you need the most when it comes to dealing with all the different people in your life?

• People who believe in God
• People who don’t believe in God
• People in your family
• People in your friend groups
• People in your work groups
• People in your church
• People on social media
• People in politics
• People at Target

For all the different people, what we need the most is the gospel.

Rick Thomas

If the gospel has not broken you down, you will be not be able to export the gospel to a gospel-rejector.

  

Rick Thomas

A part of this brokenness means that you see yourself as equal to the person you are trying to help, and only the grace of God in your life makes you different.

Rick Thomas

Without recognizing your helplessness apart from God’s grace, your selfless love will turn selfish and retaliatory. 

So, how can we recognize our helplessness?

What kind of fuel can we put in our own hearts and minds to move us toward selfless, self-denying, patient love?

Simon Peter helps us…

2 Peter 3:8-9

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

God is not tardy.

He’s not being lazy.

He is not accidently delaying.  

He is purposely keeping the door to His Kingdom open. 

He is purposely pointing to empty seats at His banquet table. 

He keeps inviting and inviting and inviting.

He is still patiently waiting to receive. 

God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

His divine nature is perfectly filled with:

• Grace
• Mercy
• Compassion
• Kindness
• Love

His desire is for all rebellious, unrighteous people to be saved. 

But he does not and will not act on that desire. 

Why?

I don’t know. 

His ways are not my ways.

Someone might say, “That’s not fair.”

If someone were to commit a violent crime against someone in your family and the person was caught, how would you feel if the judge in the case said…

“You know what? No big deal. Everybody makes mistakes. You are free to go.”

That’s not what you would expect – you would expect justice.

For some reason, though, we seem to expect the Creator of the universe to throw justice to the wind when it comes to our sin.

If true justice is served, the salary and benefits package for our rebellion against a holy God is everlasting terror and death.

That’s where we should start. 

But far too often we don’t start there, do we?

We start with, “That’s not fair.”

Some people say things like:

“My God wouldn’t allow people to go to Hell.”

Unfortunately, we don’t get to create God in our image. 

He is who He is. 

• The Creator of the Universe
• The Ancient of Days
• The Lord of hosts
• The God of Israel
• The Holy One
• The Great I AM

Peter says that God is not being slow.

He is patiently waiting to receive people 

• God is not unable
• God is not uncaring
• God is not unloving

His love is so pure that he longs for everyone to be saved.

• God is the one making the way for things to change
• God is the one making the way for salvation
• God is the one being gracious and merciful and patient

But many people are ready to reject and keep rejecting God. 

Remember Noah?

God could have given Noah the strength and direction to build the ark in 10 or 20 years.

But he didn’t – it took 120 years. 

Why?

For 120 years Noah called wicked people to repent and turn to God – 120 years!

The world seemed to flip on the switch of patient love for about 30 days back in March but for the last 120 days from social media to church plans patient love seems to have disappeared.

By the way, how many people responded to Noah’s invitation?

How many people joined the Church of the Ark?

Nobody.

Far too often, people who mock God’s truth and mock the return of Christ refuse to see or can’t see that God is actually purposely being compassionate and patient with the very people who are mocking Him.

God’s so-called “delay” is meant to keep the door open for mockers to repent and find life, not grow in prideful unbelief! 

There is a lesson there for Christians, too – how many times have we listened to sermons and Bible studies and read devotional books over the last 120 days and completely ignored what we heard and read?

We can blame the governor, or we can blame Dr. Fauci, or we can blame the pastor, or we can blame our frustrated spouse or we can blame our flustered children or we can blame the folks on the International Space Station, but whatever blame game you might play rejecting God’s truth is still rejecting God’s truth.

When we reject God’s truth, we are saying that our way is better, and his way is not important enough for us to apply to our lives.

And if we really consider what it means to reject his truth like that, praise God we don’t get what’s really fair!

God is not slow. 

He really is:

• patient
• compassionate
• full of love

And as believers, because he was so patient with us before we were saved and because he is so patient with us now, we should follow the pattern of our Good Shepherd and choose to love and value others.

We should be patient and long-suffering. 

We should have a long fuse. 

What does that look like in real life?

I was reading a story this week about Abraham Lincoln. 

During the early days of the Civil War, it seems there was a man named Edwin Stanton he was all over the social media of the day criticizing Lincoln.

He called Lincoln a gorilla and a cunning clown.

Did Lincoln know about all the terrible things that Stanton said about him?

The President knew – but he never retaliated – he was patient and long-suffering.

As the record goes, when the time came to choose someone to oversee the war effort, Lincoln chose Stanton.

When he was asked why, the President said, “Because he is the best man for the job.”

From the White House to the State House to the church house to my house to your house, we desperately need that kind of humility today.

Love is a verb.

True, agape love is patient.

But that’s not love’s only action.

4 Love is patient, love is kind

Someone has said that kindness is patience in action. 

That’s pretty good.

Step into a moment with me.

This is describing an actual moment in history, but for the sake of conversation and to encourage those that are struggling with sports right now let’s step into it in a different way.

Imagine this coming Saturday you are sitting in your favorite sports stadium. 

Let’s just say it normally seats 100,000 people but on this day, there are only about 1,000 people (mostly school boosters) and they are all socially distanced in tailgating chairs on the field (I don’t know if the math works for that square footage, but we are imagining).

But you aren’t just one in 1,000 – you are on the starting team.

It’s going to be your job to lead the school and the fans for the next few months through these strange days of sports and pandemic regulations.

Your coach has been way up in the upper deck alone collecting his thoughts and how he has walked down from the highest seat and made his way onto the field.

The tech guys have him mic’d up through the stadium speakers so everyone can hear him, but he walks up to where the starting team is sitting and he addresses them directly and this is what he says…

Luke 6:31

Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.

 

Luke 6:32

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

 

Luke 6:33

If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

 

Luke 6:34

If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount.

 

Luke 6:35

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

After that speech, are you going to stay on the team?

Or are you going to quit because that stuff is not what you signed up for?

Those are the commands of Jesus.

If you profess to be a Christian, those commands are not optional during a pandemic.

You are either with Jesus or you are not. 

We will not and cannot be perfect players and we will drop the ball every now and then and we will miss our block every now and then and we might even get flagged for pass interference, but obeying the coach’s instructions is not an option.

You don’t have to agree with every president and every politician and every pastor and every other person, but you do have to agree with Jesus. 

You are either on the team with him or you are not. 

• Love is a verb
• Love is patient
• Love is kind

What does that type of loving kindness look like in real life?

I was reading this week about a story that was told many years ago by the late Paul Harvey on his radio program.

Carl Coleman was driving to work when the young woman in the car next to him got a little too close and hit his fender.

They both stopped and pulled over.

The young woman looked at the damage to both cars and started crying and apologizing because she knew it was her fault – and her car was brand new and she had only had it for two days.

She started to panic and said she had no idea how she was going to explain this to her husband.

They knew they needed to exchange information, so, still crying, she reached in the glove compartment to grab the envelope with the registration and insurance papers.

When she opened the envelope, she saw a post-it note written in her husband’s handwriting and the note simply said…

Husband

In case of an accident, remember, Honey, it’s you I love, not the car.

The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ says this…

In case of a pandemic, remember, its you I love, not the car…

• Or the school schedule
• Or the CDC statistics
• Or the November election
• Or whether you are meeting in the sanctuary or online
• Or whether you are overwhelmed with fear or anger

The gospel just keeps graciously screaming from heaven…

God SO loves you and he so prized the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him and relies on him and trusts in him and clings to him will not perish and be lost but instead will have safe, satisfying, everlasting life.

The cross of Jesus Christ reminds us that love is a verb and the cross calls us to live out that verb.

• Love is patient
• Love is kind

Message by Dow Welsh |

July 26, 2020 © Holland Avenue Baptist Church

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Above are pre-sermon manuscript notes, not sermon transcript

Sermon scriptures NASB unless otherwise noted

Lots of help from many pastors and theologians

Weekly help from Bruce Hurt at www.preceptaustin.org

https://rickthomas.net/people-you-love-the-most-can-hurt-you-quicker-than-anyone-else/

How are you today? How you doing? Are you tits? Are you moody? Are you irregular? If so, you might be a verb. Yeah, verb is a word that describes action. It's a It's an action Where there's basically three types of verbs, there are action verbs there are linking verbs and there are helping verbs. So three general categories. And I am not a citizen of grim area. So please do not unnecessarily police all of these proposed proposition ALS medications that I'm about to give. But along the lines of Let's look at Action, verbs on action verb is really directed with the subject. So it might be something like this. Jimmy swore foul ate a slice of the meathead pizza. Gay action. There's a direct connection with the subject. Ah, linking verb is going to link the subject with it with a noun or adjective or something along those lines. And so it might be something a little more like this. Jimmy appeared happy with his slice of meat head pizza. Okay, link up with happiness there appeared happy. Ah, helping verb is something that gives it a little bit of possibility. So it might sound like this Jimmy is going to eat another slice of meat had pizza. So So all of these are pictures of how verbs work. What we know, at the very least, is that Jimmy was able to avoid annoyed. You got it's pizza. Okay, that's outworks. There's a student standing at the board riding, helping verbs on the board he wrote AM are is, have, has had, do, Does did. And after you wrote those words out, he turned to his teacher and he said, You know what? If they keep helping, those other verbs are never going to learn how to do this themselves. Truth to that, you know, a verb is not designed just to be a word on a page. Verbs are designed for us to be doing them ourselves. And there's one verb in particular that we need to be doing one verb that is a action verb for sure. In fact, it's the kind of verb that, if you avoid, you will be completely shut off today from all that is good and holy and happy and healthy, and not just today, but you will be shut off forever from those things. We're not just talking about being a meathead here. We're talking about being separated from that which is good and holy and happy and healthy. So what verb has that kind of power? What verb has that kind of punch? What verb has that kind of importance and that kind of influence over every second of your life? We'll see if we can find out Apostle Paul is going to help us First Corinthians Chapter 13 Verse four. Paul writes love, but that's the verb that that's that's a verb that's most important. That's the verb that defines the status of your soul right now. Love. No, we're not talking about Valentine's Day Candy Love. We're not talking about Rahm come movie love. We're not even talking about meathead pizza, love. We're talking about a love that's it's deeper. We're not talking about intimate love or family love or friend love. We're talking about what's known as a Got a love. It's love. That's self denying love that keeps loving when it is rejected. It's love that chooses to value other people, not because they cheer for the same team you cheer for, not because they agree with your opinions on politics and pandemics and plans for school going back. But a Christian chooses to love and chooses to value other people because they themselves have been chosen and loved. John, the disciple of Jesus, put it very simply like this. And first John for 19. We love because he first loved us. Got ta. Love is a reflection of the pure and perfect love of God. No, we are not ever going to be pure and perfect in our love. Okay, that's not going to happen. But we know what Purim perfect love is because we know God and God has loved us first. And if we're in Christ, if we've been saved and redeemed and rescued by the love of God, then we will choose to love. It's it's how all of the math comes together. So love is a Verne, not just a ver. It's fever. It's It's the most important verb in your life, the most important verb in the universe. So what does that verb look like in action? Paul tells continued in verse four. Love is patient. Could you got something else first? Really? Patience. Paul does not know how to win friends and influence people because nobody nowhere wants to hear anything about patients right now? Patients. But love, riel. Love is patient. That means it's long suffering. It has a long fuse. Patient love means you're willing to put up with a lot. Patient love means you're not quick to get angry and retaliate. Patient love means you're not quick toe. Let a lot of different people about a lot of different things get on your nerves. That sounds easy enough, right? No, actually, I would say in July 2020. That sounds almost impossible. Tohave patient love sounds a little bit impossible. So how do we love with that kind of patients? Well, we can't if we're not saved. Things aren't right between you and God. Then you're not going to be able to love with this. Got a kind of love. Now, does that mean that impatient people are not Christians? Everything goes back to toe habits. Okay. Are you generally speaking known by most people in your life to be consistently impatient and angry with everything that's happening? And have you been that way for most of your life? If so, then for the good of your own soul, you might want to re evaluate that Centers prayer when you were a kid. But all of us struggle with patients. We do. We we struggle with the concept of being patient. But do we struggle with repentance? Do we struggle with a desire to change when were impatient? Are we quick to ask our spouse, our kids or our parents or the people we work with? Are the people that we go to church with? Are we quick to ask them to forgive us? Or do we just say, Hey, man, that's just how I am. That's just the way it is. Or do we think things like, Well, if if they would have done things the way I wanted them to doing to begin with, I wouldn't have to be so impatient. Sorry, you won't find either one of those permission slips in the Bible. They're just not there. What do you need the most when it comes to dealing with all the different people in your life, The people who believe in God and the people who don't believe in God, the people who live in your home, the people in your friend group, the people in your workgroup people in your church, the people that you know in the world of politics that people you don't know that you run into target how you deal with all the people in life. What do you need the most? As you deal with them? What you need the most is the gospel. What you need the most for all the different relationships in your life is gospel. Have a counselling, Frederick Thomas. He says this If the gospel has not broken you down, you will not be able to export the gospel to a gospel reject. Er ah, part of this broken. This means that you see yourself as equal to the person you are trying to help. And Onley the grace of God in your life makes you different than them years old, without recognizing your helplessness. Apart from God's grace, your selfless love will turn selfish and retaliatory. So how do we find this helplessness? How do we recognize this helplessness in our lives through the grace of God? How do we fuel our hearts and our minds so that we will move toward selfless, self denying love? Well, Peter has a word to help us. Second Peter, Chapter three verses 89 The Lord is not slow about his promise as some counts Lotus, but is patient torture not wishing for any two pairs, but for all to come to repentance. God is not tardy. God is not lazy. He's not accidentally delaying. He is on purpose, leaving the door to his kingdom open. He is own purpose, pointing to empty chairs at his banquet table. This is who he is. This is how he works. God is patiently waiting to receive. Right now he's patiently waiting to receive, but he will not patiently wait forever. Jesus is coming again. So repent today and follow him. God does not desire that the wicked repairs his his character. His nature is filled with grace and mercy and compassion and patience. This patient love we see in God, his desire is that all rebellious unrighteous people would be saved. That's his desire, all of but he does not and will not act on that design. Why, I don't know his ways are are not my ways. Somebody might say, Well, I don't think that's fair. Let me ask your question. If someone were to commit active of violence, violent crime, get someone in your family and that person was was captured and they were standing before the judge, and the judge said, How you know what? People make mistakes. No big deal. You're free to go. That's not what we have expect. Way would expect justice to be served. But for some reason, when it comes to the creator of the universe, we think that God should just take justice and throw it to the wind. When it comes to our since see the reality, If we really look at the salary and benefits package for rebellion against God, that package is nothing more than eternal, everlasting death and separation and terror away from God away from God. That's where we should start. But if we're honest, we usually start with Well, that's not fair. Some people would even say, Well, my God would never send someone to help. The problem is, is that we can't make God into our own image. He has to be who he is. And according to what the Scripture says about God, he's the creator of the universe. He's the ancient of days. He's the lord of hosts. He's the great I am. He's the Alfa and the Omega. He is holy, Holy Holy! He is God and there is no other. There is no other. And Peter says that God is not being slow. He is patiently waiting to receive people. God is not unable. He is not uncaring. He is not unloving. God, His love is so pure and so perfect. He desires that everyone would be saved. God is the one making a way for things to change. God is the one making the way for salvation. God is the one being mercyful and compassionate and loving and patient. This is who he is. This is what he does. But many people are ready to reject God and keep rejecting. Remember the story about Noah? I mean, God could have strengthened Noah to build the Ark in 10 years. 20 years? Something like that. It was, ah, 120 years. 120 years it took to build art. Don't know why. Because during all of that time, no, uh, I was calling people to repent and turn to God. He was calling people away from death and to life for 120 years. You know, the world back in March seemed to flip a switch of patient love for about 30 days. For about 30 days, it seemed like that the world was going to move toward God. At the very least, the world is going to move toward patient love. But over the last 120 days, whether it's making plans for church or making plans for school or are anything on social media, patient love seems to have disappeared. Those early weeks seemed to be on imagination. By the way, how many people turn to God during those 120 years? How many people hurt Noah graciously call them to repentance and life, and they turned and joined the Church of the Art. How many people? Zero. Nobody mill? No, by 120 years of hearing the gospel and nobody came. See what happens is people who mock God and they mock Jesus is return. They mock in such a way that they can't see our refused to see that God is actually showing them compassion. God is showing mercy and compassion and patience to the people who are mocking him. He's leaving the door open. He's pointing to the empty chairs, and he's saying calm, Please come you know there's a lesson in that for Christians as well. Think back over the last 120 days. How many sermons have you watched online? How many zoom Sunday school classes are Bible studies? Have you been in? How many devotional books have you read? And yet those truths from God that you read and heard and listened to you either ignored you rejected. You forgot or something. But you have not engaged them in your life. They're not part of who you are. You heard God's truth. You saw God Street. You read God's truth. But you have rejected God's truth. Listen, you know, the truth of the matter is when it comes to that kind of rejection, you know, we can blame the president. We can blame the governor. We could blame Dr Frosty. We can blame other politicians, weaken blame the pastor, weaken, blame any person you want to blame. But at the end of the day, when you reject God's truth, you reject God's truth. No one else is responsible for us rejecting God's truth. We've been shown his truth. We've been shown his mercy. We've been shown his grace. We have received his compassion and his patients. What are we doing with to see if we reject God's truth? What we're really saying is our way is better, and God's way is not important enough for me to apply it in my life. Right now. That's the danger zone. It's a big dangers. And when we consider just that one aspect of rebelling against God, rebellion against his truth, rebelling against his way Listen, I promise we should rejoice that we don't get what's fair. No, God really is full of patients and love and compassion. That is who he is. And as believers. He was patient with us before we were saved. He's patient with us now. And because of all this patients that we received from God, we should follow the pattern of our good shepherd. And we should choose to love. And we should choose to value others. Love is a verb and love is patient. Love is patient. We should be long suffering. We should have ah, long fuse. But that sounds like neat Bible language. What does it look like in real life? I read a story this week about Abraham Lincoln, and it seems that in the early days of the Civil War. There was a man named Edwin Stanton, and he was using social media of the day to just constantly criticize Lincoln. He called him a gorilla and a cunning clown. Did Lincoln know that he was saying all these things about it? Yeah, he knew. But he didn't retaliate. He was long suffering. He was patient, president new, but he chose not to retaliate. His fuse was long, and when the time came for him to appoint someone as an overseer within the government of the war, he called on Edwin. And when asked why he did that, he simply said, because he is the best man for the job, from the White House to the statehouse, to the church house, to my house, to your house, this world desperately needs that kind of humility. Love is over, and love is patient. But that's not the only action. Love has this one that Paul says. Next love is patient. Love is kind. Someone has said that kindness is patients in action, like that's good picture kindnesses patients in action step with me into a moment here. This this is an actual moment in history. But but for the sake of conversation and because I know some folks who are struggling with sports, let's just have a little fun with this just for a moment. Imagine that this coming Saturday, You are in your favorite sports stadium, and let's just say that it normally seats 100,000 people. But on this particular day, there's only about 1000 people there. Most of them are school boosters, and everybody's owned the field in tailgating chairs, socially distance and spread out. Now I'm no mathematician. So out enough the square footage in the square footage of the field in the chair. I don't know if the math works, but just imagine there's 1000 people in tears. Everybody spread out and you aren't just one in 1000. You're actually part of the starting team, and your coach has been up in the upper deck all morning. He's been up by himself, alone in the corner, in the highest place, collecting his thoughts, and now he's come down out of the upper deck. He's made his way onto the field, and with all the people there, he's walking over to his players starting team the Tech guys. They've got him miked up so that everybody in the stadium could hear what he's going to say. But he's directing all of his attention to his players. This is going to be the preseason speech, and this is what he says. First, treat others the same way you want them to treat you. They looks around at his players for a moment, he continues. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you for even centers? Love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you for even centers? Do the same if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive. What credit is that to you? Even centers Lin to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. Coach pauses that he looks again at his players. Almost one by one, he looks him in the eye, and then he continues. He says this but love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high. For he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. So after that preseason speech, you're going to stay on the team. Are you going to quit because you're thinking Hey, man, I I didn't sign up for this stuff. Now, this is This is not what I came here for. See, Here's the problem. Those were the commands of Jesus. You're either with him. You're not with him. You're either on the team. You're not on the team. The look is his players in the ministry and the Kingdom of God. We're not always going to everything right, Okay? We're not going to be perfect. We're definitely not going to be perfect. And kindness and perfect patients and perfect in love. We're going to drop the ball every now and then. We're going to miss a block. Every now and then. We're going to get flagged for pass interference. But obeying the coaches instructions is not an option. It's not something we way get to choose to do. Listen, you don't have to agree with every president. You don't have to agree with every politician. You don't have to agree with every pastor. You don't have to agree with every person in your life. But you have to agree with Jesus. I mean, if you're going to claim to be a Christian, you you have to agree with Jesus. So Coach has given us not just those instructions, but many others. And so are we with him or are we without him? Our actions show where we are. Love is a verb. Love is patient and love is kind. But what is that little like in real life? Not not not an imaginary scenario in a stadium. But what is a little like in real life? I was reading a story this week from the late Paul Harvey, something that he shared on his radio program. One day, this story about Carl Coleman. Carl was on his way to work, and the young woman in the car next to him got a little too closed in their fenders collided. So they pulled over on the side and a young woman got out and she looked at Carl's car and she looked her car and she saw the damage. And she bless her. Are she's started weeping. I just started crying. She told cars exams. So sorry. It's my fault. I know it's my fault, but you don't understand. This is a brand new car. We just got it from the brand new car lot. I've only had it for two days, and I have no earthly idea how I'm going to tell my husband that this happened. Then she just kept crying. Carl tried to console her the best good. Well, they knew they would have to exchange information. And so the woman walked around and she opened up the glove compartment, pull out the envelope that had the registration and the insurance papers. And when she pulled the papers out of the envelope on the top of this papers was posted note, and it was her husband's hand writing. And this is what it said in case of an accident. Remember, Honey, it's you. I love not the car. See, the gospel says to us from Jesus. In case of a pandemic, it's you I love not the car, not the school schedule. Not the CDC statistics, not the plans for going back to church, not your anger or your fear. It's you that I love. See the gospel in a screaming whisper from heaven Never stopped saying to us from God. God so loves you, you and he so dearly prized the world that he gave his only son. That whoever would believe in him and trust in him and rely own him and clean to him will not be lost will not perish, but rather will have safe, satisfying, ever lasting life. You see, the cross of Jesus reminds us that love it's a and the cross of Jesus reminds us that his followers of hiss that we have to live out that were It's not an option. It's a gracious command and the energy and the fuel and the gas that we have to do that toe live out that for is because we were first loved. We were first left. Love is patient, Love is kind. Love is patient. Love is guy.