Sunday Morning Service 8:30AM-

All right, good morning. It's good to see you all. I'm glad you're here. I want to invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started. Lord, we thank you for the day. And Lord, we just thank you another opportunity, Lord, to be in your house, to be in your presence this morning, Lord. Lord, just help us to lift a joyful noise to you, Lord. May it be a sweet sound in your ear.

May your word go out with power. Lord, not returning void, but accomplishing the purpose for which you sent it, Lord. Accomplish your will and your purpose in our lives. We love you, Father. We just want to glorify you this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. God, we just want to say thank you for knowing that we are not who we used to be, Lord. Lord, that our past is dead and gone. And in you, Lord, we have newness of life.

So, Lord, we praise you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. And this morning, Lord, we just want to glorify and magnify you, Lord. Would you guys go ahead and stand with me? This last one? We're not attached to you, Lord. It's that simple, Lord. So, Lord, help us to remain. Help us to abide in you, Lord, daily. God, we just thank you for who you are, for how much you love us, for what you've done for us, Lord. As Pastor Patrick comes this

morning, God, I just pray that you would speak mightily through him, overflow him with your Holy Spirit. Give him the words to speak and give us ears to hear, hearts to receive, and to do your word. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. Maybe seat. Actually, you might go ahead and take some time and greet one another.

Okay, if you could find your seats. I think I gave you a little bit more time than Ryan gives us. So, be nice. All right, if you can turn with me to your, into your bulletins. Inside left side gives you the different weekly gatherings that are going on, the home fellowships, the different studies that are available. Please join in on any of those. If you have any questions, go ahead and

talk to somebody. If you have any questions, go ahead and talk to somebody. If you have any questions, go ahead and talk to somebody. Probably pretty good at pointing you in the right direction, I would assume. As far as happenings this week, continue with your Bible reading plan, of course. Don't do that. Excuse the mess, as we've got the skin on the building. Praise the Lord. The windows are in? Yes, the windows are

in as well. It's an awesome thing. The big thing happened this week, and I'm going to be talking to the big thing happened in this, coming up soon, is the baptism and family picnic, August 3rd. It is a little ways out, but it is coming. It'll be at Paris Park Pavilion from 530 to 7. Baptisms and family swim will take place immediately afterward from 7 to 830. So, we get to eat about the same

amount of time that we get to swim. Okay, I don't know. What do you think? Should we swim longer and eat less? Okay. If you would like to be baptized, speak to Pastor Ryan, but there is a sign-up sheet out on the table, I think, for you to sign up for that, if you would like to. It's not professing. It doesn't give you salvation. It professes your salvation. So, those are all the announcements for now, and I think,

Jared? All right. For our responsive reading this morning, we're going to be in Psalm 29. If you want to stand with me as you turn to Psalm 29, if you need a Bible, there should be one, there in your row. We'll be reading out of the New American Standard so that we all sound the same. I'll read the odd verses, if you'll follow along with Brother Glenn, and the even verses.

Psalm 29. Psalm 29. A Psalm of David. Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name. Worship the Lord in holy array. The voice of the Lord is a voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord is a voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord hues out flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer to calve and strips the forest bare. And in his temple, everything says glory. The Lord sat as king at the flood. Yes, the Lord sits as king forever. The Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. Lord, we just thank you for your word, Lord. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for who you are.

We thank you for who you are, Lord. And we thank you for the peace that you give us, Lord. We thank you for how awesome and mighty you are, Lord. You are big and mighty, God, and you do big and mighty things. So, Lord, this morning, again, as Pastor Patrick comes, I just pray that you would speak mightily through him, Lord. Speak mightily to our hearts. Lord, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Please be seated.

This morning, thank you. Pastor Ryan is taking a much-needed vacation, so pray for his family as they travel out to Colorado. They'll be back, not this next Sunday, but the Sunday after, so he'll be back in the pulpit then. But this morning, I have Pastor Patrick from Calvary, Wichita, so I want to ask you to welcome him.

Thank you for being here, my friend. Good morning. Turn with me, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 5. We might take a running. Let me start at that in chapter 4, but I'm grateful to be here. Calvary, Wichita, since it's love, the Nichols family and the Arc City family have been such a tremendous blessing. I've actually been in Calvary, Wichita, 15 years this week, and some of the first people to welcome our family and to encourage us when we moved out here were all of you guys.

So, honored to be with you to worship this morning. Ephesians chapter 5. Let's do back up to chapter 4. We're going to camp out in just two verses at the beginning of chapter 5 this morning, but I think, as is often the case, our study will benefit from a bit of context. I'm going to read from the New King James, so your mileage may vary. Verse 31, chapter 4, verse 31.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and given himself for us an offering, and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Father in heaven, we are so grateful to be here, to sit at your feet, to hear from your word.

And we're grateful that as we gather here in your name and rejoicing, your presence among us, you are just as present this morning at Calvary, Wichita, Calvary, Elk Falls, Calvary, Wellington, Calvary, Hutch, churches that aren't Calvary's. You're everywhere and every when, all of the time. And Lord, I know that you're with the Nichols family. You're with Ryan and his family in Colorado.

You're with Robbie and Diane this morning. And we're grateful, Lord, that your ways are perfect, your timing is flawless, and your love knows no bounds. We call upon your love now. Would you speak to us? In Jesus' name, amen. So Paul wraps up Ephesians 4, exhorting us, as he so often does, exhorting us about putting off and putting on. He's exhorting us to put off bitterness and wrath and anger, and to put on, to take on kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness.

He's imploring us, in other words, to pursue godliness. Be like Jesus, will you? That's Paul's exhortation at the end of the chapter. Because that is what he's talking about. He doesn't come out and say it, but notice the parallel. God puts aside his anger and wrath. God puts aside the wrath that he had for us, the justice due us, and poured it out on Jesus.

Instead, Jesus who stood in our place. Jesus who asked to be punished for our crimes. Jesus asked that God's justice be poured out on him, so that we could experience the fullness of God's kindness and tenderheartedness, so that we could receive his love. We've received God's love, his grace, his mercy. We who have asked for it. We who have said, yes, God, I'm willing to receive it.

And having received mercy, Paul points out in verse 32, we should be the most merciful of all people. Having received forgiveness, we should be forgiving others as God forgave us. Being patient, kind, gentle toward one another, even as God is all of that and so much more to us. All of that. All of which is context for our text this morning, for our passage.

Because everything that Paul just said, he underlines in the next two verses in chapter five. He tees up what he says next. And what he says next is, therefore, because of that, because that's true, therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. Imitators. Imitators. Pattern your life after. Him, after God, after Jesus. Let Jesus be our example and our guide, which means, verse two, that we're to walk in love.

As Christ has also loved us and given himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. We are loved, Paul says to begin chapter five. We were loved. We are loved. We will forever be loved. And as we have been, are, and will be loved. So too. Should we love. As God in Christ loved us and loves us and eternally will love us, so should we love others.

For the reasons we've been talking about. For all the reasons that Paul just gave us. We're to respond to his love with love. Because love is worship. Paul says incense. Aroma. Typifying adoration. Love. Love is worship of a God who is love. A God who because of his love sent his son to die for us. Love is worship. It declares to our own hearts. It declares to the Lord, this is who we are.

We acknowledge you. We proclaim you. We adore you. Love is worship. Love is also witness. Love is not just adoration. It's declaration. Walk in love, Paul says in verse two. So that people can see it. So that people can see it. So that people can see it. Walk in love and put it on display so that people will wonder. So that people will ask. So people might have an opportunity to discover where that love comes from.

Paul's actually continuing a theme here. We're jumping right into the middle of the book. But Paul's continuing a theme here that he introduced way back at the beginning of chapter four. When he told us, glance back at chapter four, verse one, walk worthy of our calling. Walk worthy of our calling. Live in a way that reflects our salvation, that declares the power of the cross.

Live in a way that reveals the product of the cross to the world. What's the product of the cross? For that matter, what's the power of the cross? Same answer for both questions. The product and the power of the cross is love. Walk worthy of your calling, Paul says chapter four. Walk in worship of God who can't be seen. Walk worthy of your calling, Paul says chapter four. Walk in worship of God who can't be seen.

Walk in worship of God who came after you. Walk in witness of a God who came down from heaven and died to save you. Walk, chapter five, verse two, in love. Paul has a lot more to say on this subject. He's gonna build on this theme for the rest of the chapter, but we're gonna pause here this morning. I think the Lord would have us pause here this morning and consider what Paul just said

and ponder what Paul just said. Because just in two verses, Paul just said a lot. Walk in love. and three small words paul just said a lot three syllables actually but small and simple aren't the same thing things that are infinitesimally small can also be immensely powerful right what happens when we take the smallest atom in the universe hydrogen atom one proton one electron what happens when we take that tiniest of atoms and pry it apart we almost found out in iran last month what kind of power is available what kind what what what what scope what enormity what magnitude of power is unleashed when we obey that simple instruction walk in love what power do those words contain to answer that question and i mean really answer

not just not just wave at it not just you know you know do the dude nod to understand the implications of the phrase walk in love we need to understand what paul means when he says it what god means when he inspires paul to say it that's how i think god would have us spend our time this morning let's talk about love okay i saw the snickers i said let's talk about love and you went all slain dion in your heads i know you did let's talk about love let's talk about us let's talk about life let's talk about trust i'm up here talking about the bible and stuff and you're off and running with slain dion that's one of the problems with trying to have this conversation culture gets in the way

it's impossible to talk to love from i talk about love for more than 60 seconds and not stumble into a song title or a soundtrack or a movie line if only the space occupied in my head by movie lines and secular music lyrics will never be made without love will never be made without love we're occupied by Bible verses instead. A couple of minutes ago, I said, power of love. And you were all here reading your Bibles and being all holy and stuff. And in my brain, I was back at senior prom.

Huey Lewis in the news, power of love.

Half of you are thinking, wow, you're old. And the other half are thinking, wow, you're young. A couple of minutes before that, I said, what is love? And some of you were bobbing your heads. Baby, don't hurt me. Jim Carrey will, Farrell. And if you weren't, now you are, because I put it in your head. And that's just the way it is, according to Bruce Hornsby.

If we're going to talk about love this morning, culture is going to intrude. Song lyrics, things from our past are going to try to distract us. Or I'm going to be trying to wall it all off and trying to not distract myself. So I'm going to just keep going. And I'm going to pretend it's not a thing. And if you need to snicker, snicker. And we're just going to make it through.

But the thing is, is this is part of the problem. The way we think about love, the way we talk about love, it is so commercialized, commoditized, trivialized, that when we come across a phrase like walk in love, we're almost numb to it. It's so easy to sail right past it because we talk about it all the time in such casual terms. It's easy to just blow on. And not ponder the significance of it.

Not consider the magnitude of what Jesus means by it. Or the enormity of what Paul is calling us to in the name of it, in the name of love. What does it mean to walk in love? I've thought about that a lot since becoming a Christian 30 odd years ago. And I've come to the conclusion, and it's not a surprising conclusion, but I've come to the conclusion that a lot of times,

I'm going to say maybe most of the time, it means something different to us than it means to God. To which you might say, yeah, of course, obviously that's true. But I had a conversation last year that convinced me it's even more true than we think. I had a conversation that, this was last year, that prompted me to take a week and just try to pay attention to all of the times, all of the places, all of the contexts, in which I said I love you to someone.

And meant it when I said it. I took a week and I tried to capture, I tried to pay attention to every time I said I love you and how I was using it, what I was really meaning by it. And I gotta tell you, it was sobering. I discovered, for example, you can have six bullet points, by the way, if you're taking notes. And I discovered, for example, here's point number one,

example number one. A lot of times I use the word love when what I really mean is thank you. You brought me a Coke Zero. Dude, I love you. Now, thanking people is good. Being grateful is part of the kindness, it's part of the tenderheartedness that Paul talked about at the end of chapter four, right? Paul actually talks about kindness a lot in his letters. And he expresses,

he expresses gratitude, a whole bunch. And I pause there because I spent time with a pastor years ago, once upon a time, who philosophically, in fact, dogmatically, does not believe in saying thank you. At least not when I knew him. You don't say thank you to another Christian. He was adamant about it. Why? If you're doing it as unto the Lord, if you're doing God's work God's way for God's glory,

you shouldn't need to thank you for me, was his argument. If you're doing something that God told you to do, he'll be the one to tell you, well done, good and faithful servant. I don't want to thank people because I don't want to confuse them about what their motivation for ministry should be. Yeah, I don't buy it. You can probably tell by the way I started down that road

that I don't buy it. If God is our example always in all things, and God says, well done, good and faithful servant, I think it's okay if we express appreciation to each other. I don't think that a mature believer is going to be stumbled if we let them know, hey, you made a difference. Hey, that had an impact on me, and I'm grateful. I mean, that's just basic human kindness.

But love is not the same as kindness. Love is more than kindness. And love is more than saying thank you. If you think about it, saying I love you in response to doing something nice for me, think about it. It's actually a little disturbing. I love you because of what you did. The unspoken implication is if you don't bring me a tasty cold beverage, then I don't love you.

I don't need to. I'm not going to. Which is not what I meant, obviously. But in effect, it's what I said. I love you for the thing you did for me. Except that's not imitating God. That's not walking in love. What had we done for God exactly when Jesus died? When he died for us on the cross? What had we done other than rebel against him? We love him because he first loved us.

1 John 4, 19. Okay, that's true. That's real. That's important. But if we're going to love like him, if we're going to grow to maturity and love like Jesus, then we need to love the people who don't love us, who aren't loving us, who aren't bringing us cold beverages, who aren't giving us any reason to thank them. I said I took a week and tried to pay attention

to the times I talked about loving people and what I actually meant when I did. That was the first one that I noticed. Love is more than appreciating people who do nice things for me. If you're taking notes, that's bullet point number one. There's five more because the list is incomplete. Walking in love is more than appreciating people who help me. That's number one.

Number two, walking in love is more than supporting the people who are helping me. Number three, walking in love is more than supporting the people who agree with me. Second time I caught myself talking about love that week, I was excited about finding someone who was like-minded with me about a particular issue. You said what I, I wanted to say that, but you said it first.

And you said it, oh, you said it so well. Man, I love you. You said what I wanted to say, but you said it better than I would have. Oh, I love you. You rock. I was excited. And it's okay to be excited, just like it's okay to say thank you. It's okay to love the people that we discover unity with, especially about stuff that matters. But what about the people we disagree with?

Touchstone of liberty in our country used to be, I completely disagree with what you're saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That idea has fallen. And by the wayside, it's been replaced by, I completely disagree with what you're saying. And if you say it again, I'm going to get you canceled. And oh, by the way, I'm going to hate you in the meantime.

What happened? What happened is we got away from the Bible. We've gotten away from the Bible. And in getting away from the Bible, we've gotten away from knowing. We've moved away from believing that each of us is created in God's image, precious in his eyes, a soul that. He died for. Where would we be if God's love extended only to the people that God agrees with?

If Jesus' death was only effectual for the ones that God looked at and said, oh, I love him. He thinks just like me. How many of us would ever be saved? The number you're looking for, by the way, is zero. While we were his enemies. Romans 5.10. While we were his enemies, Christ died for us. While we were completely unlike God in every way, while our thoughts, our feelings, our motivation,

our values, our choices were contrary to God, he died for us. And if we happen by chance to find ourselves on the same side as God on a particular issue before we were saved, if we found our interest, our beliefs, our convictions aligned with God on a particular issue, by definition, it was for different reasons. Our motives were selfish. His were holiness.

And yet he died for us. Walking in love is not just for those we agree with or for those who agree with us. That was point number two. Walking in love is also, here's number three, walking in love is more than loving people we understand. Or who understand us. One of the people I found myself saying, I love you most often that week, most weeks, is my daughter.

Not just because she's related to me. My daughter gets me. We are very, very similar. Some of you know her. We don't just look alike, we think alike. We make sense to each other. Which is a blessing to both of us because neither one of us makes much sense to anybody else. Isn't it great when you find someone who just gets you? And the moments that I know that she knows what I'm thinking,

the moments where I know she gets me on a cellular level are the moments that I'm most likely to say, oh, I love you. But in those moments, again, I'm confusing love with gratitude. Love is when someone who doesn't get you, who can't get you, who can't really grasp what it is to be you, goes out of their way to love you anyway. That's my wife. 35 years later, she still looks at me and shakes her head

and says, I do not understand you. I do not begin to comprehend what it's like to be you and I would never make the choices that you make. And then she goes right on working, love, sacrificing to do whatever is best for me. She doesn't get me. But she's used to it by now. And she goes right on loving the one who doesn't make sense, the one that she doesn't remotely understand.

And yet even so, let me add another dimension to this one. In a broad sense, we aren't that different, me and Ann. Up close, yeah, I'm a little deranged. But zoom out, go panorama view, we're both white, we're both college students, we're both college educated, we both grew up in middle America with middle income parents in moderately religious homes and we both had two parents.

So in that respect, we're not that different in the broad scheme of things.

From a macro perspective, it's not that surprising that we'd end up together because racially, culturally, spiritually, socioeconomically, on those levels, we understand each other. We've got the same background, a lot of the same experiences, same assumptions, same values, same priorities. Here's my point. How many of the people that I say I love you to fall into that category?

The people I tell them I love you. The people that I work hard to love. How many of them are people who make sense to me? People whose background I can relate to, whose lives I can understand.

Gotta ask yourself if that's part of why Sunday morning is the most racially segregated time in our nation. Then you gotta ask yourself, how well did God understand us when Jesus died for us? It's a chewy question because on the one hand, God is God and he knows everything all the time and so in a sense, he understood us perfectly, of course. But in another sense, I'm not sure he understood us at all.

We read in Hebrews 5.8, one of the most mind-blowing verses in the Bible, Hebrews 5.8, Jesus learned obedience. In one sense, Jesus never stopped being God, always was, always is, always will be, and as God was, omniscient. But he still needed to learn, the author of Hebrews says. He needed to learn, experientially, what it was to obey God the Father as he lived for the first time as a human.

Jesus had to learn obedience. Ponder that on your own for some time, but let's keep going. When did Jesus learn sin? Answer, he didn't. Not once, not ever. He couldn't. And still be qualified to be a lamb without spot or blemish. So in that sense, he went to the cross not fully understanding us. Because not only is sin entirely contrary to his nature, sin is fundamentally irrational.

Rebelling against a good, true, perfect, loving God, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to me and I'm guilty of it. I'm sure there's a sense in which it didn't. It didn't make sense to Jesus at all. And yet he died for us in spite of it. Want to walk in love? I heard Ray Ortlund say this at a conference a couple years ago. Want to walk in love? Pray that God would give you the opportunity

to lay down your life for someone who doesn't look like you. For someone whose life doesn't make sense to you. Because walking in love is not just loving the people we understand or who understand us. That was number three. Number four. Fourth time I noticed myself saying I love you that particular week was when I noticed somebody making life easy for me. They weren't doing anything for me per se,

but they weren't asking anything of me. They were being low maintenance. Oh, I love the people that don't need anything. You don't need help. You don't need me to go out of my way for you. You don't expect me to do anything for you. You don't expect me to do anything for you. You don't expect me to pick up after you. You're not asking me to spend time or money on you.

Oh, I love you so much.

Every mom can relate to that. You went a half an hour and you didn't say mommy once. Because how do you not love that person? It's easy to love someone when it doesn't require anything. It's easy to love when the person being loved doesn't demand anything, when the act of love doesn't cost anything, except if it doesn't cost anything. Is it love? I'm going to say the answer is no.

David, 2 Samuel 24, 24, David said, I won't offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing. Because offering, worship, is declaring our love. Offering, sacrificing, costs, love, costs. Agape love, others-centered love, is sacrificial love. Sacrificial love implies sacrifice.

And we get this if we drill down to specific contexts. You know, I know that you know, giving isn't giving if you're just digging in your pockets for spare change. Just grabbing the dimes that rattle around in the dryer, in the lint trap. You've had somebody say to you, are you tithing or are you tipping? And you know that ministry isn't ministry if it's limited to the place and times

and contexts and activities of our choosing. If I show up at places and times of my choosing to do the things I want to do with the people that I want to do them with, that's not serving. That's volunteering. And by the same token, love that only loves when it's convenient or easy isn't love. Isn't love. Isn't love. Isn't love. Isn't love. In this case, when I said I love you

to the person who was making life easier for me by being low maintenance, they were loving me. They were going out of their way. They could have been doing other things. They inconvenienced themselves to make sure that I wouldn't be burdened. They made it a point to lighten my load. But when I said I love you, I wasn't really. I was acknowledging their love.

I said, I suppose giving myself the benefit of the doubt, which I usually don't deserve. I suppose when I said I love you, for not asking or anything, expecting anything from me, I suppose I might have been willing to say, I mean, I'm willing to love you at some point in the future in the same way. But was I really? Am I really? Will I really? Do I? Because love is a choice, not an emotion.

You know that. Love is a choice, not an emotion. Love is a fact, not a feeling. Love shows up and puts up and pays up. Do I? With that person, in that relationship, do I put up? Do I pay up ever? Or when I say I love you to that person in that relationship, am I really saying I am so glad I don't have to love you? I'm glad that you're loving enough for both of us.

I'm glad that I don't need to love you. I'm glad that just saying it is enough. How do we remember the meaning of grace? Walk back to children's church. It's probably on a poster somewhere. Grace is God's riches at Christ's expense, right? What would we know if, what would we know of God's love? What riches would we enjoy if it weren't for Christ's expense?

If it weren't for the cross and the price that Jesus paid on the cross, the sacrifice that he made, what would any of us know about love? Walking in love is more than appreciating the people who don't ask us to love. It's loving the people who don't ask us to love. It's bearing their burdens, and it's bearing their burdens without being asked. It's being low maintenance,

even when it costs us to be that, especially when it costs us to be that way. Walking in love is more than acknowledging, acknowledging the people who don't ask or expect us to love. It's loving the people so they won't have to ask. That one was a little paradoxical. Here's number five. Walking in love is also more than valuing the relationships that work for us,

that benefit us. Walking in love is more than appreciating or even reciprocating love in a way that's transactional. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that, Patrick? So the fifth time I remember saying I love you that week, it was to someone who had held up their end of a bargain. They did something for me, and it cost, and I was appreciative, but they did something for me

because I first did something for them that costs me. We exchanged. I said I love you because the transaction was complete. The quid was pro-quote. We'd loved each other the way John, Paul, George, and Ringo taught us to. In the end, the love we take is equal to the love we make. The only problem with that is, once again, that's not love. Those are song lyrics.

Love doesn't love in order to be loved. Love loves because that's what love does. Love loves because that's what love is. And I make that point at every single wedding I perform. Because Paul talks about it later here in chapter five. Paul talks about it when he gets to the part where he's talking about marriage. When we stand before God and witnesses and exchange marriage vows,

we're not promising to love our partner as long as they love us or as well as they love us or in proportion to how they love us. Marriage isn't that kind of thing. At least it's not supposed to be. Marriage isn't a, it's not like hiring a plumber. Hey, I'll give you time, you give me skilled labor. I'll give you money, you give me skilled labor. I'll pay you to fix my sink.

And if my sink stops leaking, I'll pay the bill. But if my sink still leaks when you're done, you're not getting paid. Marriage isn't like that. Marriage is a unilateral, covenant before God and man. Marriage is like the covenant that God made with Abraham. The one that Abraham was asleep for. The one where God swore by himself and said, I'm gonna love you.

And I'm gonna love your descendants. And there's nothing you can do about it.

I have a pastor friend who says that to me sometimes. I love you and there's nothing you can do about it. Which is good, because a lot of times, I try. God loves Israel. In spite of everything that Israel has tried to do about it. All the ways in which they've tried to deny it. When I promised to love Anne, that promise wasn't contingent on Anne being lovely

or lovable or loving me back. I promised to love her the way that Jesus loves me, unconditionally. Except that's not just marriage. That's the love we're supposed to have for everyone. Marriage is a specific example of a general principle. I think we don't, when we start reading what Paul says about marriage later in chapter five, we don't start soon enough.

Verse 21, Paul says, Be subject to one another. Serve one another. For example, husbands love your wives. Wives respect your husbands. Marriage is a specific example of a general principle Paul's articulating here. Marriage is a specific example of a general principle. The Christian life is about loving each other. Paul talks about marriage at the end of the chapter.

He's setting up the idea right here at the beginning. He's reminding us Jesus always loves us unconditionally all the time. And he's exhorting us to love one another the same way. Jesus didn't die on the cross to get anything from us. He was already perfect. He was already complete. He lacked nothing. We sometimes talk about the cross as the great exchange, right?

But what do we actually mean when we say that? We exchange our guilt for his glory. We traded being God's enemy for being his family. So walking in love is not looking for an even trade. Walking in love is not giving in order to get something of proportionate value. Walking in love is giving in order to get something of proportionate value. In order to give.

Love doesn't love because love needs anything or expects anything. Love loves because that's what love does. How much time and energy do I spend loving people who cannot, who will not ever love me back?

Wichita's a community of round numbers 500,000 people. Last time I checked, there were 500 or more churches for that community. And the sad thing is a lot of the churches around town look at the church down the street, down the block, around the corner as their competition. Sometimes we'll send out a flyer about, hey, we've got this musician in town or this speaker in town or this workshop is going on.

And as often as not, the response that we get is, why would I help you build your church?

I thought it was Christ's church. But I know how my sin nature, chirps up when we're making decisions, when we're invited to an outreach on the other side of town. No one from that neighborhood is ever going to walk in the doors of Calvary, Wichita. Why would we go over there? Pastor who's on our church board was scrutinizing our budget. This was several years ago.

And he looked at a particular line item and he said, why is this under missions? And I said, well, it's missions, it's outreach. It's, you know, foreign missions and it's local outreach and it's all kind of in the same bucket. He said, maybe it shouldn't be. Okay, tell me more. He said, well, this particular category, if people respond to what you're doing here,

you'll see them, likely as not, you'll see them in your seats, you'll see them in your church. Is that really missions? Is that really missions? Is that really loving? Is that really serving the lost? Or is that building your kingdom? I said, uh-oh, that's something to pray about. Sixth one. Sixth time I noticed myself saying I love you the week that I decided to pay attention

all the times that I said I love you. Sixth wasn't a conversation I had with someone. It was a conversation I had about someone. It was a conversation I had with my daughter about someone that we both knew. And we were checking in because sometimes I would know things, sometimes she would know things. Hey, how's so-and-so doing? And in that case, she'd had a recent conversation.

Oh, they're working hard. Oh, they're working so hard. They're overcoming adversity. They're making progress in so many areas of their life. And I said, oh, wow, that's great. Oh, I love him. By which I meant, I love that about him. I love that he's working hard and that it's paying off. I love that good things are happening because he's earned them. My daughter's comment was,

yeah, it's easy to love someone like him. One of those things that somebody says lightly that lands heavy. It's easy to love someone like him. And I knew exactly what she meant. It's easy to love someone who wants it and goes after it and does all of it the right way. But then I went away and I asked myself, what about people who are harder to love? We fall into that sometimes.

I fall into that sometimes. I'll look at people. I'll size them up. I'll evaluate them. Do they deserve my love? Are they working hard? Are they doing their share? Are they trying? I can almost always find grace for someone who's trying. I used to coach basketball. When I coached high school basketball, I loved it. I loved supporting and exhorting and spending time with and encouraging the kid

who hustled on every single play even though he was really bad at the game of basketball. But the kid who just played his heart out, I got all day for him. I have a much harder time supporting, spending time with, even caring about the exceptional athlete who doesn't want to put in the work to be just a little bit better. And I'm the same way even today. I can almost always find grace

for someone I think is trying. I almost always have a hard time finding grace for the person who doesn't look like they're trying or who isn't trying in the ways that I'm looking for, the ways that I'm expecting. But where would I be? Where would any of us be if the prerequisite for God loving us was we were already trying? Where would we be if God turned off the faucet of his love

if we stopped trying, if we weren't always working hard, if we weren't continually doing our best? One of my challenges as a partner, a pastor, just being real, one of my challenges, I love teaching. This is my happy place. I don't get the same jazz, street witnessing, evangelizing, open air preaching. Teaching, teaching is easy because you're meeting me halfway.

You showed up, you're leaning in, you got pencils out and notebooks out and your Bible is open. Hey, we're doing this together. That's fun for me. The person who isn't even looking around, the person who is ignoring creation that testifies that God is real, the person that wants to say, yeah, I'm an atheist, you're not even trying. You're not even paying attention.

But which way? Which one of us was trying when God decided to love us? When God softened our hearts so we could perceive him? When God, the Holy Spirit, drew us to him? Which of us was trying when God stooped down to reveal himself to us? When God put people, surrounded us, invaded our lives with people on a mission to tell us about him? To tell us how much he loves us?

Walking in love isn't just for the deserving. Walking in love isn't just for the people we decide are working hard and doing their best. It's for people like us. It's for people who are just the way that Jesus describes us, undeserving. The least, the last, and the lost. So where are we at? What do we know? We know walking in love isn't thanking those who help me,

applauding those who agree with me, appreciating those who understand me, acknowledging those who make life easy for me. Walking in love is not an equal exchange with people who are showing up for me. And it's not helping people who first prove themselves to me. Because what do those six things have in common? Me. And love isn't about me. Walking in love is taking me out of the equation

and living to serve others. Whether they look like me, whether they can relate to me, whether they even know me, whether they deserve my love or appreciate my love or are ever gonna be in a position to reciprocate my love, love is living to bless others sacrificially. Loving others the way that Jesus loves us. Love is about others. Jesus says that almost every time he talks about love.

Luke 6, you can flip there quickly or just listen. Luke 6, Jesus says, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Luke 6, 32, even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you?

Sinners lend to sinners, sinners to receive as much back. No, our program is love your enemies. Do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great and you'll be sons of the Most High. Saying I love you is easy. I do it 100 times a week. Did it 100 times that week, I do it 100 times most weeks. Saying I love you is easy. Actually, loving people, that's harder.

And I was reminded of that again this week, knowing that I was gonna talk about this. I was reminded. How easy it is to love the people who love us, who serve us, who bless us, who do for us. And how much harder it is to love people who are just going through their lives being people. Saying I love you is easy. Saying I love Jesus is easy. Read your Bible, pray every day,

show up on Sunday, try to stay awake. Hey, look at me, I'm loving Jesus. Saying I love you, Jesus is easy. Loving Jesus, being a Christ follower is hard for all the reasons we've been talking about. Because at some point, loving Jesus has to stop being all about the getting, getting fed, getting knowledge, getting counsel, getting support, getting community, getting friends,

getting answers to prayer. At some point, loving Jesus has to stop being about the getting and start being about the giving. The serving, the sacrificing, the participating, the being a blessing, that's walking in love the way that Jesus did. You're in 1 Timothy on Sunday mornings, right? We are too. All through 1 Timothy, Paul's talking about what it is to be the church, right?

1 Timothy 3.15, I'm writing that you might know how to conduct yourselves in the house of God. That's Paul's topic statement for the whole book. Talks about it all through 1 Timothy. He talks about it all through Ephesians. He talked about it all through our time this morning. About how God took a group of people who didn't deserve him. Who fundamentally hated him.

Who could never repay him and just loved them. Loved them while they were yet sinners. Loved them so much he died for them. And then he sent them in the world and said love people that same way. Go into the world and be witnesses of the love that you've seen, of the love that you've received. Love people just like you. People who don't deserve it. People who are never gonna repay it.

Love people who might even hate you for saying it. Because Jesus sent them and he also warned them, right? A lot of times, most of the time, you're gonna go love people and it won't be reciprocated. Be ready for apathy. Be ready for hostility. And decide in advance that it's really not gonna matter. Because that's what love does. Love walks in love. Can I encourage you this week?

Do the experiment that I did. Keep track of the times, the places, the situations where you say I love you to someone. And either in the moment or a little while later when you have some time, take some time and ask yourself and ask the Lord, what did I mean by that? What was I expressing when I said that? And what would be different if I loved you? Loved like Jesus.

Following up on that. Whatever I meant when I said I love you. What would it be like if I put feet to that? What would it be like if I really did? Father, we thank you that you are love. Apart from you, we don't know love. We might wanna receive it, but we're never gonna give it.

But thank you. We thank you that your love dwells in us. And as we yield to your love, as we yield to your spirit, you teach us love, and you empower us to love, and you overflow us with love in ways that might be dramatic or simple. Ways that might be public or terribly private.

Ways that might be obviously impactful or with fruit that only you know. But to walk in obedience, to walk in your ways, to be Christ's followers is to love. Grow us in that, Father. Teach us and continue teaching us to walk in love. How great that God has praised you. And we thank you, Lord, for how much you love us. And thank you for first loving us. If we hadn't done anything, if we hadn't loved you,

we hadn't loved you before, God, but you saw us and you chose to love us, Lord, in spite of our sin and our disobedience, Lord. But as we leave here, your Holy Spirit would go with us and continue just to minister to our hearts, Lord. We love you and we praise you, and in Jesus' name, amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.