True Love, Part 2

Let's bow for a moment of prayer. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you, Lord, that you are truly the greatest of all, and that you have allowed us the opportunity to worship and to praise your glorious name. And I thank you that we can come together and we can open the word of God and come to understand you and all that greatness, and realizing, Lord, that once we've studied, we realize that you are still incomprehensible, you are still unfathomable, you are still way beyond anything we can ever grasp this side of eternity.

So we thank you, Lord, that we can come together and just receive a little bit of a glimpse of your glory, and thus, having seen you for who you are, live in the light of that glory. Teach us, Lord, this day, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Take your Bible, turn with me to Luke chapter 6.

Luke chapter 6, as we continue our study in the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. And I guess if truth would be known, I guess it would be good for us to put a warning on this sermon. I think that all of Christ's sermons should come with a warning, reading this, danger, danger, danger, those of you who want to live like sons of the most high God. For if you do, it will be hazardous to your health physically and dangerous to your emotional stability. That should be the warning sign on the sermon.

Because once you read it, once you realize what he says, it's absolutely impossible to live that way. Nobody can do that, unless the Spirit of God resides within you. Jesus said, in John chapter 15, verse number 5, without me, you can do nothing. The problem with us is that we assume that we can do a lot of things without the Lord. But Jesus made the warning very clear, without me, you can do nothing. Oh, you can try to do some things, you will fail. Without me, you can do absolutely nothing. He says that in verse number 5 of John chapter 15, and then he says these words in verse number 17 of that same chapter.

This, I command you, that you love one another. Okay, maybe that's not too difficult. Then he says in verse 18, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. He removes the if of verse 18 in verse 19. He says in verse 18, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. When you come to verse number 19, he says, because you're not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, the world will hate you.

That's what Jesus says. Now he said in verse 5, without me, you can do nothing. You must understand that because without me, you can't love one another, and without me, you can't love as I love. And when you begin to love as I love, you will receive the same thing I receive, hate. Now we know that God is a God of love. We know that Christ is love incarnate. And we know that as the children of the living God, the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts, enabling us to love as Christ himself loves.

And Jesus says that if you set out to do what I have commanded you to do, you can't do it without me.

And if you do, because I chose you out of the world, the world will hate you. It is inevitable that the world will hate you, because it hated me. If you live my life, you'll be hated by the world. If you preach my message, you'll be hated by the world. If you don't live his life, the world will love you. If you don't preach his message, the world will accept you. But if you preach his message, if you live his life, the world will hate you. Those are the words of Jesus. So when he preaches a sermon, he preaches it with a warning, beware.

If you want to be like the son of the most high God, you will experience physical danger and emotional danger. It will come your way. It is absolutely inevitable. That sermon is not preached anymore today in modern day churches. Because we want to be like the world. We invite the world to come into our churches, to worship with us, although God only expects true worshipers. So we compromise the worship experience in order to gain the acceptance of the world. And that goes against what God himself has said.

Why is that? Well, the world hates God. God's a God of love, right? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God loves the world, but the world hates God. Because God is not only love, but God is light. And the world hates the light because the light exposes the world. That's why it says these words over in John chapter 3, verse number 19, and this is the judgment that the light has come to the world. And men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.

For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. So here is the God of love coming to the world to love the world, to give his life for the world, and the world hates him. Why? Because he's the God of light. And when the light shines on the world, it exposes the darkness. It exposes the sin that's there. And men love darkness rather than light because they love their sin. And so when the light shines, it exposes the evil deeds that are there.

The Bible says in John 3, the world hates the light. We are called the children of the light. And those of the world that hate the light the most are the religious ones of the world. Religions of the world hate the light because the light is the truth. And the truth exposes the error. And therefore, the religious person, the religions of the world hate the light the most. They hate the people of the truth, and they hate the people who proclaim the truth. And yet, Christ says, we are to go into the world and preach the gospel, to tell people the truth.

And yet, we're going to those who ultimately will hate us because they hate the Lord. Why? Why is it the religious person is so opposed to the message that we preach? Why is it the religious person, and that's the way it was in Israel, it was the religious establishment, the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, it was the rabbis who hated most Christ because they were the most religious. And they hated him with a passion because he was the light and exposed the error of their religion.

Which tells us a lot about religious people because there is nothing more precious to a religious sinner than the illusion of his own virtue, nothing. In fact, in the mind of the religious person, he begins to build, in his own mind, his lofty position before God, brick by brick. He sort of builds this moral monument of the mind. He builds it by doing the things that he believes gain some kind of credibility with God. He does it because he knows that as he begins to build up these bricks in his mind, he builds up this great tower that one day when he dies, he'll be able to build that tower high enough so that he can step off and enter the presence of God.

And then along comes people like you and people like me. And we begin to preach the truth of the gospel. We begin to tell him the truth. All the while, this person has suppressed the truth. All the while, this person who once had a conscience that accused him of sin, now has a conscience that excuses his sin and has built in his own mind this monument that somehow is acceptable and pleasing to God. After all, they've given their lives to doing good. They've given their lives to pleasing God. Acts of kindness, attendance in services, baptisms, whatever God might require, whatever they think that God might require, they do and this monument of their own virtue is built to such a degree that they believe this is what's going to get them to heaven.

And then you come, you preach the truth of the gospel and what you do is fly the proverbial spiritual plane into their tower of illusion and you destroy it. You blow it to smithereens. By telling them, in Romans 3, there is none good, no, not one. There is none that seeks after God. You tell them what the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 64 when he says that all your righteousness is as filthy rags before God. All the right things that you think you are doing are absolutely filthy before a holy God.

You come and tell them that they are a sinner. You tell them that salvation is not by works which they have done but it's by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the spirit of God. That's how one is saved. And you come and you explain to them the truth. You tell them that they are outside the kingdom of God. You tell them that they are rebels and outcasts. You tell them they are hypocrites. They are lost. They are doomed to hell and there is no true worth in them that will ever gain acceptance with God.

You tell them that. Oh, by the way, you do tell them that, don't you? If you don't tell them that, you're not preaching the gospel. You might give them something that sounds good but it's not the gospel. And so you tell them those things and all of a sudden they become absolutely infuriated with you because they have spent their whole life building this monument in their mind that they believe will gain them access to heaven. And you say, no, that monument is worthless. You will die in your sins.

You are separated from God because salvation is a free gift of grace. Salvation comes because of the love of God and the mercy of God and there's nothing you can ever do to earn your salvation. And religious man hates that message. He hates it because he really believes down deep there is something he can do that will please God. Something that God will look at and say, yes, good job.

I am so proud of how much you gave to the poor. You gave more than anybody else. I've got a special place in the kingdom for you. We really do believe that as sinners. See, that's the message that Jesus preached in Luke chapter 4. His first sermon to his friends and to his families.

He preached that sermon, that he came to preach the gospel, but he came to preach it to the poor, to the blind, to the prisoner, and to the downtrodden. And they hated him because of it. He preached one sermon in his hometown, just one sermon. He was back as the itinerant speaker of the day. They had heard all about this wonder man from Nazareth, this man that they acclaimed would be their man because he was from their city and he came to preach one sermon, just one sermon, and they wanted to kill him after he was done.

It helps you understand a lot about how you present the gospel, doesn't it? When you present the gospel and people are infuriated with you, you probably did it right. If they're not, you probably didn't do it right. You probably didn't say it the way the Lord would have said it if he was standing in your shoes. Because you see, when Jesus preached it, they hated him. They wanted nothing to do with that message because it went against their religious establishment. It went against the monument that they have erected in their own minds as to how it is I can get to God.

And Jesus comes and says these words in Matthew 5, he says, verse 20, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Never. And see that offended the scribes and the Pharisees because they were the ultimate religious people of the day. And Jesus says that kind of religion will never save you.

That religion based on human achievement will never save you. It will damn your soul. The only righteousness that saves you comes because of the divine God who accomplishes it for you. That's it. And while they might have been astounded by his words, there was no record of any conversion in Matthew's gospel or Luke's gospel. Because what he said was so contrary to what we're used to. It goes way beyond the gospel that we have heard in churches, evangelistic meetings, wherever we go, maybe on the radio.

We've heard things that don't sound anything like what Jesus says. And that's because we have set our hearts and minds to change and water down the tone of the message because we think the message is too offensive to people. Well Jesus preached an offensive message. It offended the sinner. It's okay to offend the sinner with the truth. Because if you don't offend the sinner with the truth, the sinner won't be one to the gospel. They have to realize who they are before God, that they have no standing before him and they must come to a place where they repent of their sin.

Folks, that's so important. And that's what Jesus came to do. He says later on in John chapter 15, he says, They have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in the law, they hated me without a cause. There was no cause to hate him. Oh, they loved his miracles. They hated his message. As soon as he began to speak, they despised him because he's the God of truth. He's the God of light. He speaks the truth and when he speaks the truth, the light shines on the sinful soul of man.

His sin is exposed. He either repents or he rebels and rejects that message entirely. And that's what Jesus said as he preached the gospel in Luke chapter 6. As he began to explain to the people on the side of the mountain exactly what it was to be a son of the most high God. And so he begins to preach that truth and to expose the error that's there. The question comes, how do you overcome the animosity, the hatred, the bitterness, and the resentment? How do you overcome all that? If Jesus says, they hated me without a cause because I chose you out of the world, they're going to hate you too.

Without me you can do nothing but realize that they're going to despise you, they're going to reject you, they're going to curse you, they're going to hate you. How do you overcome all that? What are you supposed to do? Jesus tells you. You love your enemy. That's how you do it. Sounds a little simplistic, doesn't it? Just love them. Okay. Wow. Whatever that means. Just love them. Just love them. Until he begins to explain how it is we love our enemies. And when we read this, it's almost as if we say to the Lord, you've got to be kidding me.

You can't be serious. But remember Jesus said, without me you can do absolutely nothing. So therefore, the only way you can love your enemy is because there's been a spiritual transformation of the soul. And with that spiritual transformation comes that spiritual proclamation of the truth that enables the enemy to hear and see the gospel. But even at that, most still will despise and reject your message. And you for that matter. Because you preach the truth which is the light of the world and the world hates the light.

See, that's something we have to come to grips with, my friend. We need to understand that. Because Jesus says in verse number 27 of verse number six.

Chapter six, verse number 27, I'm sorry. But I say to you who hear. And that's a great phrase because Jesus will say that over and over again. Remember the seven churches book of Revelation? How does it conclude? You who have ears to hear, listen to what the spirit says to the churches. Jesus would say in Luke chapter eight, as he gave the parable of the sower and the soil. He says, you who have ears to hear, listen to what I say. In other words, Christ is saying those of you who can hear because you're able to hear.

You want to hear. You want to listen. The contrast comes between those who are poor and those who are hungry and those who weep and those who are alienated. Those are the ones who hear because those who are rich and those who are well fed and those who are satisfied and those who are popular can't hear. So Christ gives the contrast. Those contrasts are in verses 20 to 26. So when it comes to verse number 27, Christ says, but to you who are able to hear, those of you who are able to listen, those of you who accept the message, those of you who believe the truth, those of you who are sons of the most high God, because he contrasts the sinner with the sons of the most high.

Those of you who listen, those of you who hear, listen to this command. He moves to the contrast to the command. Love your enemies. Do good to those who curse you. Bless those who hate you and pray for those. Pray for those who reject you, who are against you. This is the command of action. This is how you act. You love, you do good, you bless, and you pray. This is what you do. You are the ones who are already alienated and rejected. He already said earlier in verses 20 to 26, leap for joy when men do this to you.

Why? Because you are associated with those of old and you're able to anticipate your reward in heaven because you prove yourself to be a son of the most high God. And instead of going off into your house, crawling off into a corner, this is what you do. This is how you act toward your enemy. You love them. You do good to them. You bless them. And you pray for them. That's what you do. That's how you are to act. Because that's what God says you're to do.

Now, that's impossible without the Spirit of God transforming your life. That's impossible without God directing your life. That's why Christ says, without me you can do nothing.

If you're sitting here thinking, I can't do that, you're right, you can't. You can't. But God can do it through you because that's what he wants to accomplish. God can do it. And so, we understand that God is explaining to us what true love really is. See, love according to us is nothing like love is according to Christ. Our love is governed by society more than by Scripture. What does society say what love is versus what the Scripture says love truly is.

So, Jesus explains to us true love. He says this, the whole section from verses 27 down to verse number 38 is all about true love. How it is you love your enemy. He says this in verse number 32. This is how the world loves. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. The world loves those who love them. Christians love those who don't love them. Christians love those who hate them. If you love those who love you, you're no better than who?

The sinners, the world. He says, if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you do good to somebody because they did good to you, that's no big deal. Sinners do that. But when you do good to those who hate you, who despise you, who abuse you, well then that's what Christians do, you see. Christ is presenting this huge contrast between the sinner and the Son of the Most High God. People who are in my kingdom are completely different than those outside the kingdom.

Those who are called by my name are different than those who are not. He says this, 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. So if you lend to somebody because they lent to you, no big deal. That's what sinners do. That's what the world does. There's no virtue in that. There's no virtue in doing good to those who do good to you. There's no virtue in lending to those who lend to you. There's no virtue in loving those who love you.

That's what the sinners do. But, 35, love your enemies. Do good, lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great. In fact, you demonstrate to be the Son of the Most High God. See that? See, that's why the sermon has to have a warning sign on it. Warning, this is not acceptable to all. Not everybody is going to want to hear this sermon. Not everybody is going to want to receive the words of this sermon. Because it goes against everything you believe to be right and to be true. That's why Jesus prefaced these statements in Matthew chapter 5 with these words.

You have heard that it was said by the ancients of old, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemy. See, that went against all Judaism. That went against everything they believed to be right. Because they really believed that because God had designed Israel to be the instrument of purification in the land of Canaan, that God had designed Israel to go in and wipe out idolatry, to go out and wipe out all sinful lifestyle, that they were to treat their enemies the same way.

But never one time in the Old Testament did God ever give someone the personal agenda to return evil for evil or cruelty for cruelty. Never one time did God ever give that to any one person personally. It was for the nation to be instruments in the hand of God to cleanse Canaan from all of its sinful lifestyle. Because the Lord knew that if Israel didn't do that, they would glop on to that lifestyle and they would stray away from the living God and that's exactly what they did. But never one time did God give the personal commandment to return evil for evil, cruelty for cruelty.

In fact, he says, love your neighbor. Of course, they redefined neighbor as anybody who agreed with me. If my neighbor is somebody who agrees with me, not a problem, right? But if someone disagrees with me, they can't be my neighbor, so I don't have to love them. That was their definition. That's how they define neighbor. That's why we looked at Luke 10 last week and the lawyer comes to him and says, well, by the way, who is my neighbor? Because if you can define my neighbor as the one who agrees with me, no problem, I'll inherit eternal life.

But if you define my neighbor as somebody else, other than that, then I got a problem. So Christ gives that whole story about the Good Samaritan, right? To show him that your neighbor is anyone who has a need and everybody in the world, including your enemy, has the greatest of all needs. What need is that? The need of a Savior. And that's the essence of the sermon, this section of the sermon, when it comes to understanding true love. True love. Because this is what citizens of the kingdom do. This is how they live their lives.

They love their enemies. They do good to those who hate them. They bless those who curse them. And they pray for those who mistreat them. That's how you act. Now Christ talks about how you are to react. He talks about what you initiate as a Christian by loving your enemy, doing good to them, blessing them, praying for them. Excuse me. And then he says, this is how you react to them. This is how you respond to them. Because they are, by the way, your enemy. And so this is what he says in verses 29 and verse 30.

He says these words. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. Whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Again, you read that and you think, the Lord can't be serious, can he? What does all that mean? How do you respond? How do you react when your dignity is demeaned? That's number one.

How do you act when your security is diminished? That's number two. How do you react when your generosity is despised? And how do you react when your property is discounted and devalued? How do you respond? How do you react? These are children of the kingdom. These are sons of the Most High God. This is how we live our lives. This is what true love is all about. You need to examine your love life in light of the scripture. How is it you truly measure up to God's standard? Not how do you measure up to the world's standard.

How do you measure up to someone else's standard? How do you measure up to God's standard? That truly is the only standard that matters, right? Because we can't do this in the flesh. This is not normal to the natural man. To the spiritual man, it becomes very difficult and hard. But he seeks to accomplish it because that's what his father demands. But to the natural man, they could care less about any of this. And if you're here today and you care less about any of this, you're the natural man. You're not the spiritual man.

You're the man who doesn't. You're not those who hear. You're those who do not want to hear this message. Those who want to hear, listen.

And say, oh God, help me. I cannot do this on my own. I need your spirit to enable me to accomplish this great and awesome task. Because it's impossible for me to do on my own. And God says, that's exactly why I want you.

Now we can do this thing that I have called true love. So he says, what happens? How do you react when your dignity is demeaned? Text says, whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. So you go to school and you're on the playground. And some kid looks at you and says, I don't like you. So he punches you in the face. So you get right back up and just turn to the cheek too. So he punches you right in the face again. Is that what he's talking about? Something breaks into your house. You put your cheek out there.

Let him slap you in the cheek. Turn to him your other cheek also. Say, kick me again, slap me again. Oh virtue, virtue, virtue. Just keep beating on me, it's okay. Is that what Jesus is saying? Absolutely not. That's not what he's saying. He's talking about your dignity. And it being demeaned. In fact, let me give you an illustration from the life of Christ.

John chapter 18. John chapter 18. In John chapter 18, it says these words. As Christ is before the high priest. Verse number 19. The high priest therefore questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered him, I have spoken openly in the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all the Jews come together. And I spoke nothing in secret. Why do you question me? Question those who have heard what I have spoken to them. Behold, these know what I said. And when he had said this, one of the officers standing by gave Jesus a blow.

Saying, is that the way you answer the high priest? He struck Christ in the face. It was for the purpose of demeaning his dignity. Now, there were times when Jews, when they followed Christ and spoke for Christ, were whipped. Paul says he was whipped five times. On five separate occasions, he was whipped 39 times. Okay? But before they whipped you in the synagogue, what they did is they brought you up before the synagogue. And they would take the back part of their hand and they would slap you in the face.

Bam! As a mark of indignity. They would do it to embarrass you and to humiliate you. Because that was a sign of supreme humiliation. Christ is saying, accept your humiliation when it comes your way. Now, notice Christ didn't turn the other cheek in John chapter 18 and say, well, I must fulfill the law of the Lord.

Hit me again. That's not what he did. But you must understand that so many times, we don't want to be publicly humiliated. I don't want to be publicly humiliated. Do you? No. So we're going to defend ourselves. We're going to say something that will demean the other person to gain the upper hand. And Christ says, when someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to him the other also.

Accept your humiliation. When someone seeks to demean your dignity, because you stand for truth. Because you live for the sake of the gospel. Accept your humiliation. Because that's true dignity. That's what Jesus himself accomplished. When you are despised, when you are scorned, when you are rejected. It's not talking about physical beatings. I mean, granted the apostles faced those. Remember in Acts chapter 5, they left having been beaten. Excited because they found themselves worthy to suffer for the sake of the gospel.

That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about when someone demeans your dignity. Publicly humiliates you. Because of your stand for the truth. How do you respond? This is your reaction. Accept your humiliation, Christ is saying. Don't defend yourself. Aren't we quick to defend ourselves? Oh, we are. You know, and Jesus didn't have to defend himself. Because he didn't do anything wrong. He just says, look, talk to the people I talked to. You want to know what I said? Just talk. They heard.

Ask them. Because in the mouth of two or three witnesses, everything will be confirmed, right? So talk to them. They slapped him across his face. How dare you speak to the high priest that way? It was a public humiliation. And Christ himself, who had no sin, did not retaliate. Could he? Oh, yeah. He could. He could have spoken a word and they all would have fell all over. They all would have died. They would have been incinerated just by speaking a word. Had the greatest of all power, yet he withheld that power.

And vengeance is his. He will repay. Vengeance is not yours, nor is it mine. It's the Lord's. He gives another illustration. He says this. Whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. What happens when your security is diminished? Now, in those days, they had an undergarment and an outer garment. And over in Exodus chapter 22, verse number 26, it says these words. Exodus 22, verse 26. If you ever take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets.

For that is his only covering. It is his cloak for his body. What else shall he sleep in? You see, in those days, they had a cloak, the outer garment, and they had the inner garment. And Christ says, if someone comes and robs you, because that's one of the ways they would persecute you, they would steal you out of cloak.

Because if you've ever been to Israel at night, in the wintertime, it gets really cold. And this is how they kept warm, by having that cloak wrapped around them. And to persecute people, they would rob them. They would take their cloaks away from them and not give it back. And Christ says, if they take your outer garment, take your outer garment.

He says this. Do not withhold your shirt from him either. Now remember Christ? At his crucifixion, they gambled away his outer cloak, his outer garment. Really, what they had done was they stripped Christ completely naked. When people were crucified, they were crucified completely naked. They had no clothes on. So again, when you see one of the crucifixes with Christ there hanging on a tree, recognizable and clothed, it's blasphemous. It's not accurate. It's completely in error. Because that's not how it was.

And so Christ, they gambled away those garments because he was stripped naked. He did not withhold anything from them. And he was in the complete right. Complete right. And then it says, how about when your generosity is despised? Give to everyone who asks you. This is not someone borrowing some money and wanting to pay you back. This is someone who's a con artist and gets money from you so that you can't get it back. He wants to keep your money from you. And so he will, because of your generosity, ask you for money.

Because of your acts of goodness and kindness, you will give him the money. But he'll never return it back. Never return it back. That's why Christ would later say these words, expect nothing in return. These are your enemies. These are not your friends. These are your enemies. And then he gives a fourth illustration. And whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. When your property is discounted, when they steal from you, they rob what is rightfully yours. Do not demand it back. Say, this is ridiculous.

How can anybody live like that? Nobody can really, truly live like that. Nobody can. That's ridiculous. Well, remember, Jesus did. And Jesus expects us to be like him. Paul would say, these words, book of Ephesians, Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, in offering and sacrifice to God, as a fragrant aroma. We are to be imitators of God. We are to walk in love. Just as he loved us. Just as he gave himself up for us.

And he gave himself up for us while we were the enemies of Christ. See, that's the example. You know, in front of our bulletin we had this philosophy of ministry. Our passion is to pursue him. We need to know Christ. But our priority is to portray him. Remember that? Our purpose is to proclaim him. And our practice is to praise him. But our priority is to portray him. Well, we want to portray him until it comes to loving our enemies. Doing good to those who hate us. Blessing those who curse us. And praying for those who mistreat us.

Or we want to portray him until someone robs us. You see, the world says, I will love you until you abuse me. I will love you until you defraud me. I will love you until you do something to mistreat me. Then all love is off. No more love. It's over. That's what the world says. That's not what the Christian says. The Christian says, I want to portray Christ. I want to be imitators of Christ. I want to love as he loved. See that? See, it goes completely contrary to what we hear every single day. You see, that's the Christian life.

The Christian life is the supernatural life. It's not the natural life. It is a supernatural life controlled by a supernatural God. Moving in and among his people to accomplish his purposes so that the world actually sees the love of Christ in you. That's what Christianity is. We don't understand Christianity. We don't understand the message that Christ preached. It's no wonder everybody hated him. I'm not going to do this. You've got to be kidding me. Now, doing this does not save you and doing this does not make you acceptable to God because the unbeliever can't do this.

The unbeliever doesn't want to do this. And the unbeliever is angered when he hears that this is what he's supposed to do. On the other hand, the believer says, I can't do that. But Lord, if this is your plan for my life, I need your spirit to help me accomplish that. Because I can't do it on my own. That's the believer, see? Because that's the one who wants to hear the truth. That's the one who wants to follow the Lord. That's the message of true love. We looked at the contrast. We looked at the commandments.

And next week, we'll look at the components of true love. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today. The testimony of your word. We ask that Lord, you'd help us to love as only you love. It's impossible to accomplish this. It's only possible, Lord, through your spirit energizing our lives. And so we pray for all of us, Lord, that we would be truly sons of the Most High God. And we would seek to fulfill your plan for our lives because we are the ones who hear. We are the ones who want to follow. We are the ones who want to serve the true and living God.

In Jesus' name, amen.