Alive in Love

It's grab our bibles, scrab our bibles and turn to First John chapter three.

First John chapter three. If you don't have a Bible with you,

just raise your hand and we're passing those out right now. If you didn't

get a bulletin on your way into the worship center, just raise your hand,

keep it up, and we will find you and we'll get you a

bible or a bulletin. Turn to First John chapter three. And some of

you are like, what happened to Romans? It's coming, Yeah, I

hear you, I hear you, it's coming. It's not even coming next

week though we're taking a three week break from Romans. We'll be back week

after next. But turn to John, first John chapter three. As and

as you do that, I want to introduce to you someone you already know.

You already know mister Seamus Drake as the pastor of Family Discipleship here and

all the good work that he does with our kids and with our students,

and serving as an elder at this church, and so many any other ways

that he serves this congregation. And so if you're like, well, if

I already know him, why are you introducing him to me? Is because

some of you still don't know that that plane is on the runway. Man.

We are sending Shamus out to plant a church, Lord Willing, in

fall of twenty twenty five. Yeah, okay, we can do that,

Lord Willing. In fall of twenty twenty five, there will be another church

in the San Antonio area, like Crossway, and it will be led and

planted and pastored and shepherded by Seamus Drake. So would you please welcome him?

Love, I still love when he has to like kind of go at

mantown. It's just so much fun acting down. Yeah, you have a

beautiful voice. Search you sound it sounds. It sounds good to my ear,

and to the extent that we are continuing to sing and praise in the

name of Jesus, it is. It is a sweet, sweet sound in

the Lord's ears. As we said just a second ago. We'll be in

First John chapter three. I'm just gonna pick up where Pastor Eric actually left

off a few weeks ago when he was talking about practice. If you remember

that practice, everyone who in verse four, chapter three makes a practice of

sending also practices lawlessness. The next thing that he's talking about is love and

the impact of love on us, So I'm gonna read the passage in just

a moment. But I have over the past few years, and I'm sure

some of you have gotten to do this yourself. I've had a few what

I'll call just adventures and parenting and they're you know, they're myriad of these,

but one that has been particularly impact in my life is teaching now two

teenagers how to drive a vehicle and in the not in the country right where

there's like, you know, no people, but in San Antonio, Texas.

And I'll just be honest with you, my wife fully agreed with this

statement in first service. If it were just it's good that there are two

parents in this home. If there were only one of us and she was

the one parenting these children, we would have hired that out. Like there's

no way in the world she would have done that. It's just a particular

kind of stress. Right when I was in high school and I did drivers

education, I was riding around in one of those cars that the driver's ed

teacher had to break right in the in the side. Mine doesn't have a

break. I try. I try to do this all the time when they're

not always doing the thing that they that they're supposed to be doing. But

there's just they don't. You don't just come preloaded with an understanding of all

the things you need to pay attention to when you're driving on the road.

You have to remind them. You have to tell them that you need to

turn on a blinker, you need to tell them you've got to plan ahead.

You have to tell them you have a blind spot because in San Antonio,

Texas, as often as not, maybe ninety nine times out of one

hundred, there's an F one fifty in it, and you have to check.

Like maybe sometimes you just change the lane and be like, oh,

thank you Lord just so much. But yes, it is true. No

matter what size vehicle you drive, you can hide an F one fifty in

your blind spot in San Antonio. It happens, and it happens regularly,

and so you need to be aware of what some of these blind spots are.

And that essentially what John is doing in this passage today. He's saying,

we can be curiously blind to the kind of impact that the love of

God in Christ should have on us. We can be curiously blind as we

look at our life, and we're saying, and he tells us to love

one another. It's really easy for us just to say, I do that

right, and next next lesson, please, I've already I've already got that

one down. John tells us that there are some particular ways in which we

are blind and which we need to just sort of just want to encourage you

today, just sort of check that blind spot just a bit today, because

the impact of some of these particular blind spots is bigger than I have ton

pick up in your life. They could be eternally significant and much more destructive

than an accident can be. His love should and must always does impact the

way that we love one another. As we're going to look at this passage

in John, First John, chapter three, starting in verse eleven, I

want to point out I want to argue to you today that Christ has laid

down his life for us so that we would live in his love. Christ

has laid down his life for us so that we would live in his love.

Let's look what that love is supposed to look like. In First John

chapter three, starting in verse eleven, and be reading from the English Standard

version, follow along with me in your copy of God's Word, for this

is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one

another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one

and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own

deeds were evil in his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers,

that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death

into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no

murder has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love that he

laid down his life before us, and we ought to lay down our lives

for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and seize his brother

in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide

in him? Little children? Let us not love in word or talk,

but indeed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of

the truth, and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns

us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything well love

it. If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God,

and whatever we ask, we receive from him. Because we keep his

commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment that we believe

in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another,

just as he commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God

in him. And by this we know that He abides in us. By

the spirit whom He has given to us. This is the living word of

the Living God. If you got a copy of the bulletin, or if

you like taking notes, we're going to take this in roughly three sections here.

First one is verse eleven through fifteen. God has called us, He's

commanded us in the way that Christ has laid down his life, that we

would live in love first, live righteously, and see this. In verse

eleven through fifteen, he gives us this example. He says, he says,

don't be like Cain. Don't be like Cain who murdered his brother,

because we will know instead that we passed from death into life by the love

that we have for the brothers. The love. This is his message.

It's not exactly a brand new one. He says, this is his commandment

that we've heard from the beginning. And John uses that phrase in the beginning

in this book, he's generally talking about what he means in the beginning of

the Gospel, in the beginning of when Christ came, that time when he

heard and saw and touched with his hands Jesus of Nazareth. This beginning of

Jesus' ministry, but it's an aspect of this message that Jesus had for his

disciples, which in some way was unique for his time because of the way

Jesus was loving his disciples. He was revealing a kind of love and exemplifying

a kind of love that looked like the New Covenant. He was giving them

a flesh and blood example over the course of his ministry and what it looked

like to love righteously the brothers and sisters, a servant hearted, self sacrificing,

laying down your life for the sake of others kind of love, the

kind of love. And John thirteen, when he gives this command, this

new command that I give to you love one another, he had just gotten

done wrapping the towel around his waist and washing his disciples feet, not something

that you saw the Pharisees and the scribes of his day doing. It was

unique and the way he was exemplifying. It was love in this way.

It was this kind of love that was supposed to be the second part of

the Great Commandment when he says, love Lords of God, with your whole

heart, soul, and mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as

yourself, Love God with all you have, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Love one another like this, And nonetheless, I with you probably am

a little bit struck with this example that he gives. He says verse twelve,

we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and

murdered his brother. Now, I've been the last couple of weeks preaching at

Radiant Church in round Rock, and I just asked, I just asked them,

like, is murder a thing that you guys have to deal with on

a regular basis in this body, because I know here at Crossway we're not

regularly trying to exhort one another. Hey, guys, please stop murdering your

brothers and sisters in Christ. That's just not something that we have to do.

So really, Jean, is that are you talking well? I mean,

obviously he's not talking necessarily about physical murder, although the other kind of

murder would also be off the table. Just like when Jesus was talking about

murdering the Sermon on the Mount, we're supposed to remember what he was talking

about there. In Matthew chapter five, Here, in verse fifteen, he

says, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. Now i'd like to

be I can say that I can't remember the last time that I was tempted

to actually murder a brother or sister in Christ, praise the Lord. But

I think that if I said I had never been tempted to hate a brother

or sister, John would call me a liar, rather than hatred, which

John says is actually murder. The mark of the one who has passed from

death to life, who has eternal life abiding in him, is that the

tenor and tone of our life towards one another is a most remarkable kind of

righteous love. In two aspects of this love that John further explains. He

says first that the way we love the brothers is the opposite of evil.

It's righteous. We love one another righteously, we love them in doing righteous

deeds, good things for them, And that when we do this, just

like Cain hated Abel, so also the world is going to hate us,

because there are a few things in the world that's going to spark hatred and

murder more than undermining another person's self made self righteousness. If you expose the

hypocrisy of another human being and there's not a remedy for it, then they

get angry sometimes, and it happens in the world. Do not be surprised

then that the world hates you. Consider what Jesus was doing when the around

the religious leaders. I mean, they got viscerally angry when he would heal

people. Right, who gets mad when a blind person can suddenly see?

Who gets mad when a person who is lame can walk? Well, it

was because he was revealing their hypocrisy. Because as the blind man who was

healed in John chapter nine, he's talking to the religious leaders and he's like,

well, we know that God doesn't hear sinners, and yet we know

some things about this man. His disciples don't wash their hands according to the

traditions of the elders. They even pluck wheat on the Sabbath. How dare

they they? Jesus is the one who gives people sight on the Sabbath.

He casts out demons with the word. He can even raise the dead,

and his message doesn't align with yours. So what do you guys have to

say about that? All of a sudden you challenge their authority at the point

of their self righteousness, and their response is visceral anger. Do not be

surprised then, that the world hates you. Rather than allow the critique of

their self righteousness to expose it and to turn them to repentance, they turned

and they followed him with stones and sought to cancel him in the most brutal

and efficient way that they could. Just like Cain. Cain saw his brother

was a living example of in his mind his own rejection before God. And

thus when he had the opportunity, he was angry and his face fell despite

the fact that God had warned him soon as crouching at your door its desirous

contrary to you, you must rule over it. Cain did not do well.

He did not rule over his anger. He rose up against his brother

Able and killed him. And John tells us the reason why is because why

did he murder him? Verse twelve. Because his own deeds were evil and

his brothers were righteous. Thus Cain was a murderer in his heart before he

spilled his brother's blood, as are we. And the litmus test of our

faith, according to this passage, is the way that we love the brothers

and the brothers and the sisters, not because they're like us, not because

we like them. Although there will be many times in our life when we

come across the most delightful people in the world that we've ever met that are

part of the body of Christ, not all of us are as easy to

love as Richard. Okay, And so that doesn't mean we're not just going

to all sort of morph into loving one another in that kind of way,

right, because the thing is inside this body, it's supposed to look different

inside this body. We love each other because the thing that's most important to

us is the thing that's most important to all of us. And therefore we

love each other for Jesus's sake. J. Carson famously said, very often

from the perspective of social different pfernances, social stratification, the love of Christians

for Christians is nothing other than the love of Christians for enemies, for they

are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus's sake. But

then you might say, well, who could ever possibly hate their brother or

sister. How could you hate a brother in Christ? Well? Have you

ever been slighted or ignored, or passed over or left out by someone over

something you didn't get put into that text thread? Something that was pretty important

to you? Maybe a Christian even did this? Have you ever been hurt

by someone who, maybe in a moment of weakness, actually deliberately said something

to hurt your feelings in the church? Parents, have you ever had interactions

with your teenagers who are professing faith in Christ, and yet they treat you

in such a way that doesn't look like the love of Christ? Teenagers?

Who have you ever? Have you ever had parents who profess the same Jesus

who would treat you in such a way that it doesn't look like the love

of Christ? Friends, have you ever had a theological debate of any kind

with someone in the church with whom you disagree? However small? I have

to throw my own lot into this. A few years back, while I

was the lead pastor our church, there arose such a debate, and over

the course of a few weeks I had in the way that I was leading,

I had almost completely alienated one of our staff guys because he was on

the other side of the debate. There was an issue that we decided and

this was the way that we were going. And I had handled it,

you know, as a good leader shouldn't by memos and by side comments and

just sort of expecting him to just kind of come and lockstep. This is

what we're going to do, this is what we're going to say, we

believe, and this is how we're going to walk in these ways. I

did not handle that well. I had essentially, I had made what amounted

to ultimatums just fall in line, and at some point it got to be

so unbearable and for him to work alongside me in the same building for the

way that I was treating him, that he would just sometimes office in the

next building. He wouldn't even come into the facility where we were. This

went on for weeks, and one day, I still believe it was completely

against my will. I walked down to where he was officing and just asked

if he had a minute, and I just started talking. I sat down

in the chair. By God's grace, I just I just wept over the

way that I had treated him as a brother and treating him harshly and I

just asked for his forgiveness, And in the course of that those moments,

that wall that had been built up between us, that seemed to be made

of granite, crumbled to dust in a matter of seconds, as this man

who still disagreed with me, loved and decided because of Jesus to forgive me

in a manner of seconds. What had lasted for weeks and what was a

legitimate slight became something that just was under the blood of Jesus Christ. And

neither of our positions changed theologically, neither of us actually we still to this

moment, to this day, disagree on thost particular issues. Now he is

a pastor, he's pastoring a church in that city, in that way,

and we still keep up with one another. And over the course of the

next several months after that, even though that sort of thing continued to roil

about in and among our church body, even though he didn't agree with me,

he was one who would defend me from unjust accusations. He kept loving

me. And this was the man who loved me in such a way that

the only excuse use was Jesus, does your love look like that? Frankly,

I doubt very much whether anyone who can't conceive of ever doing anything but

loving their brethren and their sister, and has ever done anything more than play

on the edges of Christian fellowship. When you're invested, you've got skin in

the game, you'll understand why the Bible consistently commands us to love one another.

Because we need to be reminded to love one another. Just exhort you

live in righteous love towards one another, and don't be shocked when it confounds

the world, because you're going to be continually tempted to go back into those

social stratifications as soon as you get outside of the walls of this church.

You're going to be tempted to assume the worst of another person's motives, despite

the fact that you share the same Jesus. You're going to be tempted to

forget that Christ is also in the process of sanctifying them too, and you're

going to be tempted to remember the hurt above all else when you think of

them. Maybe even just avoid them altogether, but just remember that John here

commands us not merely not to hate, but that whoever does not love abides

in death. It's a potential blind spot. Would others, especially those who

are not in Christ, see the way that you love each other, particularly

in this church, and be unsettled by how righteous and right it looks.

Would they see your love and say, well, you must belong to something.

You must belong to that Jesus guy, because righteous and self giving love

stinks to those who are committed to abiding and death. And what do they

say about the way that you live and righteous love towards your brothers and sisters?

Do you love and live righteously towards them? Secondly, pick it up

in verse sixteen through eighteen. It's a practical explanation that we ought to live

sacrificially. God calls us living in love will mean that we live sacrificially.

He says, by this we know that this is the way that we know

love, that He laid down his life for us. The shape of our

love then ought to be just like that, by the way that we love

one another love the brothers. Verse eighteen is esscially a biblical way of saying

that when it comes to love, when it comes to love, talk is

cheap. That means that we know that we are in Christ's love by the

way that we love like he did when he laid down his life for us.

And I know for some of us, we're going to read that and

we're going to say we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers,

and we immediately have this what Paul Tripp calls this, this little inner lawyer

who's going to stand up and say, yeah, I do that. I

love my brothers and sisters. I mean, I do that really well.

And immediately we're going to point to some examples of maybe up comes the case

of our love versus love that is true. The opening arguments are fairly sound,

so we think, because of course, of course we love everybody,

and we're perfectly willing to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Just give us an opportunity. But then the defense rests, and the prosecution

stands and presents us with one potentially contrary piece of evidence. Point one.

If you who say that Jesus laid down his life for you, you who

have the world's goods, it's very practical. If the world's goods the stuff

of life, and you see your brother and sister in need, and you

close off your heart to them, where you withhold compassion from them. How

can God's love abide in you? How can you for whom Jesus laid down

his life not lay down your stuff for your brother and sister in need?

And how can you say that you've been transformed by the love of the one

who, when he saw people in need, when he saw people who were

broken, he had led him to prayerful action, to cries of lament publicly,

to weeping out loud. Jesus is of love, led him to wash

his disciples feet and receive, eat with and associate with the lowly and with

the sinners. And more than that, Jesus wasn't just willing to lay down

his life, He willingly did so. He came to serve, not to

be served, but to give his life as a ransom for many. And

how can we say that we abide in that love if we're not living sacrificially

for our brothers and sisters, especially when they have needs. How can we

be so quick to close off our compassion, even for those who are part

of our church, even for those who are part of our small group.

The closer we get to knowing one another, the more needs we will know

and will arise. What do we do and how do we affect help in

those moments? How can God's love abide in such a one that shows no

compassion at a visceral, gut level that drives us to action, indeed and

truth to alleviate their suffering and to supply their need. We usually tend to

reserve our compassion and our stuff, our material good for the things and for

the people that we think deserve them the most. And quite often that's us

ourselves. And that's part of the danger of living in a supposed meritocracy.

Right. We think of the world's goods or the stuff of earth as those

things that we have at our disposal. We tend to think of them as

really ours, as though they really belong to us. When the Word tells

us that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, we're pretty quick

to obfuscate the fact that the Bible talks a lot about such things, the

stuff of life being the proving ground of whether or not we actually trust Jesus.

And so when we see a brother or sister in need, sometimes we're

quick to maybe we would be really really quick to go help, but to

do so in a way that we're assuming some sort of superiority over them.

Oh, they need our help, right, We would think that maybe there's

some sort of deficiency in them, deficiency in their character if they work harder,

if they just you stick it out for a job for a little longer,

or whatever, that they just need our help because there's somehow less than

Lord have mercy. That is a kind of love that condescends indeed, but

not in truth, because it doesn't actually meet the needy brother or sister at

the foot of the same cross that saved you. Humility is needed here.

And besides that, even if we were able and we managed to give away

everything that we had, everything that we had, lay down, even our

life in the flames, so just that all that we all that was left

of us was dust and ashes because of our great sacrifice. If it was

not done in love, Paul says in One Grindian's thirteen, it is nothing.

It profits nothing, It doesn't count. Paul talks about the kind of

person who loves in such a way they give away everything they have, They

even give up their body to be burned, and that's sacrificial love. If

it's not a company by actual love, in truth, it accomplishes nothing.

Okay, preacher, So you're saying I have to do something, but that

if I do something, it may not count. Well, yeah, that's

actually it's pretty much exactly what I'm saying. I'm telling you that white knuckling

it is not going to fix it either, because you can become a penniless

pile of ash and it will gain you nothing if it's done disconnected from truth

and love in Christ. Why not, Well, just as the tongues of

men and angels, we could speak with the tongues of men and angels,

and we're nothing more than a noisy, redundant symbol apart from love, the

word and talk of love that does an issue. Indeed and truth, love

is meaningless and empty. That's exactly what he says, little children. Let

us not love in word or talk, but indeed and in truth. Why

how is this accomplished? And why does he continue to make this so difficult?

Because he wants your heart. He doesn't just want to wrestle you into

submission and make you do the things and give away all the stuff. It's

not about the stuff. It's about what he's doing in your heart such that

at a gut level, when you see a need and you have the capacity

to help. You want to help because you've been changed at a gut level.

You've been given a new heart, and only he can accomplish that.

You can't white knuckle your way through it. He's commanding the kind of response

that only he can affect, a generosity of hand connected to a compassionate heart

that's been transformed by the sacrificial love of a savior who laid down his life

for us. He doesn't just want your stuff, He's after your heart so

that you would do so freely and gladly. For you who have been impacted

by this love and this sacrifice, the love of God in you is flowing

out of you in beautiful ways. It's already happening. It happens in this

church all the time. I've been a recipient of this particular kind of love

when I had need the church. Step in this church, not just the

church. You have done this for me in the past, and continue to

do it for one another on a regular basis, indeed, and in truth,

and it's a beautiful thing. But for you who've only heard about this

kind of love, and you're hoping that this love is real, and you

see it from afar. That's the different thing. The difference is Jesus.

He's changed heart such that that makes sense, not dollars and cents, but

since in terms of what He has done for us in the Gospel. Trusting

Jesus changes you at a heart and guts level. And what you've seen and

hopefully come to long for in your own life is what we just call faith

working through love in those who belong to Jesus. And he wants that for

you, and we who have already experienced this love, we want that for

you too. We want you to know him as King and be forever changed

by his life laid down for you. Some of you also, who are

still just play acting the particular kinds of people that John is talking to play

acting in love. You're happy to talk about it all day until your words

are tested in real life. I just want to urge you please stop kidding

yourself. We're looking just a second. God knows all things. Who do

you think you're kidding? You're not kidding him. Put your life and your

hope and whatever else you're holding on to is yours. Fue into his hands.

Turn from your sin, repent of your self, rule and know for

real the love that Christ has for you, now, not later, not

the next time you hear a sermon about it, Now, right now,

if you hear his voice, lay it down. He wants your heart.

Living in Christ's love is going to mean that you live sacrificially. Third,

and finally, living in Christ's love, John tells us it means that we

will live confidently. Brothers and sisters, I have good news. God is

greater than your heart. If you are trusting in Christ Jesus, and you're

loving your brothers and sisters in truth, you can be prayerfully confident that you

please him. You can ask what you need. And he gives verse nineteen

points us in both directions, both to what he's already talked about, that

we will know that we are of the truth, and we are sure our

hearts before him if we walk in this kind of love, and we will

know that we are of the truth, if we believe these true things about

Jesus. Verse twenty three. This is his commandment that we believe, sorry

that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ, and love one

another just as he has commanded us. God sees and knows everything, and

he judges it all perfectly. He actually judges perfectly. Every time we don't

do that. He calls you to put your trust in the name of Jesus

of Nazareth, the one that John saw and that he touched with his hands,

that he looked upon, that Jesus, this commandment of God to you

the work of God. As Jesus responds in John chapter six, like what

must we be doing to be doing the works of God? He says,

believe in the name of the Son of God, whom he sins the work

of God. Is you resting all of your hope in the name of Jesus

for the forgiveness of sins, the Jesus who died, but who was raised

from the dead and is alive forevermore that Jesus. It means that I'm not

hoping in all of the stuff and the things of this earth and this world.

I'm not hoping in my job. I'm not hoping in myself. I'm

not hoping in the capacity for me to be able to pull myself up by

my own bootstraps and get better. I'm hoping completely and absolutely in the name

of Jesus Christ. That's what that means. And when that's happening. When

that happens, what will happen? John says, it will happen. We

will know that we are of the truth and we are heart sure our hearts

before him is that we will love the brothers and sisters who share Christ with

us in word, and we will we will love them indeed and in truth,

not just in word and in talk. Those who love in this way

will not hate the brothers. They'll be moved at a gut level to love

them and to respond to them in need, opening His heart their hearts to

them. That will happen. It will. So if you're in Christ,

there is evidence for you to see that you may not be paying a whole

lot of attention to because it's hard for us to look back and say,

like, in what way am I loving? Particularly like Christ? But he's

telling you to do that. You will know that you are in his love

by how you love, So how are you loving? It's to the point

that if that is not happening downstream of a person's supposed faith in Jesus,

then the problem isn't downstream, like we just need to sort of fix it

down here and just get better at it. It's problem that's upstream at the

source. Because those who love and trust Christ love one another. And those

who trust in Christ and love one another keep the commandments of God and rest

in Jesus doing what pleases him. The profession of their faith is shown in

their love for one another. And every time, every time, that's going

to impact you in two ways. When your heart condemns you, God knows

all things and loves you anyway. He who is for you, and send

Jesus to die and rise so that you could live forever in him. He

overcomes your self condemnation because you believe you can take Him at his word.

God knows better than you do. God is greater than your heart. And

then secondly, you can boldly and confidently relate to Him and abide in this

God who is pleased with you because you're united to His Son, you're united

to Jesus, and so you can ask for what you need and He gives.

Because we're sure to be accepted in and because of Jesus, we don't

need to be driven to prayerlessness or live in condemnation because we take God at

his word. As a prospective church planter, that's really encouraging to me.

Because we're going to have to need We need everything because I keep saying like,

well, there's not a church yet, which means there's not people,

which means there's not a place, which means there's which means there's nothing,

which means we have an idea, which means we have enough because we have

the God who gives. You've seen it happen. That's why you're here.

Now, let's pray he would do it again. But there's times in my

life when certain thoughts interact with the things that I know to be true.

At least that's me. In my house, we have a tendency to watch

survival shows from time to time, which is where they go and they drop

them out in the wilderness and try to get them to survive. All kinds

of different shows are like this, and I think it's funny. It's kind

of like it's like a like watching somebody in the zoo. I like to

go to the zoo. It's kind of fun I personally like to live inside.

I think that we've gotten to the point where indoor plumbing should should I

mean that we should never live or sleep outside unless we absolutely must. I'm

not an outside person. That's just my so a man camp. You'll see

me at the motel, thank you very much. But I've seen these shows

enough to know that there are certain things that if they do the thing,

then it's not going to go well for them. Like if they get there

and they're like, okay, I need to set up shelter, and like,

I don't know, I have some opinions about that, but honestly,

yeah, give or take. But when they get there and they start to

get thirsty and they find water on the ground and they like, they're like,

oh yeah, I can just go ahead. No no, no,

no, no, stop. Don't drink the water, because the dude who

drinks the water is metavac twenty four hours later. Right. Every time,

you can't just drink the water. It's not clean. You have to put

the little linine tablet in it, and you have to wake the requisite ten

minutes and after that then you can drink the water. You have to be

patient. But don't think that you can just drink the water. Your heart

is the same way. The thoughts that go in and around your mind,

that come into your heart that you interact with on a regular basis, some

of them come from you. Most of those are generally true, I hope.

But some of them come from your flesh and try to convince you that

you need something that you don't need, or that you need something more than

you need it. Some of those things come from the Holy Spirit praise the

Lord. And some of those things are scripture that the Holy Spirit brings to

mind at the exact moment that he needs to praise the Lord, that when

you can drink. But some of those things are coming from the world.

Some of those things are coming from other people, and some of those things

are coming straight from the enemy you have. Just because you're able to listen

to something that's walking around in between your ears does not mean that it's something

that you need to think is true. We have biblical warrant to suspect the

thoughts in our heart and the thoughts that rise up from within us. We

have to grow up in learning to take every thought captive and making them obedient

to Christ. To say, along with John, God is greater than our

heart, because sometimes our hearts do condemn us. Sometimes they condemn us when

we should be confident in Christ, and then God is greater than our heart.

There are times when our hearts are actually convicting us, and that's different.

Let be clear here, there are times when God uses things like this

to convict us, Like maybe I hope right now the ways in which we

need to grow in our love towards our brothers and sisters, that could be

conviction. That's different. But what we must not do is just sort of

let our minds run amok and assume that if we have a thought, that

it is true because it came one hundred percent authentically from within us. I

have to test it. Set your confidence that you can take. Set your

confidence in the reality that you can take God at his word. He knows

everything, and he is greater than your heart. Let him draw your heart

if you're in him. To see the encouragement in the ways that you love

your brothers and sisters, to believe all the more that you are placing your

faith in Jesus and not trying to pick yourself up and do this whole thing

on your own. Learn to ask yourself when you're discouraged, is this my

mind trying to overcome the truth of God? Or is this a situation where

I'm being convicted because my deeds aren't aligning with God's commands? It is good

news. It is such good news that God is greater than our hearts.

Do not do not follow your heart, follow God, and in so doing,

He's gonna abide in you, and you're gonna abide in him, and

you're going to walk into spirit that he gives to us. And learn to

pray, learn to ask for the things that you know your heavenly father knows

you need. He wants you to have them, sometimes more than you even

want them. And you don't ask what are you asking him full? Or

what are you trusting him for? Just kind of trying to do the best

you can and getting what you can. What are you not asking him for?

Because you don't think he cares about it if it matters to you.

Do you not think that it matters to the Father who loves you? What

aspect of your life would change if you knew that you were walking confidently in

God because you knew that he accepted you. God is greater than your heart.

I'm i ask the band to go ahead and come on up. God

is greater than your heart, which means that you can you can make decisions

in his pleasure knowing that He's already accepted you. It means that you can

care for others out of an overflow of gratitude for what He has already done

for you. That means that you can speak to your heart knowing that He

has not condemned you, so you shouldn't either. We can be curiously blind

to the reality of whether and how we actually love one another. It's a

lot easier to just assume that you love people than to actually love them indeed

and truth. And that's why John says these things. The beauty of text

like this is that it's an opportunity to do what I was trying to teach

my teenagers to do and still am on a regular basis. There are blind

spots you need to check just a second, just take your just look over

your shoulder, check your blind spots, make sure there's nothing there. That's

what this is. If you're a faithful follower of Christ, you're walking with

Christ today, I urge you take a look at your love to see whether

or not those those spaces are clear. You have to check them, rather

than to assume our sinful hearts are mixed with the inconvenience. You mix our

sinful hearts with the inconvenience of loving others, and we're going to have opportunities

to not love because love doesn't come naturally. It only comes super naturally,

as the transforming love of Christ actually has an impact on us on a regular

basis. Christ laid down his life for us so that we would love one

another. May that happen here as much as any other place on Earth.