Walking in Love | March 8, 2026

Thank you worship team man.

How great The love of the

Father first John tells us.

See what great love, how great a love

the father has lavished on us, that

we should be called children of God.

And that is what we are.

Sorry, they got cut off the back.

It didn't fill up the slide, but man

the truth that God loves us so much and

we only love because he first loved us.

Listen, there's probably a lot of things

that, uh, you could learn about in church.

There's probably a lot of great sermons

about deep, hidden theological concepts

as it relates to the tribulation period.

But ultimately, if you can latch on

to the love of God and understand that

he loves you and that, that love, man,

that transforms everything, right.

We're changed because of the love of God.

We're not changed because of the

knowledge of some information.

We're not changed because of

some theological doctrine that we

read about that was interesting.

We're changed because God so

loved us and while we were yet

sinners, Christ died for us.

'cause he loves us.

God's whole motive is love.

It's not tyranny, it's not rules, it's

not regulation, it's not judgment.

It's love, man.

And love is the thing I said this

years ago that like ultimately

I really don't have a lot to

say other than God loves you.

And if you would just live in love, like

that's sort of the secret sauce, right?

That's really all there is.

But nobody likes that and

they need other stuff.

So we'll jump into some

other stuff today too.

Don't worry.

But man, the love of God.

How great.

Here's the thing about love.

We can talk about love.

I could preach about love every

single Sunday of my entire life.

And not even come close because

scripture says that God is love, right?

The substance of who our God is, is love.

So the complexity, the depth, the

layers in the onion of who God is and

what love is, I'm never gonna get to

the bottom of that in this lifetime.

My puny, pathetic, little finite

mind can't even grasp hardly any

of it in comparison to who he is.

But we're gonna try.

And so this morning I wanna talk

to you a little bit about this

love thing and see where it goes.

I realized that I'm

talking about love a lot.

I did a, I stole the

guys who were preaching.

I stole their time so I could

grab the Valentine's Day sermon.

I got to do a couple's retreat

a couple weekends ago, preached

like three times on that one.

Sorry about that, guys who were there.

And then, uh, today I'm like,

Lord's still like, I don't know man.

It's like, Andy, let's talk about love.

Now you could say it's 'cause

it's a deficiency, right?

He's like, Andy, I'm gonna keep

you doing this till you get it.

Right.

Totally fair.

Totally fair.

Love better love.

Well, absolutely, Jamie

would not disagree.

Uh, Ephesians chapter five, we spent a

little time over there on our couples

retreat, our marriage retreat a couple

weeks ago, and there's no way to

get through all the content of it.

And I always love turning to Ephesians

chapter five because couples love

to get to the end of Ephesians five.

There's this powerful, you know,

inspirational scripture that says,

wives submit to your husbands

as unto the Lord, dah, dah.

Right?

And it's the thing you want to engrave

above the walls of your doorway

as you come in, you know, so your

wife knows to submit to you, right?

And all the guys are like,

that's so wrong, but yes, yes.

Let's do the right.

Right.

Hey, listen, it also then is followed

by husbands drop dead for your wife.

Right?

Lay yourself down for her and die for her.

Like Jesus died for the church.

So there's real.

Yeah.

Whoa, careful.

Jackie.

This is not a public counseling session.

We're just talking marriage for a minute.

Where do you think Dax?

Uh huh.

I'm worried about Dax.

Actually, he's sick.

Uhhuh Uhhuh.

That's problematic.

That's problematic.

But the whole idea is that we submit

to one another in love, right?

That we're submitted

to Christ as the Lord.

And when he's the Lord, both

husbands and wives are submitting

to who, uh, he's called us to be.

Right?

And to each other.

And if you go back to the very

beginning of chapter five, the

whole foundation is laid and it's

super clear 'cause he says this.

Therefore, for us who are in

Christ, we're to be imitators.

We God as dearly loved

children, what did one John say?

That we are legit children of God.

And so we ought to have

a family resemblance.

We ought to imitate our heavenly Father.

Right?

Most of you who have had kids

have watched in horror as your

children began to imitate you.

And we saw that.

Oops.

Family resemblance.

Now there's some special ones too, right?

Like that's my boy followed by,

oh, that's my boy, followed by

Jamie saying, that's your boy.

Right?

Like it's definitely that resemblance.

We see it.

It's there.

It's legit, right?

But we are to try to imitate

the love of Jesus, right?

We are to be imitators of God as dearly

love children, and we are to walk in love.

What a cool phrase, just as

Christ did, to walk in love.

If you have a vision statement for

your life or for your marriage,

or for how you're doing this crazy

adventure that we call reality, if you

could just maybe stick this in there

and then erase all the other stuff

and just look at walking in love.

It would transform everything that

we do if we would walk in love,

and I don't mean the cheap, phony

love that you saw on Netflix.

I mean the legit substance of love

that involves justice and discipline

and truth, and it involves sacrifice

and service and selflessness, right?

We get to walk in that kind of love man

and relationships, game changer, right?

Totally and completely.

In fact, this idea of walking in

love always begs this question, what

is the defining characteristic of a

disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ?

'cause Jesus defined it, right?

What does it mean to be a Christian?

And Jesus said, people will know

that you're my disciples by your deep

theological intellect and insight.

Nope.

People will know that you're my

disciples because of how much

of the Bible you have memorized.

And if your name's on

the trophy, Tracy, right?

No.

Oh, there's another one.

Uh, people will know You're my disciples

by your stellar church attendance.

Unfortunately, no, you

should go to church.

I'm just saying.

But unfortunately, no.

Jesus said that, Hey, people will know

that you're my follower, that you're

my disciple, right by your love.

It's how they're gonna know.

The way you love will be the poster

that says, I'm a follower of Jesus.

So you could really make the case that

if you're not somebody who walks in love,

are you're genuinely a follower of Jesus.

Or are you a follower of ideologies and

concepts and theories and religions?

'cause man, if you're following

Jesus, that walk is gonna look

different and it's gonna be in love.

And I'm a simple guy, so I'm

like, okay, that sounds like

what we ought to be doing.

So how do we get there?

How do we do that?

Now, no way are we gonna fix this

here real quick in the next few

minutes, just want you to know that.

But I wanna give you some

thoughts to think about.

'cause as a church, we strive

to be people who live in.

Uh, the idea that we get it right all the

time is totally flawed because guess what?

We're totally flawed.

We're imperfect human beings, right?

We're people and we offend each other.

We hurt feelings.

We do all kinds of stuff, right?

We, we say things we don't mean,

and then we mean things that we

say that we shouldn't have said,

and all, everything in between.

Sometimes we have to stand up

in the middle of the church and

apologize to our kids, right?

Stuff like that happens randomly.

I've seen it.

Uh, I've usually been the

one who does it, Suzanne.

So it's really nice to

have somebody else do it.

It's really a good feeling for me because

that's what authentic relationship looks

like, to be genuinely loving and say,

Hey, sometimes I don't get it all right.

Right?

But that doesn't mean I'm

not trying and striving.

In fact, if you go by our coffee bar,

you'll see this really, really high level

poster that helps us as we think about

here at White Rock, how to Walk in love.

It's called our Love Pledge, and

it's something that we do, uh, in our

membership and we, as people say, I wanna

be officially a member of this church

and commit to being part of this family.

And I wanna pledge to be

somebody who tries to walk in.

Love and it's got a bunch of cool

phrases on, I'm not gonna use 'em

all this morning, but just to draw

your attention to a few things.

There's things like, I will not say

anything unkind about you or hang out

with people who are, or listen to people

who are, that's really hard to do, right?

Because sometimes we want to say things

that are unkind, and yet if we're

gonna choose to be people who walk in

love, we choose not to give voice to

our frustration, our disappointment,

our anger with somebody else, right?

And we're not gonna say things

that are hurtful now promise you

we don't always perfect that.

That's why it's on the wall.

So that we can walk by and be

like, duh, that was the one I knew

there was one I wasn't getting.

Right?

Right.

We gotta strive at that.

That's what God calls us to, says.

Uh, another one, I may not

always agree with your actions

or thinking, but I will love you.

How powerful is this?

I dunno if you know this or not.

Um, if you're married, you probably have

experienced this probably at my house.

Jamie and I don't always, always have

the same opinion on everything, right?

There's times where I'm wrong.

That was kinda a joke, right?

That I'm Jamie's never wrong.

Okay?

Anyways, it's moving on.

It was pretty high.

I think that was maybe just

too deep of a situation.

The person that you live with, right?

You just gonna have some different

opinions and different feelings.

And God calls us to walk in this

crazy thing called the family of God.

And in that family, sometimes we

disagree and we have different opinions

and perspectives and we see different

angles, and we have different feelings

and emotions, and that's okay.

In fact, sometimes we hit conflict, right?

And we talked about it on a retreat.

Time.

Like conflict takes us to

deeper levels of intimacy.

Without it, you can't get there.

People butt heads.

They butt heads all the time.

You know why?

'cause they're human people

with different per uh, uh,

perspectives and opinions, right?

And feelings and angles, and

they butt heads on stuff.

And what happens in conflict

or one or two things either.

You figure out a way to work through

conflict, or you just turn and walk away.

And most of the time it's just, well,

I'd say probably a hundred percent

of the time it's easier to walk away.

And we always choose that walking

away it seems like just, just give up.

Just quit on relationship.

But when you dig in and you fight

through and you navigate through conflict

to get to the other side, something

crazy happens, you realize that your

commitment to each other is deeper

than the conflict that you just faced.

And your relationship is

stronger than just some random

butting of heads of opinions.

And you're not walking out on each other

and you're not quitting on each other.

And that's critical in marriage.

And it's critical in the church and

in relationships with our friends

and people, because we're gonna butt

heads, we're gonna run into conflict.

And God's people have

ways through conflict.

It's not the world's strategy,

right, with nuclear weapons

and punch people in the face.

That's not God's design.

God's design is that we go in love

and in humility and in kindness and

gentleness, and we try to create

conversation and dialogue to get to a

place where we can hear and understand

and try to navigate through stuff,

and God has a great process for that.

If we'll use it, we'll get to

deeper levels of relationship.

If not, we'll fall for Satan's trick,

have an issue with somebody, and ditch

and bail the whole thing and miss

out on the depth that God has for us.

When a problem develops,

I'll initiate constructed

dialogue, man, how cool is that?

To know that if you're gonna butt heads

with somebody, somebody here is gonna

probably try to have a conversation

with you instead of just talk bad about

you and say, Hey, I'm out, we're done.

No relationship, right?

A covenant to pray for you.

Wow, that's cool.

How cool is it to think that maybe

the person that you're in relationship

with is actually praying for

you, not just trying to position

themselves and leverage and be.

The winner of your conversations or

arguments or debates or tensions, right?

To pray.

There's a whole bunch of stuff.

There's 10 of 'em.

I'm not gonna go through 'em

all because I want you to just

know it's there next time.

I mean, the coffee line's

gonna get slower probably when

people stand there or read it.

But take, take a time

and take a look at it.

Sometimes I have to look at it from time.

I mean, there's stuff I'm on there.

I'm like, oh yeah, I

remember that's on there.

That's good stuff, right?

So make sure you take a peek at

that sometime, because that's one

of the ways that as a church we're

trying to say, Hey, how can we love?

Well, uh, in fact, we won't unpack

that this afternoon at that,

um, membership meeting thing.

But I wanna talk about the

culture of who we are as a church.

And just so you know, that's a big

piece of it that we choose to love and

we strive to love even when there's

differences in, there's struggles.

We don't compromise on sin, we don't

compromise on truth, but we try to love,

Ephesians continues to walk through

after saying, let's be imitators of God.

And let's walk in love to remind us

that we were once darkness, right?

That we were lost in darkness, but

now we are light in the Lord that

God's light has shined, shown, shown,

did brightly, I'm excuse that's

not working, uh, brightly on us.

That we might live as children

of light who reflect his light

to everybody else, right?

God's shining on us, transforming us

so that our actions in love help point

people to this God who loves them, right?

It goes on to say that for the

fruit of light consists in all

goodness, righteousness, and

truth, and it's kind of cool.

That fruit of light is

an interesting phrase.

It reminds me of the fruit of the

spirit the Galatians talks about, right?

You guys probably know that one, right?

Love, joy, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, self-control.

These are things that ought to be

part of what our lives look like

and how people interact with us.

They trip over the fruit.

You ever, you ever walk

around like an apple orchard.

Or like an apple tree and there's like

just all this like you twist your ankle.

'cause all the stupid apples, right?

I mean, how cool would it be as

Christians if we had this life?

I mean the metaphor of our life as

a tree and we're bearing all this

fruit and all around us, even on

the ground, our love joy piece.

People are breaking ankles on

our joy and our peace, right?

And our gentleness.

It sounds kind of contradictory, but

that's the kind of stuff that ought

to just be falling off the tree all

around us as people approach us.

'cause they see that kind of stuff, right?

And how cool is it that the

very first word is love, right?

'cause it's foundational to everything.

It means to follow Jesus.

Paul says, without love, I am nothing.

Right?

Everything else revolves around this idea.

If I do all this stuff and I act

all these ways and I check all

these boxes, but there's nothing in

my heart that's genuine love, love

for God, and love for my neighbor,

man, it's just a resounding gong.

It's just emptiness, he says, right.

I wanna throw a couple thoughts at you

here real quick on maybe love in practice.

And sometimes I feel like I preach to

the choir when I bring this up because

honestly, you guys do a really good

job of loving, I really believe that.

In fact, it's one of the things

people say to me a lot when

they come visit our church.

Like, man, people were just

so kind and so loving, right?

But just like, uh, any sport you play

or any skill you have, if you just sort

of say, oh yeah, I've got that master,

and you set it off to the corner and

you don't think about it, you don't

marinate on it, you don't revisit it.

Pretty soon, that's skill can start

to lose, you know, its edge, right?

And so this morning I wanna challenge

you with a few thoughts here about

love and how we love and, uh, let's

just keep rolling, being God's people

and be encouraged, not discouraged,

but hopefully empowered love.

I was thinking about this

idea of how love, um.

Well, how love starts, right?

Love starts with patience and kindness.

Now, you may be saying to yourself,

wait a minute, you went over to First

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Corinthians chapter 13 and you stole.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

So yes, I totally did.

Guys.

I steal everything from the Bible when

I'm preaching, just so you know, right?

None of this is mine.

I'm just like, Hey, here's what God said.

Let's talk about it, right?

But here's the cool thing about

God's description for us, about love.

It begins with, it launches

with patience and kindness.

So I want you to think about

that in practice a minute.

When you're engaging and

you're trying to live in love.

And if those engagements and those

actions are impatience and in

kindness, it's a pretty good shot

that that's an action of love.

But if your action is in impatience.

It's not kind, it's aggressive,

it's angry, it's, it's out of some

other motivation besides these.

You got the long, you got

the wrong launch point.

You're starting in the wrong place because

when we engage with the people around

us, God calls us not to go with fire and

intensity, but with patience and kindness.

Do you know why I know this to be true?

'cause scripture says God is patient

with us that he, for bears, emphasis

on bears for it seems like with our

nonsense, God doesn't come to us in

cruelty and in anger and in hate.

He comes to us in patience and in

kindness and there is no situation

that you walk into, no conflict that

you're in, that if the initiation is.

Patient and kindness that somehow

that destroys your whole ability

to get to anywhere, right?

But let me promise you, when you go

in with intensity and guns blazing

and, and that kind of impatient

and aggression, aggression, right?

What's gonna happen is the person that

you're trying to engage with is gonna

do something that's pretty natural.

They're gonna get defensive, right?

And when you have two people standing

like this, do you know what those of us

watching would call that a fight, right?

That's a fight nobody's

punched yet, right?

And maybe they're gonna dance around

for a while, but that's a fight and

that's not what God calls us to do

in how we engage with each other.

God calls us to patience and in kindness.

Now, I would like to tell you

that, uh, I have perfected this

specifically in the area of marriage.

Then I would be lying.

And that's a sin.

So we're not gonna pretend

like that's the case.

Uh, in fact, I am married to the most

patient kind woman that there's ever been.

And after 26 or seven years of

marriage, I have almost changed her.

I've almost changed her.

Right.

I've almost got her to

my, no, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

Uh, Jamie's amazing.

I don't even know how

God, God was so gracious.

He was like, you got no shot unless I find

the most patient, kind woman, that's it.

Right?

That's the truth.

It is hard.

I mean, it's easier sometimes to be

patient and kind when the people pay

you and you work for them and you could

lose your job if you're not right.

That you find a little motivation.

But when it's the person that you

share a bed with and you share a

clothes hamper with and you just don't

feel it right there in that moment,

it is tough to be patient and kind.

Right.

I would challenge you

to try something crazy.

I mean, I don't even

know if this is doable.

I'm gonna be honest.

This is like one of those jerk preacher

challenges that you're like, you can't,

you can't even do it yourself, Andy.

Fair enough.

Right?

But what if, what if this week you

made an intentional effort to launch

with patience and kindness in your

conversations, in your engagements?

Forget everybody else, just the

people at your house, just your house,

because I promise you it spills over.

But what if the conversations and the

engagement you make with the people at

your house was first patient and kind?

Here's what I'm gonna promise you.

I will try.

I will fail many times, but

I will continue to try and

I'm doing that publicly.

Jamie, I want to try to see if I can

be patient and kind in my initial

interactions instead of just sharp

or quick or direct or intense or

stressed or blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, whatever my excuse is, right?

Because this is what

leading in love looks like.

And if we begin to do that, it diffuses

the intensity of the other people.

It diffuses the defensiveness

of the people around us.

And there's opportunity to do that

love pledge stuff where we have

dialogue and we have conversation,

and we still might not agree.

That's not the issue.

'cause we're more important

than the disagreement.

Our relationship is more important, right?

Than winning the argument

or whatever the conflict is.

So leading with patience

and with kindness, I really

believe love begins there.

I also know that if you read along in

one Corinthians 13, love always protects.

Always protects and you go a

lot of directions here, right?

In your marriage, are you protecting it?

Are you protecting the sanctity of

your marriage bed and keeping it pure

from pornography and all kinds of

sexual sin and trash from all over

the place the devil wants to bring in?

Are you protecting the love you

have in your relationship with

God from all of that stuff?

Are you dabbling in sin porn and trash

and filth because, uh, you don't think

it matters, but man, lemme tell you it's

destructive and you're not protecting your

relationship with God and you're doing

damage there to your own heart and soul.

There's a lot we could talk about.

I wasn't gonna talk about any

of that, but there you go.

Love protects and it does

it in some interesting ways.

Love warns and love cautions.

Now here's what I want

you to hear a little bit.

We live in a world.

Where love means you give me

what I want and you affirm my

behavior and what I'm doing.

That's love.

If you challenge me, if you challenge

me with truth, if you argue truth with

me, or if you say what I'm doing is

sinful or wrong, you don't love me,

and I would challenge you friends,

like it's the complete opposite.

Everybody that I've ever loved, I've

warned and I've cautioned check this out,

if I really believed that if you don't

have a relationship with Jesus Christ,

if you haven't confessed your sin to him

and accepted his, accepted him as your

Lord's savior and trying to walk with

him, that the truth is eternal death is

the destination that Jesus talked about.

If I believe that's true and I don't

warn you about that, I would be the

biggest jerk that you've ever met.

'cause one day.

We're all gonna stand before

God and give an account of our

life, we're gonna stand there.

He promises us that.

And when we stand there, people

are gonna, some people are gonna

say, holy crap, this is real.

Other people are gonna

say, no one told me.

Right?

Well, I don't want that on my

conscience and I can't live with that.

So I wanna make sure everybody

knows, listen, I love you

enough to have you hate me.

That's fine.

You can hate me because I say no sexually

immoral man enters the kingdom of heaven.

No greedy, idolater, right?

God and sin, they don't work together.

And we've gotta walk away from

sin and repent from our sin.

And if we don't, God says, eternal

destruction in hell is the destination.

And you can say, I don't believe it.

You absolutely can.

And you don't have to

believe it right now.

Just the hard part is one

day you will believe it.

And I wanna make sure you know from me,

I love you enough to tell you the truth.

What kind of parent?

Just lets their kid do whatever they want

without any direction, any caution, right?

Your four year old's

like, mom, check it out.

I wanna play this game where I throw

the knife in the air and I catch it.

And a good parent says, what?

No.

Right?

And maybe you get a SWAT

on the rear end, right?

Because why?

You wanna learn not to do behaviors

that will lead to destruction.

And you know what we would

call that love, right?

Make no mistake.

Discipline is part of love.

God says he disciplines those he loves.

A child without discipline

is a child without love.

Listen, parents, I'll be the old bald

guy, I guess, but like, if you don't

spank your kids, you're hurting your kids.

Sorry.

I just believe that with all my heart,

not because your kids can't be talked down

with deep psychological conversations.

I think it's beautiful.

We don't, you have to spank your

kids a lot and you sure as heck

better not be abusive with your kids.

But if your kids don't understand

discipline and behavior, they're

gonna continue on and go into a

life that's sinful and destructive.

Right.

I gotta be honest with you, as a

2-year-old, I didn't understand why my

motivation was not to disobey, but when

I got a swat on my rear end, I learned

that disobeying and doing this thing

led to a very sore bottom for a second.

And I didn't like that.

And I learned to change my behaviors.

There was a guy in the Netherlands

a couple years ago who was on

trial for first degree murder.

He, this girl he had liked, he, uh, he

killed her 'cause she stopped liking him.

And, uh, he was, uh, on death row there

or whatever it is, in the Netherlands,

maybe they don't even do that.

I don't know.

Whatever it was, he was facing

death and uh, he wanted to

give a message to his mom.

And I was reading this and I thought, oh,

this would be one of those standard, like.

Mom, I'm sorry.

I love you.

Sorry I let you down.

Whatever.

Right?

This is what he said.

I'm gonna paraphrase it 'cause

it's been a minute since I read it.

He said, mom, I hate you so much.

You did this to me all those times.

You bailed me out and you covered for me.

When I got in trouble, I never

learned anything and I just

always did what I wanted.

Knowing it would work out in the end.

And here I sit facing death

and it's because of you.

And he was angry.

And he was bitter.

And man, that hit deep.

Like, now listen, Suzanne

hit it pretty well.

Parenting is hard.

Ain't no pros in here, just

people who need pro Zack, right?

Like at the end of the day,

parenting is hard work.

It is not easy and you're

not gonna get it right.

Every time I spanked my

kids, I talk to them about.

Give 'em a spank and literally do this

harder to spank your kids than than you

think it is, but to spank your kids and

say, do you know why you got a spanking?

Because daddy loves you too much

to let you make this choice.

And when you make this

choice, there's a consequence.

And we're growing up in a world

where there's no consequences.

And guys that leads to destruction.

And ultimately more than anything else,

spiritually, there are consequences.

And God says, I love you.

I wanna protect you from suffering

and death and destruction.

Choose the right path.

Choose life.

Walk away from sin, right?

Make a choice.

And we can choose whatever we want, but it

doesn't mean there won't be a consequence.

And I can't have on my conscience

one day, Hey pastor, you're a jerk.

I hate you.

'cause all you preached about was love and

happiness and puppies, and you never told

me sin would lead to death and destruct.

So there you go.

You're welcome.

And hopefully that doesn't put us at odds,

but I just want you to know this, man.

I love you enough to tell you the truth.

Um, well, yeah, you're welcome.

Yeah, I'm welcome.

Right.

But that, and listen, it's

just so you know, it's not fun.

I don't want you to think like some

pastors I've watched, they beat and they

scream and it looks like they're having a

good time working out some stuff, right?

It's painful for me to look at

people I love and warn you that

sin leads to death and you have

choices that you gotta make, right?

But I guess I love you too much.

So there you go.

Alright.

Love protects with the

truth, with the truth.

And if you find yourself feeling

conviction, and if you feel like

sometimes it feels like, man, God

is disciplining me and I'm facing

consequences, you should celebrate that.

'cause you know what scripture

says, God only disciplines those.

Who are legitimate sons

and daughters of his.

So if you don't ever feel conviction,

if you don't ever experience discipline

who you might wanna be like, Hey,

need a spiritual spanking Lord,

don't forget about me over here.

Right?

Listen, man, when there's conviction,

that means God's still engaged.

That means he still cares enough

to come to you and say, Hey

son, daughter, turn, let's go.

You're not too far gone.

You're not so lost.

He loves you and he speaks truth to you.

There's probably a reason you're

hearing all this nonsense this morning

for me, babbling on and on, right?

Because at the end, it's not nonsense,

it's the truth, just so you know.

But at the end of the day, like he

loves you enough to speak truth over

your life, and we gotta make choices

in what we're gonna do with that.

And then I just wanna throw this

in here too, 'cause we're not gonna

get to very much stuff on love.

But I believe this, that love holds

firm and it holds tightly with

forgiveness, with forgiveness.

A heart that is not calloused and hard,

but the forgives in, uh, one Corinthians

has said, love is not easily angered.

Do you know the easiest way to not

have to do a lot with forgiveness?

Just don't be easily angered.

Just don't get so caught up that

you take everything so personally

that everything is about you and

what people are doing to you.

And instead try to have a bigger

picture that just says, you know what?

I'm gonna love.

People are gonna disappoint me.

People are gonna say things, do

things, stuff's gonna happen.

It's okay.

People are flawed, but Jesus loves them.

Right?

Not easily angered.

And then in probably one of the

most sinister statements about love,

scripture says, no record of wrongs.

Love does not keep record of wrongs.

My wife is an epic lists lady.

We have more lists in my house than

we have anything else in my house.

I don't even know what to compare it to.

Lists everywhere you go, right?

I sometimes write my name on the

top of the list to see what happens.

Nothing usually comes of it.

It gets scratched off pretty

quick, but, uh, lists, right?

But one thing I love about my wife is I've

never seen on a list all of the things

that Andy's doing wrong and a ledger of

ways that I have offended or hurt her.

I'm appreciative of that.

Now, maybe there's a list somewhere.

There's a lot of lists in my house, so I

can't really totally validate that, right?

But, but check this out.

When we hold on to bitterness, to

resentment, it just destroys us, right?

I shared this picture, I've

done that in my school.

I've done it on our women

or our couples retreat.

This cool picture of the

rootedness of anger, right?

In the roots that anger grows out of

is this idea of bitterness, right?

That we're just bitter and angry and

we feel things towards other people,

and we hold onto that bitterness,

and we don't just let it go, right?

Here's what's crazy

about that stuff, right?

If you hold onto stuff and

you're just doing this like.

Nobody, you may think you're

protecting something, but nobody can

put anything good in there, right?

But if you're like, you

know what, it's okay, man.

People can heap all kinds of

good stuff into those open hands.

We gotta live like that, not in this

bitterness, and ultimately, the taproot of

all this is this word resentment, right?

Resentment.

People talk about resentment

being sin in its infancy.

This is where it starts.

Not full-blown bitterness,

but just resentful.

Just resentful about this or that, or my

circumstance, my situation, the way my

wife's treating me, the way my husband's

treating me, the lack of time, my intimacy

attention, the struggles financially,

just all the different things.

It's not fair when all the things

that we have to feel ungrateful for,

unthankful for, we put 'em in this

little box of resentment and man, that

feeds the root of anger and it blows

up and it brings destruction, right?

And love.

Love looks different than that.

Love is not easily angered.

And love does not keep a record

of resentments, but instead

just checks 'em off the list.

Something pops up, we work through

it, something pops up, we talk

through it, something pops up.

We find a way to be grateful

in spite of the struggle.

And as we do that, we get to experience

deeper, more intimate, more connected

relationships because there's not this

whole hedge of anger growing in our

life and this forest of the weeds of

anger and bitterness and resentment,

the defining characteristic man of a

follower Jesus, is that we walk in love.

And that's a cool phrase because it's

not, we think in love, it's about action.

We walk in love, we take action in love,

and that looks a little bit like patience

and kindness, and sometimes it looks

like warning and caution and discipline.

And it looks like forgiveness and

gratitude in the midst of a lot

that we could be ungrateful for.

But if we begin to live more

and more like that, dude, here's

the thing about Satan guys.

He just deceives and he lies, and

he tricks you into thinking it's

better to not do it God's way.

And all you reap are hollow,

hurtful relationships with people

who are defensive and fighting

each other and all over the place.

But when you walk things out God's

way, you find depth and richness and

meaning and purpose because God is love.

And how great is that love for you,

that he would speak it over your life

and that he would draw you to him?

Well, I don't know where

you're at this morning.

I don't know where your relationship

with Jesus is at, where your thoughts

are about sin and struggle, but

lemme just do this real simply.

We don't have to do anything really

crazy or weird, but I want you just

to hear this, to just hear this.

Jesus said, I stand at

the door and I knock.

And Jesus is standing and knocking

on the door of our heart right now

this morning, and for some of us,

he's never, we've never even cracked

the door to peek at him, right?

But he says, man, if anybody will open

the door, I'll come in anybody, no matter

where we've been or what we've done.

And so he invites us to open the door to

relationship with him and we can simply

say to him that, Jesus, I'm sorry for my

sin and I want to confess that to you.

Please come into my life.

Please walk through that door and let me

begin a relationship with you and grow.

And learning what it means for

you to be the Lord of my life.

Can do a lot of fancy things,

but guys, in its simplicity.

That's how it, that's how it launches.

You know why?

'cause God is gentle and patient

and kind and he just knocks on

the door of our heart and says, if

you open the door, I'll come in.

So I wanna encourage you this

morning, maybe you've never done that.

Maybe right now as we close

in, prayer is a good time for

you to just pray that to him.

'cause he is standing patiently

and gently and kindly waiting.

And maybe some of us have sort

of, uh, said to Jesus, Hey, I kind

of got this remodel on my own.

And we've shoved him back out that

door and he's still patiently knocking

and saying, Hey, how about you open

that up and I can come in and we

can get this thing rolling, right?

Wherever that looks for you

or whatever that looks like.

He stands, he knocks and he loves.

How great is the love that

God has lavished on us.

That we would get the chance

to be part of his family.

Sons and daughters of God.

Father, thank you for

your incredible love.

Lord, I pray over my friends who are here

this morning and maybe even people who are

tuning in online sometime down the road.

Jesus, if, if they're here and if

they're hearing you knock gently on

their heart, I pray you give them the

courage, even in this moment right now

to just crack open that door and meet

you and invite you to confess their sin,

to ask you to come in as simple as that.

And that's where it all begins, this

incredible journey with you and Father.

You know those of us who've gotten

hard and bitter in our hearts,

man, we've deadbolted some doors.

Lord, I pray that you would soften us.

With your love that we would be able to

love because you first loved us and that

we'd be able to let go of resentments

and bitterness and put to death.

All of that stuff help us use some

awesome weed killer that just eradicates

down to the taproot, that resentment.

We wanna sow life and not death

in the garden of our heart.

God, thank you for your

incredible love for us,

and thank you for the invitation to be

in a relationship with you that's not

about consequence and suffering and

anger at all, but it's really about

you loving us enough to tell us the

truth and to give us a chance for life.

So Father, help us to live in that and

to shine that to the people around us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.