II Corinthians 12:11-21

Afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to you, especially if you're new or visiting with us.

My name's Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here at the church.

And it's great to have you with us as we kind of come to the conclusion, really, over the next couple of weeks of this series that we've been in.

Looking at Paul's second letter, please uh keep that open in front of you.

If you've got a Bible with you or uh a Bible on your phone, uh keep that passage open as we uh as we look at it uh together and let us uh pray together.

Father, we ask uh that you would uh be with us now.

Help us uh to think and feel and speak and act uh like Christ by your spirit.

We ask in his name.

Amen.

I imagine all of us from time to time have had the feeling of uh knowing that we have to have a difficult conversation with someone.

Uh we know that something has uh happened, things have been said uh that have caused the relationship to be strained, and so you kind of feel that uh that knot in your stomach and thinking, gosh, I I know that either they need to have a conversation with me or or I with with them.

Things are are difficult.

I imagine that most of us probably want to run and hide in those situations that we uh we hate the idea of confrontation.

Certainly it's very common uh uh in in Irish culture, just not really to say anything.

Kind of if there's if there's a if there's a problem, uh then you just kind of you feel the strain for a while until uh there's this unspoken agreement just to move on.

Uh and so nobody ever says anything or uh or apologizes, and we just kind of hope that that things will go away.

Saying something with the wrong attitude and saying things that are uh impulsively harsh or cruel uh can be damaging, but just as damaging as impulsivity or harshness, uh it can be cowardly not saying anything at all uh and allowing things to kind of fester below the surface.

That can put just as much strain on a relationship if things go uh unaddressed, undealt with.

I don't know if you uh have this experience there's kind of there's a war in in our house uh between who will take out the bin.

Um and uh usually uh I am the first one to cave uh because the bin begins to smell uh and so it has to be taken out.

And you're like, right, fine, I'll do it.

You take it out.

Sometimes relationships can be a little bit like you let the garbage just kind of um fester and faster and fester, and before too long, actually, your relationship begins to stink a little bit because the stuff hasn't been addressed.

Some of you, I'm sure, have been on the receiving end of harsh and cruel criticism.

People have shouted you down, spoke to you impulsively, cruelly.

This is not the sort of confrontation that we're talking about today, nor is it the sort of confrontation which should come from the Christian or which reflects the character of Jesus.

Others of us prefer simply to cover things over.

Now, there's wisdom to be had here.

Peter, in his letters, one of the things that he says is that love covers a multitude of sins.

There's a sense in which the people that you love, you'll overlook their faults.

You'll overlook the things that irritate you, and uh and you hope that they will overlook the things that irritate them, because there is a list, I'm sure, because they love you, right?

Love covers a multitude of sins.

You're generous and merciful, you get a longer fuse with those who you love and who love you.

But sometimes there is the need for a measured, gentle, but still courageous rebuke or challenge in order to actually strengthen the person or strengthen the relationship.

One of the things that uh we don't, my wife and I don't do quite so much now, but we used to do, and it's not a not a terrible idea, is we used to have take out the trash conversations so that our relationship didn't begin to stink.

We kind of are there are the things that are going on said, are the things that uh we didn't need to deal with?

Uh the fun ones were when one party went, no, I don't think so, and the other person went, Oh, I've got my list.

Sometimes those conversations need to happen.

A quick word for those of you who have been dealt with harshly.

People have spoken to you cruelly in the past.

That is not what is being advocated for here.

We cannot control how someone corrects us.

But we can learn to control how we correct others.

We have those difficult conversations.

Paul in this whole letter has been saying some hard things to the Corinthian Christians.

Those Corinthian Christians, let's remember, who had rejected him.

But his correction has never come from a place of self-preservation or self-aggrandizement.

He's never said to them, How dare you say that to me?

Have you any idea who I am?

Never.

Paul's correction has always come with tears, with a broken-hearted pleading for them to turn from their rejection of him, because it is ultimately a rejection of the gospel that he brought to them.

And now he's preparing to come to them again.

That's what we saw in verse 14.

Here for the third time, I am ready to come to ye.

And in this we see Paul's wisdom.

Paul is wise in preparing them.

He's wise in this passage in reminding them of his love for them.

That's what he does here.

That's what we're going to look at.

He's a little bit like a wise parent.

Imagine a wise parent with a teenager who's going through a difficult phase, and they're having conversations with that teenage son or that teenage daughter.

And those conversations are hard.

They're difficult.

They're straining the relationship.

But the wise parent punctuates those difficult conversations with reminders of their love.

Remember that I love you.

Reassurances.

Paul in this passage is saying, look, I know that I've said some hard things and I'm coming to you now, and more hard things might happen, but in the context of all of that, I want you to remember that I love you.

I want to remember, I want you to remember that I am for your good.

That's what these verses are about.

Paul's love for them doesn't stop him from saying hard things.

It informs the hard things that he says, and it informs the way that he says them.

Let's look at how Paul loves these Corinthian Christians.

What does love look like for Paul here?

First, Paul's love is a love that pursues.

Paul's love is a love that pursues.

Look at verse 14.

Here for the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours, but you.

For children are bound to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.

It's Paul's third visit.

And if you remember, in the ancient world, not that you remember the ancient world, but if you just think for a moment, travel around the ancient world was not particularly convenient.

To say nothing of the fact that there were other churches that liked Paul much more.

Go and spend some time in Philippi.

They couldn't get enough of Paul and Philippi.

Paul is on his way for the third time to this church that it rejected him.

Why?

Because Paul hasn't given up on them.

It's so easy to walk away from those who have walked away from us.

To write someone off.

Now, there's wisdom in giving somebody a bit of space.

In fact, that's one of the things that Paul's doing here in this letter.

He's already told us in the second chapter, he said, I'm writing you this letter so that you have time to process the things that I'm saying, rather than me just kind of landing on your doorstep and offending you again.

I'm giving you some breathing room, some time to process, and then I'm going to come and visit you, and hopefully we'll be able to reconcile when I come and visit.

There is wisdom in giving people a bit of space and not just kind of being like a hound dog, just kind of like a rockwilder.

Just being, no, we need to talk.

Sometimes people lead a little bit of room, but there is still this attitude from Paul of openness, of pursuit, of desiring reconciliation, of desiring them.

That's what he says in verse 14.

It's so beautiful when he says, I seek not as what not what is yours, but you.

Again, this is in contrast to the so-called super apostles that Paul's been talking about previously.

They were on the make, they were out for what they can get.

Paul's saying, I'm not, I'm not like that.

I am pursuing you for your sake, not for my own gain, not for my own ego, not for the building of my ministry.

One of the markers or one of the indicators that you are in a toxic dynamic, in a toxic relationship, is when one half of the relationship is just out to use the other half.

When the other half is looking to see what it can gain from the other.

Sadly, this has taken place within the church.

One of the elders, so Peter was asking me uh this week, uh, we were having a conversation, we were chatting about lots of things, but we were chatting a little bit about leadership in the church and what it means to kind of serve the the church and how leaders can go bad.

And one of the questions that he asked me was an interesting one.

He said, How would we know if you, Mark, went bad?

How would we know if if you were beginning to I don't know, become toxic in your ministry?

And one of the things, because I was reflecting on it, is one of the things that that I think people would begin to see is that I would begin to use people and not love them.

Toxic leaders use people, they view people as resources, as commodities to be consumed and then discarded when they are no longer any use.

Some bosses can act like that.

And sadly, some church leaders have acted like that.

Paul's saying, no, no, no, I'm not I'm not out for what you can give me.

I want you.

And seeking your soul.

That's what he says.

Start at verse 15.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.

He doesn't want them.

Oh, sorry, he doesn't want their stuff, he wants them.

I flip it around.

Other ways that this could manifest in our relationships, and we've probably identified with it in different ways.

You know, how many times has has a wife, for example, looked at a husband who is obsessed with his work, constantly stressed out and irritable?

And in a sense, she looks at him and says, I don't want your money.

I don't want the lifestyle.

I want you.

That's who I'm after.

Or how many of us have looked, in a sense, at emotionally or physically unavailable fathers who give money, cards with checks in them, and you're kind of like, I don't, I don't want your money, I want you.

Paul doesn't want their stuff, he wants them.

That is what a good pastor does.

Listen to another pastor.

This is a a quote from a guy who lived in the 1600s.

His name is Richard Baxter.

He wrote a book called The Reform, uh, The Reformed Pastor.

It was basically a kind of a handbook on what the godly pastor should look like and act like.

Listen to what he says.

He says, the whole of our ministry, that is kind of my job, he says, the whole of our ministry must be carried out on its tender love for people.

We must let them see that nothing pleases us but what profits them, and that nothing does them good that that does sorry, and that what does them good does us good, and that nothing troubles us more than their hurt.

We must feel towards our people as a father towards his children, yea, the tenderest love of a mother must not surpass ours.

Paul is reminding them that he wants them.

He's not coming to them to use them, extort them, control, or manipulate them.

He loves them.

He wants them to follow Christ.

And this for Paul entails pain because one of the things he goes on to say in verse 15, so he asks this rhetorical question, second half of verse 15, he says, If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

What's happening in the Corinthian church is the more he goes out of his way to love, the less love is reciprocated to him.

The more he loves them, the less love is returned.

And yet he continues to pursue them, even at this emotional cost to himself.

And so it's worth reflecting on.

It's worth asking yourself, how can this be?

How do you get yourself to a place emotionally where you continue to pursue people in love like this?

How is this possible?

It's possible because Paul what Paul values has changed, what Paul treasures has changed.

The super apostles, well, they they treasured money and power and influence and control.

And so they sought that.

But what does Paul treasure?

What does he spend himself for?

Verse 15 I will gladly spend and be spent for your souls.

That was his price, that was his treasure, and so he went after that.

How can you have this change of values, this change of treasure?

Only the heart that has understood the good news of Jesus pursues those sorts of things.

Only the heart that has been changed by the gospel understands what it is to pursue people at great personal cost.

Because that is what the gospel tells us.

What is the good news of Jesus?

The good news of Jesus is that God, the Son, became flesh at great cost to himself in order to pursue us.

He sought not our stuff, but us.

He spent himself for our souls.

The heart that understands the gospel is a heart that will go on to reflect a gospel love.

How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure.

Paul understood that Jesus had pursued him, sought him to that Damascus road where he was laid on the broad of his back.

And he understands that Jesus pursues and seeks and woos us in the gospel out of sheer grace and sheer love.

The heart that has been transformed by that is the heart that loves and so pursues others in love.

Secondly, not only does Paul's love for them cause him to pursue them, Paul's love for them is a generous love, is a love that gives.

So love pursues, secondly, love gives.

Verse 16, have a look at it with me.

But granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit of by deceit.

Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you?

I urged Titus to go and sent the other brother with him.

Did Titus take advantage of you?

Did we not act in the same spirit?

Did we not take the same steps?

The money issue is still hanging over Paul.

Uh for those of you who who have forgotten or are unfamiliar, the money issue is this that uh when in the ancient world, if you were a um a traveling philosopher uh or preacher, you would be paid by the people who listen to you.

But Paul, not wanting to identify himself with this kind of an itinerant, financially dependent kind of model of uh of the roving philosopher, he didn't take their money.

And the Corinthians were really offended that he didn't take their money.

They were like, oh, is our money not good enough for you?

Paul said, No, no, that's not what it is at all.

It was essential for Paul, rather, that the Corinthian Christians understood that the gospel came with a free offer.

You see, forgiveness is free.

Grace is free.

Reconciliation and adoption into the family of God are free for those who would trust in Jesus.

The cost was laid on him.

And so Paul would not have that confused by them.

Then giving him money, paying for it.

But he was still being accused of being a con, of trying to trick them because he didn't take their money.

And the idea was, well, you know, Paul went on ahead of these other guys, and he was kind of luring them into a false sense of security.

But uh, you know, maybe, maybe the other people in his team, maybe they're the ones who are going to be like, ah, well, you know, if we could you know get a payment, you know, that'd be great.

Was Paul like the, was he like the straight guy in the two-man con?

Was he like the uh the you the weeping woman at the side of the road while somebody else comes and picks their pockets?

That's what they thought.

They had become so cynical that Paul's generosity looked like deceit.

And here's the thing.

In our world where it seems that so many people are on the make, where people are out for what they can get, it can make us suspicious and paranoid.

We're always kind of thinking, well, when's the other shoe gonna drop?

No such thing as a free lunch.

And that can make it that can make us so suspicious that we can look at the gospel and go, hold on, this is too good to be true.

What what what else is gonna happen here?

Sometimes our suspicions can so warp our perceptions that even generosity and kindness looks like deceitful manipulation.

I guess I guess one way to address that in our hearts, one way to kind of break out of that toxic cul-de-sac, if you are feeling suspicious of someone's apparent kindness, if you are feeling cynical, I guess Jesus has to be our standard.

I I don't say that kind of uh tritely.

What I mean by that is you have to ask yourself, you is this person speaking and acting in a Christ-like way?

Have I observed their life and actually see that they're operating with Christ-like integrity?

And when I say are they speaking and acting in a Christ-like way, I don't just mean uh the Jesus of your imaginings, you know, Jesus who only says nice things, right?

You the g the Jesus who uh who only cuddles little sheep and uh and looks placid in stained glass windows.

You know, is this the G are they reflecting the Jesus of the Bible?

Well, maybe I can begin to to trust them.

Sadly, within the church, we have had to be cautious and suspicious of those who would seek to take advantage of us.

And I am under no illusions that friends and guests would come into our midst here, suspicious, cynical, because of the ways that people who have called upon or professed the name of Jesus have calmed and manipulated people.

What's the what's the answer?

How do we commend the gospel to those people?

I want to cry to you.

How do we help those people?

Well, Paul actually implicitly gives us an answer here.

Because one of the things that Paul points to here in verse 17 and 18 is he says, look at the culture across my group.

Look at Titus, look at the the other brother, whoever that is, might be Prophetitus, might have been Luke, we don't know, it might have been Mark, we don't know.

He says, Look at the culture that's across the group.

Was it that I was just acting one way and then they came and acted another?

It's like, no, no, no.

It was the same integrity, the same other person-centered love across the board.

That they acted with the same spirit of service and of love.

It's not just that I came as the straight guy in the con and then they came along and they stuck the arm in.

It's that the culture of my group has been transformed by the gospel.

You see, brothers and sisters, in a culture where people are suspicious, sometimes not without warrant, or cynical of Christians or of the church, or paranoid, how do we address that?

We address that not by simply by me standing like that Paul figure being like, oh no, let me tell you what we're all like.

It's when they begin to see in the entire group that the DNA and the culture is different here.

How do we answer the suspicions of those who would come into our midst, who don't yet know Jesus, who don't yet know how to trust another human being?

It is by showing them that our lives across the board are marked by generosity and love and integrity.

And they say, oh no, it's like they're not just saying, oh, it's very easy for the guy up the front to say these things.

And it is.

But actually I see it reflected in all of the actions of every member in this body.

You think, no, no, no, what they say they actually do.

The generous love that they talk about, they actually seek to put into practice.

It's not that they're perfect, but when they mess up, they actually talk about their sin and they ask for forgiveness.

I remember uh reading a uh reading a book by uh a lady called uh Rosaria Champagne Butterfield.

What a great middle name.

If you're ever on the hunt for a middle name for your child, Champagne.

Um Rosaria Butterfield wrote a uh wrote a book called Um Uh Confessions of an Unlikely Convert.

She was a uh a lecturer in English literature and queer theory at at uh Syracuse University in New York, and she talks about her conversion uh to Christianity.

Uh she was um, like I say, a lecturer in queer theory and um living with a uh with another woman, and and she was engaged by by this pastor, and she talks about how one of the things that really struck her when uh she was like invited round to dinner and in conversations with this with this Christian family is that they would talk openly about their sins and their faults.

They would confess their sins in front of her and ask for forgiveness.

Nobody does that in our world because nobody apologizes.

In the world, everybody's opinion or everybody's self-worth is so wrapped up in the opinion of others that you can't bear to lose faith.

So you can't bear to show any fault or weakness.

How do we live with salt and light in the world?

It's not actually extraordinary things, really.

It's things like integrity, repentance of sin, confession.

Generosity.

That's how we create a counterculture.

That's how we break down the walls of suspicion.

That'd be a great thing to be engaged in together, wouldn't it?

Paul's love pursues, Paul's love gives.

Finally, Paul's love builds up.

Verse 19.

Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you?

It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved.

For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish, and per that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.

I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who have sinned earlier, and have not repented of their impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.

Paul's love seeks their upbuilding.

But he begins by reminding him again that they're not looking for their approval.

They're not looking, he's not looking for their commendation.

So, do you think we're defending ourselves?

We discharge our ministry in the sight of God.

What does Paul mean by that?

And how does that uh flow into what he says about their upbuilding?

But what Paul means by that is that Paul's identity is not wrapped up with what the Corinthians think of him.

He's not pursuing them because he is emotionally needy, or his value and self-worth is dependent upon their praise of him.

Sometimes we can find ourselves in a relationship dynamic where we actually need that person to fulfill some deep longing in us.

That we need that person to somehow give us a sense of value or a sense of worth.

We can think that we are loving that person when actually we're using them to fulfill a need that we have.

Paul, by contrast, has a stable identity outside of his relationship to these Corinthian Christians.

He knows who he is in Jesus.

I live my ministry before the audience of one.

My commendation, my value, my worth, it doesn't actually come from you, Corinthian Christians.

It comes from God, who has already in Jesus expressed his opinion over my life, that I am a sinner saved by grace.

What that means then is that Paul has actually been set free.

Paul has been set free to love them lavishly, recklessly.

It frees him to love them no matter what the cost.

It frees him to love them no matter of how much he is loved by them in return.

It frees him to keep on pursuing them.

It frees him to live for their good, their upbuilding.

You see, when our identity, when our value is wrapped up with somebody else, we don't actually exclusively work for their upbuilding because we are also working for ours.

We are working to satisfy our own desires, our own emotional needs.

But if we have a stable core identity outside of ourselves, that is based not in relationship or circumstances, but in the God who has declared who we are with the death and resurrection of his son, then that liberates us to love generously without reference to ourselves, because all of the emotional satisfaction that we crave is coming from God, the fount of living water, who's adopted us, forgiven us, redeemed us, restored us, who approves of us, who says, You are my son, you are my daughter.

Let me tell you a remarkable thing.

I'm sure I've said it before.

John 13.

John 13 is the is the bit in John's gospel where Jesus washes the disciples' feet.

An amazing act of selfless love and sacrifice and service.

He comes to his disciples, and what we read there is this.

We don't just read, and uh after they'd had dinner, uh Jesus got up and uh, as an act of selfless service, took off the his outer robe, tied a tile around his waist, and washed his disciples' feet.

That's not what we read.

Let me tell you what we read there in John 13.

It says, and Jesus, knowing that he had come from the Father, and that he was returning to the Father's side, got up from table, removed his outer garment, tied a towel around his waist, and washed his disciples' feet.

Knowing that he had come from the Father and that he was returning to the Father, he conducted this lowly act of service.

That's how the Christian identity frees you in a nutshell.

That you know that your life is approved of by God, that he is the one whose commendation you are seeking in the end, whose well done, good and faithful servant you are living for.

It allows you to get up from table, to tie a tile around your waist and to serve your brothers and sisters, to serve those who will never say thank you, who will never appreciate it, who will maybe even think less of you for doing it.

Because you have a stable core identity that is given to you freely as a gift in the gospel.

Do you have that stable core identity?

Or is your heart still attached to the opinions and values of others?

Let's journey together and weaning ourselves off the opinions of others, eh?

Let's help one another.

Because that's gonna be a job that we need to work towards until we hear that well done, good and faithful servant.

I'm not saying I'm there yet.

I'm saying I want to be there.

I want to be where Jesus is in John 13.

Let's let's pursue that together, shall we?

Can we do that?

Because that's what's liberated Paul.

He works for their good.

Now, when he says, you're working for your upbuilding, what is this upbuilding?

What is this good that he is working towards?

Well, I'm gonna just draw on another place from one of Paul's letters, from a very well-known passage from Romans chapter 8, because uh one of the verses in Romans chapter 8, we we all know very well we know that verse that uh that God works in all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes.

Romans 8 · chapter mention Romans 8 · chapter mention

We know that God is working all things for good.

We put that on calendars with nice waterfalls, uh, or like a deer in the distance.

God works all things for good.

It's all painted on a rainbow, right?

But what's the good?

Because out of its context, you can kind of think, well, that must mean that God works in order to make me happy.

God works so that I might have good things.

That would be a misunderstanding of the verse.

What is the good that God is working towards in your life?

What is the upbuilding that Paul is working towards?

Well, Paul again gives us the answer in verse, uh in Romans chapter 8, when he says that all those are called to be conformed to the image of his son.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

What is the good that God is about in your life?

It's making you more like Jesus.

What is the good work that he has begun in your life that he will bring to completion?

Philippians chapter 1, verse 6.

Philippians 1:6

It's that you might be more like Jesus.

That you might speak and act and reflect the character of, have the values of, and be motivated by those things that motivate Jesus.

We were made as image bearers of God.

And we know, this side of the cross and resurrection, what that God looks like.

We've seen his face in the face of Christ, we've heard his voice in the pages of scripture.

And God is about the work of making you more like Jesus.

That is the upbuilding that Paul is working towards.

Everything that he does is so that these brothers and sisters would be more like Christ.

Think like Christ, feel like Christ, act, be motivated like Christ.

That is his chief motivating desire.

That must be our chief motivating desire in everything that we do as a church community, as a church family.

Why do we pastor people?

Why do we have small groups?

Why do we sing?

Why do we disciple and train people?

Why do we discipline?

Why do we pray?

Why do we plan to plant another church?

So that Christ would be formed in us and in those around us.

So that more people would become would come to know and become more like the Lord Jesus.

Everything else is dross.

Everything else is background noise.

That's our mission.

It's central to our purposes, central to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

I need to accelerate.

Let me just point out a couple of other things and then I'll conclude us.

This building up can often feel like tearing down, can't it?

Building up can often feel like tearing down.

It would be a mistake to think that you are only ever building someone up when you are agreeing with them, affirming them, and celebrating every choice that they make.

Paul has been challenging them all the way through this letter.

He fears that when he gets there, he may have to challenge them again.

But why does he want them to turn away from these things like hostility and slander and gossip and conceit?

Because he wants them to be more like Christ.

He wants to build them up into that image.

But sometimes, in order to build up, it can feel like tearing down.

Do you know that when when a wind when the wind shakes the trees in a storm, it causes the roots of the trees to go deeper.

When the wind shakes the trees, the roots go deeper.

Sometimes it can feel like things are being shaken.

But it is so that we might put down deeper roots.

Sometimes it can feel like a relationship is being shaken.

But it is with the desired end of a deepening relationship, a deepening friendship, and a deepening of Christ-likeness in the people involved.

One of the ways that building up can feel like tearing down is when we begin to study.

When we begin to study the Bible, when we begin to read theology or watch good theology videos on YouTube and things like that.

Some of you, I'm sure, have had this experience of you begin to read the Bible again, or you begin to read some good theology that you might have got from Gospel Books Ireland.

You go and talk to Becky about that.

And you have this, you think, this is challenging all of my assumptions.

What I was brought up in, what I thought was true.

It's actually no, it's actually not what the Bible's teaching.

And I can feel kind of destabilizing.

But the point of good theology is that you might build up stronger.

Over the course of this letter, Paul has only sought to build them up by his example, by his speech, by his priorities, and yes, by his corrections.

This is the way of love.

Love that pursues, love that gives, love that seeks the good of others.

And don't we see the image of Christ here?

Don't we see how this resonates with the gospel?

The Lord Jesus, who generously pursued us in love for our good, that he sought not us but our soul, and not our stuff, but our souls.

Paul would have the Corinthian Christians know that this is the mark of a true apostle.

But it is also the mark of the true disciple.

That we together form a culture as we think about getting you know back together more as we get used to being in the same room as one another, as we journey towards another beginning of another academic year, and we kind of think, well, what is the kind of culture?

What's the DNA that we want to reflect?

Well, it's this love that pursues, love that is generous, love that is for the upbuilding and good of others.

That is what we should be known for individually, and by God's help, we could be known for together as a church.

Let us labor towards that end by his grace.

Let me pray.

Father, help us to live and to love for your glory and for the good of others.

Help us to love out of a heart that is confident in who we are in Christ, who you have declared us to be.

Help us to deepen that confidence.

Help our roots, as it were, to go deeper into that so that we might more freely love people and be known as a community that loves.

Not in sentimental ways, but in deep and robust and eternal ways.