Can We Talk? Love + God's Standard

We're in a series called Can we Talk?

Addressing The Uncomfortable.

We live in a world where truth is on the chopping block and there are so many places and so many ways that truth is under assault.

And we believe that truth is absolute and it's found in the person of Jesus Christ and in the Bible that he wrote, and we're so grateful that we have this living Word of God, that we can find the truths that are found in him throughout the pages and the words that are in this great book.

But all of us probably know somebody who has given in to the lies of the culture, and so our hope is for us to be able to be equipped to have conversations with people who are struggling with the idea of truth an absolute truth, and the idea of Jesus being truth, so that we can make sure that people understand where we stand on things but, most importantly, that the Lord could use our words to be able to create change and transformation in people's lives, because that's what it's all about, amen.

And so last week we began by talking about truth and laying the foundation of that, and today we're going to be looking at love, and truth and love are friends of each other.

They are not enemies and we'll be getting into that during the message this morning.

And I knew that I was on the right subject this morning because when I came in earlier, somebody handed me a cigar.

No, it's chocolate.

It's chocolate.

So don't, don't, do not allow the religious spirit to rise up among us, but it is a chocolate cigar.

But for those of you who are from out of town, there's a tradition whenever the University of Tennessee football team plays the University of Alabama team and the winning team passes out cigars and they get to, they smoke the cigars, right.

So here's the reality.

If you didn't know, this University of Tennessee did not win yesterday.

So for somebody to hand this to me without expecting any form of response or reaction, it was really a test for me, it was a challenge and I couldn't really, I couldn't really think of a better like scenario to start the message out with.

So there you go, and I'm not going to name their name, because they know who they are and God's dealing with them.

And it is so hard because I have mixed emotions, because, crimson Tide, we believe that the blood of Jesus washes us clean from all sins.

So it's all confusing out there a little bit, but anyway, let's get into the real truth this morning.

It has nothing to do with football, aren't you glad?

So, again, our hope is that the truths that we preach about today and over this whole series are things that you can use around the Thanksgiving dinner table and your workplace, at school and at Walmart, wherever you find yourself in a position that you have the chance to speak the truth in love.

We want you to be able to be equipped to do that.

So if you would turn in your Bibles to Ephesians, chapter four and we're going to start we have four parts really to the message.

The first part is a devotional from Ephesians four, and then we will talk about, we'll have, like, an example from Scripture, and then we're going to be talking about three questions what does culture say about love, what does God say about love and how can we talk about love within the culture?

So you ready for this?

You ready to get going with me?

Here we go.

Ephesians, chapter four, 11 through 16.

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.

Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

When we will no longer be immature like children, we won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.

We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.

Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of His body, the church.

He makes the whole body fit together perfectly.

As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for your word that is so true.

We ask you, lord, that you would help us to absorb it, that it would go into the very recesses of our heart and clean out everything that needs to be cleaned out and causes to be transformed and changed more and more into your likeness.

Help us to live like Jesus while we're on this planet.

We ask you these prayers in Jesus' name, amen.

My wife and I met on a Christian drama team.

On this drama team we traveled all over the United States.

I went to 42 states doing ministry.

We went to prisons and schools and street corners, festivals, churches.

Whenever there was an opportunity or a door we would go to these different places.

It was a tremendous thing to be involved with.

One time we went to a college campus.

While we were there we were going to invite students to come to the meeting that we were having.

That night we saw a ruckus going on in the commons area.

Until we made our way over to the commons area, we found in the middle of that area a crowd had gathered and there was a screaming preacher.

Anybody ever heard of a screaming preacher?

The screaming preacher was letting people know with no uncertain terms that they were lustful, that they were envious, that they were.

He was basically going down the Ten Commandments and then yelling you're all going to go to hell, hey, hail, yeah.

It just kind of added an extra syllable to it.

Somehow it made it more spiritual.

I was observing this and the crowd that had gathered was not as enthusiastic about what was being said as I might have hoped.

They were very not enthusiastic about it.

In fact they were throwing things at this man who was a preacher.

They were throwing tomatoes and eggs and other things like that.

I, just being the young, wise man that I was I was what?

20 years old I walked up to this man who was preaching, tapped him on the shoulder and said, could we have a turn?

Not knowing how the crowd would handle us being up there.

But he kind of gladly stepped away.

It was kind of an interesting thing.

It was almost like he'd had his fill.

We got up and we did a couple of skits that were a little more funny.

The crowd began to pay attention a little bit.

We finally did one that was about suicide and hopelessness and about how Jesus is the answer even in the middle of those kinds of places in life that are just hard to describe or explain.

By the end of that time the many in the crowd were weeping and we gave a simple gospel message and several people came to know Jesus that day.

Now I'm not saying that story to you to say that we did something great and this man did something horrible.

Actually, we were both speaking truth, if you're, if we're honest, because that crowd was filled with people who were involved in sexual sin, in, in all kinds, all of the Ten Commandments for being broken in one way or another.

And the reality is that a person who does not confess Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord and follow after him so that their life is transformed and changed, that they will, when they die, go from this life to the next and face eternity in hell.

So it was truth, in a way, that he was speaking.

So what was the difference?

What made the difference on that day?

It wasn't that there was.

There were two truths being spoken, but it was the way that the truth was being presented.

It was the love that people were experiencing as we were speaking, the truth that we were speaking to them.

And it's only God, by the way, who can cause anybody to have a heart that changes or a mind that changes.

Anyway, it wasn't us at all.

We were just simply vessels that were being used by him, and the truths that we were speaking were just as true as what he was saying.

It's just that we were using love as a means to get through to these people.

So, as we look into this passage in Ephesians, chapter 4, remember that Paul was an apostle who started a lot of churches and he was a powerful man of God.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

But probably his favorite church was the church at Ephesus.

He spent two solid years there.

He started a ministry school, he trained up many leaders that would be used in all of the different churches that he planted around the Greco-Roman world.

And he specifically trained up a young man named Timothy, who was his protege, his son in the faith, who would then become the pastor of this church in Ephesus.

And so Paul writes this letter to the Ephesian church.

And it's kind of an interesting letter because most of all of the other letters that Paul writes are pretty corrective in nature.

In other words, you're doing this wrong and so you need to do this differently.

But in the book of Ephesians most of it is really simply glorifying Christ.

It's presenting him in his glory.

It's talking about how he saves lost people who are not seeking after him, but he pursues them.

It talks about it's very it's a beautiful book.

If you've never read the book of Ephesians, I encourage you, even this week.

It's six chapters.

Take a chapter a day and read through this beautiful book.

And in Ephesians 4, paul begins to talk about how the church should function and what kinds of roles the church leaders have and how the leadership within the church should prepare those who are part of the church to be able to do the work of ministry.

And that's where we find ourselves here in Ephesians, chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

So I want to make four crucial points to you from this passage, from our devotional, and then we'll move on to our questions.

So the first one is Christ gave himself to the church in the form of ministry gifts.

As great as Neil Silverberg is, or Derek Overhold, or anybody else that you could call out by name in this room, it's only Jesus that can save you, and so you know what we present of ourselves to you.

I always say to people if you follow me around long enough, I will fail you.

I'm not trying to fail you, but I am not a perfect person and I will make a mistake somewhere that will cause you to be bothered by that.

But if you follow whatever you see of Jesus in me, you're never going to be.

Everything is going to be fine, right, everything's going to be fine Not easy, but fine.

So follow Jesus and whatever of Jesus you see in me.

But Jesus felt so strongly about this that he actually laid out these ministry gifts and, by the way, these are, these are they're not really titles, they're more functions.

So when you think about it, if somebody, if you observe somebody in ministry and they're requiring people to call them a certain title, like Apostle so-and-so, prophet so-and-so, evangelist so-and-so, you have to ask yourself the question why are they requiring that?

Now it's if somebody refers to another person with a term of Endurement, like we live in the South, everybody calls their pastor pastor Tyler or pastor Derek.

There's nothing wrong with that, horribly wrong with that.

But we're never going to require that of you, because we don't feel like that.

That's what this is about, right?

Jesus is the name that needs to be magnified and glorified and it's the giving of himself through these different ministry gifts and functions, that's the most important thing.

So what are these five quickly?

What are these five things?

What are the functions of these things?

Apostles are sent, ones who plant churches or help establish order and lay foundation biblically, especially in these churches Powerful thing that Neil Silverberg and others that we know that operate in this gift.

Also, profits.

What do profits do?

They help declare and confirm what is in the mind of the Lord.

They bring clarity by speaking the word of God in a particular setting, to a particular group of people at a particular time.

Evangelists are the hands and feet of Jesus to a lost and dying world.

If there ever were evangelists that I've ever met, robin Chris Ellis fit in this category very much.

They are evangelists.

This is what they do, that is their function, that is what makes them tick right.

Pastors lead, care for and protect the church.

That's their ultimate role.

It's kind of like a shepherd to sheep right, and the teachers help maintain balance through the word of God, and we have pastors and teachers on our group of elders as well, and so we're grateful for all of these different gifts and their functions.

Jesus performed perfectly every single one of these, and I've never met a person on this planet that can function in all five of these ministry gifts to perfection, like Jesus did right, and that's just absolutely true.

But the church needs these gifts in place in order for it to be healthy.

Together, these gifts help to build up the church.

So the next point is those in ministry should be equipping the church to live like Jesus.

What is the purpose of these five functions, these gifts that are given, parts of Jesus's ministry, that are given in order for others to carry them forward.

What is the purpose of those gifts Is to equip the church to live like Jesus.

We take God gives part of himself, part of Jesus, to different people so that they can express that, so that those who are listening and following and a part of what God's doing through those people can live out the truths that are being spoken about.

Isn't it interesting?

What was Jesus's ministry?

What was his plan?

What was his plan?

Was it so?

Did he want to gather the masses together every day so that he could hope that there would be thousands and thousands of people who would go out and talk about him and bring others to him?

He could have done that.

He could have easily gathered the crowds.

One healing, one miracle.

We know that there were times he was trying to escape the crowds because they were constantly pushing in on him, wanting more, wanting something more.

But what did he do?

He took time with 12 individuals, 12 people, and he taught them who he was, he showed them who he was, he sent them to take the gifts that he had to disperse to others and then, in the end, he filled them with the Holy Spirit and released them as he ascended into heaven to take this great message of the gospel, the kingdom of God, and to disperse it among the nations.

We are here this morning because that plan works and, by the way, the plan hasn't changed.

God continues to give giftings to individuals, functions, ministry, functions to individuals so that they can use those things to help disciple others, so that they can do it further and further and further, multitude upon multitude.

And we have a chance as a church, especially with our young people, to pass this on to the next generation.

We, as an elder team, these are the types of things that we think about when we think about ministry.

If we are to live like Jesus, we must also speak the truth in love like Jesus.

Amen.

We must speak the truth in love.

Speaking the truth in love like Jesus is one of the key indicators of spiritual maturity.

It says here instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of the church.

He makes the whole body fit together perfectly.

As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Now, most people fit within one of these two camps.

They're either truth people or they're love people.

Right Now, how do you figure out, honestly, which camp you are in?

Here's how you can tell.

One of the ways you can tell.

If you get excited about confronting somebody about something, you may be in the truth camp.

If you are looking forward to the chance to lay somebody out with some truth that you have come to know and feel strongly about and passionately about, you may be in the truth camp.

If you get silent when things are controversial and back away, you may be in the love camp.

If you wait patiently for an opportunity to be able to speak somebody instead of being excited about fileting them like you do with salmon, you may be in the love camp.

But can I tell you the honest truth None of us should fully be in either one of those camps.

We should be in both.

We should be in both.

If we are to live like Jesus, then we must learn, regardless of our passions and what turns us on and what we get excited about, we must choose to follow Jesus and to do things his way, his way.

I remember when Neil, who was the former lead pastor of Trinity Community Church, asked me about seven or eight years ago if I would consider being the next lead pastor, and so I was praying about that and asking the Lord about it.

And the Lord asked me a simple question, which I really did not appreciate, if I'm being honest.

I'm just being real with you.

He said do you really love the people of the church?

And I said well, lord, first of all, I'm like the roller-decks or the chip in my brain is going through all of the biblical stories.

I'm thinking about Peter and Jesus serving in breakfast on the thing and I'm like, how did I sin a few years ago that now Jesus is correcting my sin?

And then does your mind ever go there Like crazy places?

But really, I just asked for clarification.

I said, lord, I think I love them, but I'm sure you're going to tell me something else.

And he said do you love them enough to tell them the truth?

Do you love them enough to tell them the truth?

And for a person who is mostly motivated by love, to hear the Lord asking that of me was something I had to grapple with, something I had to come to terms with because, in order for me to lead and to be an example to our church, to my children, to my grandchildren, to my wife.

I have to be willing to stand up for what's right and what's true and what's just and what's pure and what's holy.

And it doesn't mean that I can't love, but love looks like sometimes, really looks like speaking the truth, right.

So if you find yourself in either one of those camps, ask the Lord to help you to change, to get more to that middle ground where the two are friends of each other, they are not enemies.

It takes great wisdom and self-control to combine the two in such a way that Christ is fully represented in our communication.

It's interesting because a lot of times, when it comes to ministry, people forget they're representing somebody else.

It's not about you, it's not about the way you do something, it's about the Christ that you have the privilege of representing, and that's what it should be all about.

So the true sign of Christian maturity is that we live like Jesus, and there's a great example of this found in John, chapter eight in verse two.

Early in the morning he came again to the temple.

This was Jesus, and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, in placing her in the midst.

They said to him teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

Now, in the law, moses commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say?

It sounds like a friendly conversation, right?

Then they said to test him.

Aren't you glad that the Bible sometimes gives you like the footnotes, so that you understand the motivation behind it, what's actually being said?

We don't have to figure it out.

This.

They said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus spent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her Ouch.

And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, the wiser ones, who understood a little bit more, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Jesus stood up and said to her woman where are they?

Has no one condemned you?

She said no one, lord.

And Jesus said neither do I condemn you.

Go and from now on sin no more.

The religious leaders spoke the truth.

It was true that in Moses' law, that if a person were caught in the act of adultery, that one of the punishments, one of the prescriptions, would be for them to be stoned to death, and so they were not tricking Jesus with something that was way far outside.

And you know this is the way that Satan works.

He works with things that are very close to being true or could be represented as truth in certain groups, around certain types of people.

That's the way he loves to work scratching the surface of truth, but the motivation behind it, that which is the desired end result, is far from the truth.

It's called manipulation and control, and we, as believers in Jesus Christ, should not live or exercise in the realm and the world of Satan and the way he does things.

We are required and we have the blessing of living like Jesus did.

They were attempting to cancel Jesus.

They wanted him removed from the scene, and you know why.

You know why they wanted to cancel Jesus Because they were envious of him.

When was the last time one of these religious leaders prayed for blind eyes that opened, or deaf ears that could hear, or lame people that jumped up and walked.

When was the last time that they saw somebody raised from the dead or spoke with such authority, almost like that God himself was speaking?

When was the last time that crowds would gather around these religious leaders and want to hear the brand of truth that they were presenting?

Over and over and over again, these people were filled with envy and jealousy and they were wanting to do anything that they could to try to silence this man they considered to be a wicked man.

Now we know that they weren't serious about this woman and the sin that she was caught in.

You know why.

Why?

Where was the man?

The woman was caught in adultery, caught in the act of adultery, and so obviously there was somebody else involved in that equation.

Why weren't they brought?

Well, because maybe these religious leaders knew this man and wanted to protect his reputation, maybe he was even one of them, maybe he was somebody that was not as important.

They wanted to bring this vulnerable person, this woman, to Jesus, to make it harder for him to be able to answer the question without somehow messing with something from Moses or from culture that was present at the time.

They really just wanted to trick Jesus, to condemn him, to discredit him to remove him.

People in general listen to this.

People in general tend to follow those who have similar passions to them, but how many of you know?

Just because somebody is passionate about something doesn't mean that there's somebody that we should follow.

These religious leaders were passionate about what they taught, about what they believed, about what they did, about what they didn't do, especially, and about what they were promoting for other people to not do or to do.

They were religious in every way, and yet they couldn't see the kingdom of God had come right in front of them and they were completely blind to it, to the point to where they were resisting it with everything that they had in them.

Let's be careful not to connect ourselves with people who are passionate about something that is not truth.

Let's be careful and guarded against that.

There are so many people that have voices on the internet through podcasts in many different ways, that they're really interesting to listen to, and we feel similar passions to what they feel, and so we go with them completely.

It's like all or nothing.

The only person that we should be all or nothing with and it should be all, is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Everyone else is prone to weakness and failing.

So what did Jesus do with these religious leaders?

I believe he challenged them by speaking the truth and love about their own need for mercy.

First of all, he said nothing.

He bends over and he begins to ride in the sand, and I love the scene from the Passion of the Christ where the woman comes to Jesus and Jesus bends over and begins to ride in the sand, and you hear the sound effect of poooosh as the sand flies up off of the ground.

We don't know if it was that kind of a miraculous moment or not, but we do know those very same fingers in the Old Testament wrote the law of God on two tablets of stone, and so I believe this was a similarly powerful moment.

The God of creation, jesus Himself, who spoke the words of creation, stooped down and wrote in the sand, and there's all kinds of conjecture about what he must have written.

What could he have written?

What did he write?

Or did he just draw something?

Was it the first emoji ever that was ever created?

What did he write, you know, in the sand.

I have a theory, and I'm going to tell you this is a complete theory.

This is not something that you should write down in your notes and say Tyler said this is the way, it is okay.

But what if the first time he stooped down he wrote do not commit adultery.

And then he stood up and said that he's without sin, cast the first stone, and then he bends down and he starts writing the other nine.

All of a sudden, from the oldest to the youngest, they drop their rocks and they leave, maybe for the first time in many years, recognizing their own need for mercy, their own need For mercy.

Isn't it interesting that the very people that were attempting to destroy Jesus and cancel him, jesus is throwing them a lifeline by helping them to look up where their help comes from.

Again, we're not benefited.

We don't have the end of all of their stories, but I believe that some of these people began to think differently about Jesus and about his words from this point forward.

He could have easily swatted them away like flies.

He could have called down fire from heaven, he could have consumed them with lightning, he could have sent angels to mess with them.

He could have done a thousand million different things, and yet he just stooped over and wrote in the sand.

And then Jesus speaks the truth in love to the unbelieving woman.

Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

He stood up and said to her woman where are they?

Could you picture this?

Up to this point, her hair must have been in front of her eyes and her hands probably in a defensive position, waiting for the first rock to be thrown, knowing that this was probably the end of her life, and all of a sudden she wipes away the mud and the tears and pushes her hair back and looks around.

You can just think it must have been very still in that moment.

And she looks around and there's nobody left except for Jesus.

And she looks up at Jesus.

And what does Jesus say?

Has no one condemned you?

She said no one, lord.

And Jesus said neither do I condemn you.

Go and from now on, sin no more.

You see, first of all, jesus deals with the shame that this woman must have been experiencing because of the sin that she was involved with.

He confronted her by truth in love.

He asked the woman where are your accusers?

You know the difference between condemnation and conviction.

Condemnation is a tool of Satan that attempts to convince people that there's no hope, that there's no answer, there's no way out.

They've gone too far, they've gone too deep, it's over.

And not only does it try to convince people of that about themselves.

Condemnation tries to work on us, against other people as well.

They're getting what they deserve.

We need to be careful with that.

Judge not, lest you be judged Now.

What does conviction do?

Conviction does not deny the fact that this adultery was sin against God and against man, and the fullest extent of the reverberation or the consequence of that sin is eternal separation from God.

But but but go and sin no more.

He gave her a way out.

He gave her an answer.

Conviction is God saying to you let's do this, let's do this, let's lay it aside.

Let's lay that aside and follow after me and I will make all things new.

And then the woman did you notice what she said?

She acknowledged Jesus as her savior and Lord.

When she said no one Lord, no one Lord.

We don't know who was her master before besides Satan.

But now she looks at Jesus with new eyes and new hope.

And what does Jesus do?

Jesus forgives her, but then he challenges her to show fruits of repentance.

Jesus, again, didn't deny the sin, he didn't lessen its effect, he didn't make light of it, but he gave her a way out and a means of remaining free from it.

This is how Jesus speaks the truth in love.

Speaking the truth in love, like Jesus, must begin within the church.

How many churches have divided because these truths have not been exercised in their houses, in their church?

How can we model such love when we must address our own failings, our own sins, our own offenses with one another?

Jesus gave us clear instructions, thankfully, in Matthew 18, verse 15.

Matthew 18:15

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Whoa, this is serious.

Let's just reiterate quickly the steps.

Step one the person observing another believer's unrepented sin must be the one who lovingly and biblically confronts them.

You know what we normally do hey, did you see what so and so did?

Did you see that post?

Did you recognize what they were doing and we also spiritualize it.

You know we really need to pray for so and so they're really struggling right now.

You know what they're involved with, right, I do now.

This is a one-on-one scenario One person going to another person because they care so deeply about them about them that they're willing to be honest and open about something that they see that could be a great threat to this person.

If we're not interested in the restoration of the person, don't start the process.

Shut your mouth and sit down, because church discipline, the only goal must be restoration.

Now can we control how that if that happens?

Absolutely not.

We have no ability to control how another person carries out their walk and their life.

All we can do is create every kind of way.

System means to give that person a chance to walk in the light as he is in the light, to walk away from the sin that has had them captivated and to walk in truth.

Step two if there is no repentance, try again with one or two other people that are on your side.

Is that the right answer?

One or two spiritually mature people?

This is not a gang obsession.

This is not you and your buddies coming to let them know that you're going to do something about this because of what they've done.

This is a serious thing because you're concerned not about your own feelings alone, but you're concerned about the outcome for this person's life.

And step three, the final stage if the person does not repent, it is that the church leadership gets involved and it's brought ultimately before the church.

And I've had people ask me and I've been in ministry 30 years have you ever seen it go to step three?

I want to tell you a quick story.

25 years ago, the pastor of our church started a relationship with a young lady in the church, and it started out innocently enough, but over time it seemed like it began to change and transform into something that was more than just a friendship, and so I, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit in love, went to this pastor time and time again and asked simple questions Is it possible that you're getting too close to this individual?

How can I pray about this?

Expressing my own weakness, especially as a teenager, when it came to being involved in relationships that were not good for me, that were not healthy, and every time I would walk away from those occasions feeling like I had done something wrong.

In fact, the last time they said I swear on the Bible that I haven't done anything wrong.

Well, the person that they were married to hired a private investigator and discovered that there was something going on that was wrong.

And so then I had to step in as one of the other pastors of the church to speak to this individual again, and at first it looked like that they were going to repent, and I was so excited.

But a day or two later, god, in his wisdom, had eyes out that we didn't even know about around the community.

That saw this pastor and this young lady together again, and so, confronted again, I called one of our overseers of the church to come in and help me, and we met together with this pastor, again confronted in love, looking for redemption, looking for a way for a means for this to be turned into a positive thing instead of a negative thing for him.

And in the end he refused, and so I had to say well then, I'm going to have to speak to the church, step three.

And so I stood up on a Sunday morning, just like this, and I shared what I just shared with you to a congregation and shared that their pastor, my dad, had chosen to walk away from everything that he had known before to pursue this relationship with this young lady.

That, my friends, was one of the hardest days of my life, and as I was trying to make the decision of whether I could do that, even do that, or should do that, you know what I thought about.

I thought about my young children and I thought about years from that day when we would have conversations about Christ and about truth and about love.

How would I explain what happened with their grandfather and how that connected to the church?

And I realized that I was not just doing this for my dad's benefit, I was doing it for my own family's benefit, because the children of the church.

If there's no standard of holiness held up within a church, what do our kids think?

They think that anything goes, it really doesn't matter, there's no repercussion, there's no consequence.

You know we talk about sin on Sunday mornings, but there's no evidence of anybody ever being confronted about sin or being dealt with or having to come to terms with the fact that they're living in a life that's outside of what is God's best for them, and so it made the decision based on that.

Now, this afternoon, right after this service.

I'm leaving to go to North Carolina to visit my dad and I met with him about six weeks ago and we had the best conversation we've had in 25 years and he is much closer to repairing his relationship with the Lord than he ever has been up to this point.

And that is still my hope and the goal of this whole thing, the whole thing.

And so what I'm saying to you is that, as hard as this thing is, to do this the right way, it's got to be done.

It must be done for the health of the individual and for the body.

That's a part of this kind of thing.

Right?

It's one of the reasons why I have built such here's the thing about my dad that you don't know.

He was one of the greatest ministers of the gospel I have ever known.

He saw blind eyes open and deaf ears open.

He saw hundreds of people come to know Jesus as their savior.

He was not a slough, he was the real thing, until this thing got ahold of him and he wasn't willing to let it go.

So I have built all kinds of accountability into my life to ensure because if that man could fall the way he fell, but for the grace of God.

There go I.

So one of the things that I've done my wife has the ability to search any of my accounts at any time without me deleting anything or changing a password or anything like that.

I also will never be in a car alone with a woman unless she's a part of my family.

I don't counsel with women alone in the church unless there are other people that are here.

When I travel, I try to take somebody with me so that I'm not alone All kinds of things that are built in as accountability, not because I'm afraid of something happening, but because I've observed the breaking down of something beautiful and precious to something that has taken 25 years to even see a glimmer of hope.

It's serious, guys.

What we're talking about here is real.

In Galatians 6-1 really gives us a great observation.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you, who are spiritual, should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted.

A little bit of humility goes a long way when it comes to speaking the truth in love.

Do you agree with that?

Amen?

So let's talk about what culture says, and again, we understand Satan's impact on the culture based, the agenda that we hear about that.

We argue about the agendas.

Those agendas are fed by things that are greater than humanity in the sense of their scope, the scope of power that they have, whether God is feeding them or Satan is feeding them.

So the first lie is that love is all-inclusive and celebrates diversity of every kind, except Christianity.

We are the last ones, we are the only ones that there's open season on.

If you are truly a Christian, then you are the enemy of culture, of our current culture, and it's not because we've set ourselves up that way, it's because Satan hates Jesus Christ, and so anything and anyone who represents Jesus Christ in public is under assault by a Satan who hates the life and love of Jesus Christ.

But, by the way, the culture will gladly embrace churches that affirm their sin and there are plenty out there that do and I just want to reinforce with you that we will always walk in love toward anyone, regardless of where they're at in their relationship with the Lord or what sin they're involved with.

But I will tell you this right now that we will not change our stance concerning what God says is true based on pressure from the culture to change.

That is our hope, and we ask you to continue to pray for us that we will walk in that truth.

Another thing culture says is love looks like not interfering with my life choices, even when they're harmful or wrong.

You just pacify, you just walk away.

You just look the other way.

Love is embracing my victimhood and whatever that causes me to do so.

If I break into your house and rub from you, you need to celebrate that, because you're understanding that I'm actually the victim who's acting out of my victimhood and you're not actually being harmed, you're just kind of getting the reciprocation.

That's weird, but it's true.

It's out there.

It's out there.

It's all about me.

It's all about me.

That's what the culture says.

It's all about me.

Another thing culture says is church is a place to be hurt and judged, not a place to find love, and unfortunately this is true in some cases.

There are some churches that, like the religious leaders in Jesus' day, specialize in condemning people without giving them any hope of transformation or change.

That is just as wrong as a church who does, who completely denies and walks in love, that is silent and doesn't speak the truth.

Love looks like not interfering with my life choices.

I've said that love is embracing my victimhood.

Church is a place to be hurt and judged.

Love means absolute acceptance, with no correction or accountability.

My friends, we are called to accept people always, regardless of where they're at, but we do not.

We are not required to accept sinful behavior.

And there's a difference between the two, a vast difference.

And the other thing is love is only an emotion.

It comes and goes.

Love can't be based on emotion.

Any of you who have been married more than five minutes know that love is a choice.

It's a choice that is made and forgiveness is a big part of that choice.

Verse Corinthians 13 makes it clear.

So what does God say about love?

He says God is love, and true love only exists as a gift from God.

Here's the thing.

It's interesting how we deal with other people differently than we want God to deal with us, because we always want His mercy and His compassion and His kindness and His goodness and His grace and all of this.

But we see somebody else that tweaks our ear a little bit and we're ready to punch him out like Mike Tyson, to never deal with.

We should never deal with others in a different way than we want God to deal with us.

Love is what we ought to do.

It's a verb, it's active.

We cannot fulfill the one and others of Scripture unless we are loving truthfully.

The church is to be known for our love one for another, and we're known for our factions.

Instead, we can't get along about anything.

So you see churches in a community not being able to meet together for any purpose of unity because they disagree about blank whatever it is Within churches.

You change the carpet and you have people that leave.

It's silly.

Something like Jesus looks like selfless sacrifice and it looks like telling the truth and walking with someone toward freedom and healing.

That's what it looks like.

How to talk about love.

Step one talk to someone, not at them.

Talk to someone, not at them.

Sometimes it's like we're training a dog.

When we talk to somebody, that dog, you know it's one thing, like if a dog, you're training a dog and it goes to the bathroom in your living room.

So you bring the dog over to the living room and you rub his nose in it.

But it'd be different if you left that there for a day or two and then you brought him back a couple of days later.

That turns into cruelty, doesn't it?

Talk to someone, not at them.

You must care about the person themselves more than trying to overcome the lie that they have believed.

Can I ask all of us a favor Can we read every post that we put out twice before we push the send button, please?

My goodness, we don't think about it.

And I'm saying this because somebody called me out on my send one time.

I posted something that was very generic.

It had a truth in it, but I knew that it was pointed at somebody else, and so my friend called me up and said hey, I saw your post.

Are you sure you want to post that or leave that up?

And they expressed to me how that it didn't look good on me.

Basically, you know what I said.

You're absolutely right.

Thank you for sharing, and I deleted the post.

I need friends like that in my life, amen.

Remember that we are all prone to sin and we're in desperate need of salvation.

Before we get excited about calling out someone else's sin, we should be talking about our own testimony of redemption as we address the sin in somebody else's life.

Humble yourself, and we must love people enough to tell them the truth.

Love wants what's best for everyone, according to God's standard.

What is our motivation?

To win an argument at all costs or to win someone's soul for the kingdom of God.

Love others with your actions, not just your words, and ask intentional and open questions like how did you come to that conclusion?

Have you considered this?

And, finally, and most importantly, rely on Holy Spirit to give you love for the person you're talking with, because even if you can't get an ounce of love to rise up on the inside of you, as you are addressing somebody that you just want to let them have it, the Holy Spirit, it's shadow, brought in your heart the love of God.

He shines it through you in ways that you can't fake or make happen on your own.

We sometimes forget that it's our character that makes the word of our testimony so powerful.

It's Christ's love in us that persuades the heart of sinners.

Do you love with Christ's love?

Do you love with everything about Jesus?

Do you love with His eyes, eyes that don't see condemnation for the woman caught in adultery, but they see a lonely, confused woman in need of forgiveness and change?

Do you love with Christ's ears, ears responding to lepers and beggars, those that society would ignore?

Do you love with Christ's hands, with hands willing to touch those that the rest of the world would reject?

Do you love with Christ's feet, feet willing to walk toward the stench of Samaria or into homes of tax collectors or before the demonized?

Do you love with Christ's lips?

Peter said about Jesus when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate.

When he suffered, he made no threats.

Instead, he entrusted himself to him.

Who judges justly?

1 Peter 2.23.

Do you love with Christ's reputation, making yourself of no reputation and assuming servant status?

Let's pray, father, god, in Jesus' name.

We humble ourselves before you and we acknowledge, lord, that there are times that we either are like uber truthers we just want so much to stand in truth that we forget that we're talking to people even within our own families, lord, with our own kids and grandkids.

Lord, coworkers, whatever the case is, lord, we ask that you would convict us where we need to change and, lord, that you would also cause us to walk in truth that is uncompromising, but that is matched with the matchless gift of love that you show toward us in Christ Jesus.

Help us to be the example of Jesus to a world as we speak the truth in love.

And, father, we confess that we need help with this.

We cannot do it without your own strength, we are weak, but you are strong.

And so, lord, change us, make us more like Jesus in every word, everything that we say, everything that we do, but most importantly, lord, would you fix our hearts, our motivations?

Lord, our hearts are hard for us to discern, but you know the heart.

So I ask Lord, god, in the mighty name of Jesus, change our hearts, make us more like you in Jesus' name, Amen.