A New Way to Love

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Yes, and so it being Valentine's Weekend, we had this special opportunity to today to be able to speak together, and so we're excited about that.

And we are going to be talking about love.

And so, yes, we in love, we can talk about the way in which God has called us to love other people, but we will also learn about God's love.

And we will learn about God's love.

It teaches us how to love each other.

That's right.

So we're gonna start off with a little story from our kids.

We've got three kids, and our older two are our boys.

Now we're gonna disclaim her.

They were much younger when they said this.

They're getting older now, so we're starting to have to be more accountable for what we say.

So anyway, they were much younger when they said this.

But we were at a restaurant and there was some country music playing, and the song said, the lyric said, What's a guy gotta do to get a girl in this town?

And of course, my older son, he's probably like six at the time or something, he says, Ugh man, I don't know what a guy's gotta do to get a girl in this town.

Which then our middle child responds with, I do, you gotta do something nice for her.

So they've got it all figured out, they understand love completely, but all joking aside, there is an element to kindness, to showing care for those that we love.

There's also a few more things that we want to cover in today's message.

So we're gonna look at the God's model for showing love.

And before we jump into our kind of three main points, we really want to lay like a groundwork for why is this important?

Like before we get to the how, we're gonna talk a little bit about the why.

Yeah, and so within that, we're gonna talk about the importance of love and God's view of love.

And so we are going to start off in John when Jesus actually says, I give you a new commandment.

And now commandments are not new to us because we've saw commandments from the very beginning in the Old Testament.

But now Jesus is saying, I'm giving you a new commandment.

And it's in John 13, starting in verse 34.

It says, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.

You're gonna start seeing a theme, that you also love one another.

By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

And we will know, and the world will know us by our love.

But there's a theme here that God wants us to be people of love.

But if we're not people of love, then how would the world know anything different about us?

That we have to be people of love.

This is who we are called to be.

Now, in 1 Corinthians 13, it's often referred to as the love chapter.

We're going to look at this.

And it says, if I could speak all the languages of the earth and of the angels, real fast, that's a lot of languages.

I Googled it.

7,139 languages right now.

Plus, you could speak angelic because you speak the language of the angels, right?

So if you could speak all these languages, now, just a little side note, if you can speak three languages, you know what it's called, right?

It's to be trilingual.

If you speak two languages, it's bilingual.

And if you speak one language, it's American.

Now, I'm not knocking on all of us.

I wish I could speak multiple languages.

Don't let the females were joking.

But every time Bridget and I we've had a chance to travel the world, and when we do, everyone seems to speak two to seven languages.

And I'm like, how is that?

That is hard.

Some of them speak English better than I do.

Yeah.

I don't understand.

So reading on.

So if I could speak all these languages, even angels' language, if I could do that but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a plain symbol.

If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans, that's impressive, and possessed all knowledge, like God, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn't love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my own body.

Yes, sir, I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

That's how important love is to God.

All of these extravagant, amazing things, and we think, wow, that is impressive.

Not to God, not if you don't have love.

What's impressive is when you have love.

It doesn't matter about what accomplishments you have, what letters you have before your name, after your name, whatever.

It matters on if you have love.

So now what is love?

We'll read on.

Love is patient and kind.

Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.

It does not demand its own way.

It is not irritable.

It is not irritable.

It is not irritable.

It is not I'm testing y'all's love for me.

Are y'all getting irritated?

Annoyed?

I'm tested daily.

That's what she lives with.

Actually, we have one of our sons that can just get stuck on a noise or a sound.

I've got two of them.

I've got two of them that I've tested daily.

And it may just be like, woo, woo, woo.

And like 20 minutes later, Bridget will look at me like, do you not hear our son?

And be like, no, I guess I guess not.

Just went right over me.

I guess it's actually now I'm learning a form of love, guys.

I'm not irritable.

And it keeps no record of being wronged.

It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.

That's right.

So this is a really big deal to God.

How we enact his love to the world is a really big deal to him.

Now you might be saying to yourself, like, wait, I've known God's love, I've been a Christian for a really long time.

How does this really apply to me?

Well, we're gonna take the majority of our message to be in the book of Ephesians.

And I just want to disclaimer this a little bit that in the book of Ephesians, who wrote that?

Paul.

Who did he write it to?

We're doing some like Bible history right here.

To the church of Ephesus.

That's right.

He is not writing this to unbelievers, he's writing this to believers.

These are the people that he spent three years daily discipling, raising up leaders to then go out into their community, to lead missions, to disciple others.

That's who he's talking to.

So here's what Paul tells the believers in Ephesus.

He says in 421, Ephesians 4.21, since you have heard about Jesus, okay, so you've heard about him, and you have learned the truth that comes from him.

Learning takes time.

So they have matured in their walk with the Lord.

It says, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.

He's talking to believers, and he still tells them, throw off that old way.

Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.

Here it goes.

Put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.

So as James said, our title is a new way to love.

We're talking about a new way to love, which is the way that Christ loves us.

Okay, how do we do that?

By putting on a new nature.

That's why Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 15, I die daily.

I die daily.

It is not I got saved and I put away my old life and my old ways, my old nature when I was eight, fifteen, twenty-three, fifty-eight, however old you are when you got saved.

It wasn't a one-time and I'm done with that life.

No, no, no.

Old habits die hard, y'all.

Right?

There's things that may be in our lives that we say, you know, I don't know if I ever really threw that off.

I don't know that I ever walked fully into that next part, that next part of that walk with the Lord.

Let's not let our old nature cover up the new person that we are becoming because we every day die to self to become who God has called us to be.

So we looked at that old nature.

We're looking at a new nature, so let's look at the old versus the new.

Yeah, so the title of the message being A New Way to Love, we learn about doing away with the old and starting with the new, but there's always a level that we can go deeper with Christ.

We've never like arrived, we've never hit the end that we've like, oh, I'm I am fully love, I am fully maxed out on worship or freedom or whatever it is, that we can always just keep going deeper with the kingdom of God.

So these are the things that we have to get rid of or take or take off.

Ephesians 4, verse 31 says, get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.

Ephesians 4:31

We have to be careful because all of those can happen in one round of gulf, right?

I mean, think about bitterness, rage, anger, and harsh words.

One round of gulf.

I mean, that's it.

So we have to always be removing those things off of us and then putting on God's love on us so that we can be different.

So if we do that, what is it that we should put on?

It says, instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven us.

So we will be camped out on this scripture for a little while, and it tells us that we need to be kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving one another.

And we'll be focusing on that so much so.

I hope you meditate on that scripture all week to think am I being kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving one another?

Is that the new nature that I've put on on myself?

That's right.

So our point number one is be kind.

Pretty, pretty self-explanatory with the scripture.

Ephesians 4.32, instead be kind.

Now, kindness is a fruit of the Spirit.

Here's how we know this.

Galatians 5, 22 says, But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives.

So as we walk with the Lord, as we walk with the Holy Spirit, this is the fruit that we can bear.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So the Spirit has kindness that we can take hold of and then utilize in our lives.

John 15 says, He is the vine and we are the branches.

So we bear the fruits God has made available to us.

How can we be patient?

We don't just get patient, y'all.

We utilize the patience that God has that He can give to us.

How do we have peace?

You don't like force peace in your life, but you take hold of the peace that has been made available.

We have God's peace available to us that we can enact in our lives.

The same goes for kindness.

It is available to us.

And as we walk daily, as we die to ourselves daily, and we walk daily with the Lord, we're able to enact that kindness that He makes available to us.

So let's look at some scriptures of kindness.

Proverbs 11:17 says, Your kindness will reward you, but your cruelty will destroy you.

Proverbs 11:17

The more kind that we are, the more that God blesses us in our kindness.

Now let's look now at God's kindness towards us.

Romans 2, 4 says, Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you?

Does this mean nothing to you?

Can't you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

God's kindness is designed, it's intended to actually keep you from harm's way.

It's to keep you from sin, to keep you from danger.

And so he has his kindness.

It's the same as apparent, you may be so kind, but you're kind to help them draw them away from the things that may hurt them.

And so we can focus on being kind.

Now, a couple things.

We talked about getting rid of the old nature, putting on the new.

I used to think that I had the gift of sarcasm.

Like I thought, listen, how clever I am, how smart and like these jokes are, and they're so sarcastic.

Guess what?

That was not a gift from God because it is not kind.

It is not listed as a fruit of the spirit.

So kindness is, so I had to learn over time, I cannot remain being sarcastic.

I have to focus on being kind.

And for you, it may be something completely different, but there are things like that you start to realize like, is that kind?

Probably not.

Is this kind?

Probably not.

The unique thing is, whenever I looked up the word kindness in the dictionary, compared to other words, you look at like the word awesome, whatever, it describes the word awesome.

It's fantastic, it's amazing, all these different things.

When I looked up the word kind or kindness, it basically described the word kind by telling me all the things kindness is not.

And that's because kind, being kind, is such a broad definition.

And so it would say, like, it is not sharp, it is not harsh, it is not sarcastic, it's not all these different things that we that are in.

So that is why we can constantly be evaluating ourselves to say, was that kind?

Were people edified when I said that?

Did it benefit the other person when I said that?

Were those kind words?

Was it gentle?

And so that is how we can reflect and see, am I being kind in what we're doing?

Now, many of us we have the ability to turn on kindness in the moment.

And so, you know, like maybe you're having a harsh conversation with your or a disagreement with your spouse or something, and then all of a sudden your like best friend calls or your boss calls you like, oh, hey Charles, just spending some time with the family, and you're like, you were just so being so not kind, but that's because we know how to be kind, but are we living as somebody that is kind, or are we turning on, oh, I'll be kind in the moment?

And we have to be removing all of the things that are that are not kind, and then putting on kindness so that we are able to live in kindness.

And remember, this is how the world knows that we are different, how we are set apart.

It's not based on, well, do we sing louder than the rest of the world?

Do we dance?

No, it's how much do we love?

We will be known by the world by how well we love.

That's right.

These are the choices that we make to show love.

These are the choices that we have to make every day to show love.

So point number two is be tender hearted.

Ephesians 4.32.

We're just at that same scripture.

Instead, be kind and be tender hearted.

Now, Psalm 103, 13 says, The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.

So the word here uh for tender hearted in Ephesians is the Greek word eusplochnos.

And there is That's how you spell it.

I know you probably already knew that, but just checking.

So I can say it right, eusplochnos.

And what it it is a more intense word than just your picture might be of tender hearted.

To you, tenderhearted might be like sympathetic, even empathetic, where you feel what somebody else feels.

This is actually like that taken up a notch.

What it means is what the literal translation is, is like your bowels.

Your bowels are moving, and so it's like something has to happen.

More than just your coffee hit.

And so things are happening inside that then drive you into an action.

It drives you to action.

Sorry, it's a little crude, but another Yeah, actually, there's probably a better way to describe it.

Another way to describe it is also a woman in labor.

So that feeling of like, I am, you're like crunching, I am, I am, and then I have to do something about this.

That is this word that that means tender-hearted or compassionate.

You are filled with compassion for somebody else.

So when we have three kids, our first one, like I labored and had him very quickly.

Our second came even faster, and our third, the nurse caught, the doctor was not even anywhere near.

So for our second son, um, I wanted to labor at home for as long as possible.

Like, if I'm gonna be miserable and suffering, I might as well suffer in my own home.

And I'm like, load up and get in the car.

I'm not catching this baby.

I can't do it.

I can't.

And y'all have heard that share stories.

He does not do well in these situations.

So he finally, eventually, I'm like, we're getting close, so I'm gonna go ahead and I finally convinced her, get in the car, we have to go.

Yeah, he was like, get in the car.

So we get in the car, he drops me off, because we're not far from the you know, the the hospital, so we make it there pretty quick.

He drops me off right in front of labor and delivery, and I like hobble in there.

He goes and parks the car to get all the stuff to bring it in, and I'm leaning against the desk of the reception, like, and I'm like, I'm having my baby right now.

And they're like, Okay, and your paperwork.

And I was like, no, no, no, like right now, right now I'm having this baby.

And they're you know, asking me questions, but my contractions, you ladies know, you get to a certain point where you can't actually talk anymore.

And so I'm like, need a room.

I just need a room.

So here comes James running in.

And they're like, is this her first baby?

And he's like, no.

And the first one came fast, and they were like, Oh, so that's when they took action, right?

They get me to a room, and within 15 minutes, the nurse comes and like looks under the sheet and is like, We need a doctor.

Literally starts yelling, we need a doctor.

I'm thinking, like, look helpful.

Doctor, doctor, I'm gonna help, doctor.

I said I'm so helpful in the moment, I don't know what to do.

So, so I loved my doctor.

He was very calm and you know, collected.

And in times of chaos like labor and delivery, you want somebody who's calm and collected and helpful and all of those things.

Doctor?

But I can hear him sauntering down the hallway saying hi to people.

I'm like, get in, so I finally he, I have such a vivid memory.

He walks to the door, and on right next to the door are like the gloves and all the stuff.

There's these bright blue gloves.

And he's like putting on the big glove, and he's like, hold that baby in, Bridget.

Don't push, Bridget.

I was like, I cannot hold this baby in.

This baby is coming out right now.

Get over here.

So, I mean, I'm yelling at him.

And he just saunders up, catches Mitchell right then, because I was having the baby.

Everything was fine.

I like I said though, he didn't make it for Bray.

He did not make it for Bray.

It's okay.

So that's kind of the I've forgiven him.

We'll get there.

That's that's later.

You have to think through what does this word mean?

It means it drives you to action.

And just like going into labor is never the most convenient time.

Bray, I was like picking uh cactus out of the boy's feet, and I went into labor.

I was like, now, Lord, really?

Is it the best time?

It's never the most convenient time to be called into action, but it's a choice we have to make when God provides an opportunity, and surely you're gonna be late for work, have a do a deadline at school, like you're gonna have something else, and yet God provides an opportunity for you to meet a need, for you to pray with somebody, for you to financially provide.

He's gonna give you an opportunity for you to take action, to be moved to action.

Yeah, and so oftentimes that word you splock notes that Bridget talked about is translated as either compassion or tenderhearted.

And I know my dad, he's preaching right now at Gateway Houston, but he'll watch this.

And so sorry for the bad grammar.

Sorry.

But just as Bridget was yelling, I cannot not push, whenever we have compassion, whenever we are tender hearted, it's like we cannot not do something.

That we are driven into action as soon as we are experiencing compassion and tended to heart hardenedness.

So let's look at Jesus filling this block nosed word, uh also translated as compassion.

Matthew 14 14 says Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat and he Had compassion on them.

And then he said, Bless you, a sweet little heart.

I'm gonna go take a nap.

No, it's not what he said.

He said he had compassion, and when you have compassion, then you go into action.

So he said, He had compassion on them and he healed their sick.

There was action behind the compassion.

Matthew 15, 32 says, Now Jesus called his disciples to himself and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with me three days and have nothing to eat.

Therefore there was action behind it, and he fed the multitude.

Again, in Matthew 20, verse 34, so Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.

Matthew 20:34

Every single time we have God's version of love, it leads us to being tender-hearted.

But when we have God's version of love and we're tenderhearted, and then it leads to action of doing something about it.

Going and being there for somebody, going and praying for somebody, going and meeting a need that they may have.

And this is the exact way in which God has loved us.

I mean, we think about one of the most famous verses of the Bible, John 3.16.

For God so loved the world, but when he loved, he was tender-hearted, so then therefore, therefore there was an action.

So God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

He did something about it.

When I love someone else, I should have an action behind it that then mimics and lines up with that love that we have for them.

So I am going on to the next point.

Good point, babe.

So we have really focused on this scripture in Ephesians to be kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving.

So the next point is that we need to be forgiving.

We have to be people that forgive.

And so in Matthew 18, verse 21, it says, Then Peter came to him and asked, Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me?

Matthew 18:21

Seven times, which he was probably thinking like, three times should be enough.

But I know God's a generous God, so maybe I'll up it to seven.

Like, God, isn't seven times enough?

No, not seven times, Jesus replied, but seventy times seven.

That is a lot of forgiving.

And that is 490 times, and it's not that we are supposed to be forgiving 490 times and keeping a tally mark, and then at the end say, oh, vengeance is mine now.

Because if we truly forgive them, then we stop keeping track of every single time that they've wronged us, every single time something bad has happened to us.

Keeps no record of wrong.

And that is what we are to be doing.

And listen, if you bring up every time that person has wronged you when you're trying to forgive them or having a discussion, then you probably haven't forgiven them in the first place.

So if all of a sudden you're like, nu-uh, January 18th, 1997, when you were wearing that red wet red sweater that I hate so much, you said and your hand was like this, and you rolled your eye.

Like, that's not forgiving.

You don't bring up every time the person has faultied you in the past because then we're not living a lifestyle of being in forgiveness, of forgiving somebody else.

And so we always have to be forgiven.

Matthew 6, verse 14 says, if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly father will forgive you.

Matthew 6:14

But if you refuse to forgive others, your father will not forgive your sins.

And here's the thing God has forgiven you and I so much.

Every single one of us are sinners.

Every single one of us have messed up a lot.

And yet God has forgiven us.

And so because God has forgiven us, we should be able to freely give forgiveness to others.

God's given us love, and so we can freely give love to others.

God's given us forgiveness, so we should be people that can forgive others really well.

And here's the thing unforgiveness, it's like that mold on your cheese in your refrigerator.

It's disgusting and it just continues to grow and be nasty.

You can't allow unforgiveness in your heart.

You can't allow unforgiveness.

It doesn't look good.

And it hurts you.

Pastor Robert has said this that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping that it will kill the other person.

We have to be people that forgive and are quick to forgive.

And if we love them, we will forgive them.

Yeah.

And we understand that specifically in marriage, it can be a little more difficult to forgive because one, like, man, you could have a tally.

You could have been past that 490 whatever by now.

But when you look at God's love, how do we enact that in the marriage?

Uh marriage just gives you plenty of opportunities to take off that old nature and put on the new nature, all right?

And something that we wanted to touch on is you can't only forgive those people who ask for your forgiveness.

There's gonna be a lot of people in your life that just can't say sorry.

Either they they have like passed and like they're dead.

They literally cannot say sorry, they're not coming back, you have to let it go.

Jesus says forgive because it's actually it's not just what's right, it's what's best for you.

It makes your life better.

So, yes, we should be quick to forgive.

And if you're in a type of situation that is like a dangerous situation, of course, you should protect yourself, protect your kids, whoever's in your care, get some help.

But in the normal day-to-day of a marriage relationship, we should be quick to forgive.

We should also be quick to repent.

That's the other side of this.

As believers, we should be quick to repent.

It says Proverbs 28, 13.

He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.

So there's this balance in relationships of a quick to forgive, but there's also a quick to repent.

We should be the first to just humble ourselves and say, I'm I'm so sorry.

I didn't mean to offend you.

I'm so sorry when I said that and I kind of meant to pick at you, because right, like it when if you have a close friend, if you're in a marriage, if you have, you know, siblings, it's like you know how to just like I'm just gonna say this word because I know you hate it.

You know?

So it's easier sometimes to forgive those people who you're like, like Jesus, they know not what they do.

In marriage, you're like, I know you know what you're doing.

But I'm gonna choose to forgive you anyway.

I'm gonna choose to forgive.

We're gonna choose to be quick to repent and quick to forgive.

Pastor Robert talked about last weekend, how everybody makes mistakes, right?

All of us make mistakes.

He talked about David last week and how he made a mistake and then he made it worse by trying to cover it up.

Then finally he repented and made it right.

Okay, let's just learn from him and not try to cover it up.

Let's say, I am so sorry for this thing.

I'm sorry that I don't say, I'm sorry, but that's not a real apology.

That isn't real repentance.

I'm sorry for, I'm sorry that I said these things.

So, in closing, we want to share a story to sum up this message of being kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving one another.

But we have a close friend of ours, and it's a husband and wife, and they were on a Texas road trip.

And so they stopped at a fast food restaurant and picked up some food.

Well, this food didn't seem to sit well in the wife's stomach.

So the wife was driving, the husband was in the passenger seat, and it was like that word you splockinose that we talked about earlier.

She was starting to feel some compassion.

Got worse and worse and worse.

And you know, like a typical Texas drive, it can sometimes be a long time before you come up to a gas station, restaurant, somewhere where you can pull over.

So it started uh feeling more and more of a burden, she felt, to find a place.

Which what do you do?

You start driving faster and faster and faster all the way until she passed the police car.

So she zips over this hill, passes the police car, police comes in, starts following her, lights on, all that stuff.

Once again, she's the one driving, husband's in the passenger seat, and so she pulls over, gets out of the driver's license, rolls down the window, and she's just like.

She literally starts yelling, officer, officer, take my license! I have to go to the bathroom, just follow me to the nearest restaurant.

She was acting like me with the doctor, like, doctor, doctor, just get over here.

Officer, officer!

And so the officer comes over, then takes her credit.

I mean, her driver's license, no, uh driver's license, no, no money under the table.

Takes her driver's license and then follows her.

Well, she still didn't drive the speed limit to find a spot, just zips.

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

She pulls up, runs in, uses the restroom, but then she's coming out, and she's thinking, surely this police officer is going to be kind, compassionate, tender hearted.

Thinking like, surely, like there'll be understanding of all of the pain and agony that they were feeling.

No.

No.

So immediately gives her the ticket, and uh was like, listen, here's your ticket, all of this, send them on their way.

So dare you! It was like a week later, and she's talking to her husband and says, you know, I'm still praying, typical, right?

You take it to the Lord, I'm still praying that this police officer ends up with the same situation I was in, and with the same burden and the same intensity, and when he does, he remembers my face.

And thinks, I should have been more kind and tenderhearted towards that lady.

Which then the husband responds, like, you're gonna have to let it go.

You have to forgive this guy.

Yes, you sped, you got a ticket, but you're going to have to forgive this person.

Well, for us, there may have been a time that somebody wasn't as kind, as tenderhearted.

Maybe it was a police officer, maybe it was a parent or a coworker or a friend, and we're holding on to that.

We may have even taken it to the Lord saying, Well, I sure hope that this happens to them and they remember me.

But we have to be able to walk in forgiveness, we have to be able to let that go.

And then we have to be able to show the world what true love is, and that is to walk in kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiving one another.

But we have to be able to let go of all of the offenses and the hurts that other people have done that has bothered us, because that is the only way that we will be able to truly love in the way that God has called us to love.

And so we're so grateful.

We're so grateful that God has loved us all in the way that He's loved us.

He's always been kind to us, always been tenderhearted, always been forgiving.

But now, if it's time to change the world, the way in which we change the world is now we show the world what true love is.

And when we show the world what true love is, and that's being kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving one another, then that is what actually brings revival.

That is when the world says there's something different about the Christians.

I need to know what it is.

And then that's when we teach them about God's love.

And that's what we're excited about.

It's like we have the answer.

It's God's love.

The world needs the answer, it's God's love.

And so let's partner together and be people that are known for love.

That's right.

So we're about to close in prayer.

But we always make a point to pray with individually.

You can come up for prayer.

So when we finish, we'll have the prayer team come forward, and you may have a need.

There may be there may be something that the Lord has been stirring in your heart of this message, and you think, like, man, I know that I'm struggling in an area that I am not kind.

Like, I think in the dictionary, I'm doing the thing that says it's not kind.

Or maybe help getting rid of sarcasm.

Whatever it may be.

Um, or there could be an area that you know that you haven't taken the opportunities God has given you to be compassionate to others.

Or maybe there's some areas of forgiveness that you need to give yourself.

I'm gonna say give the gift of to yourself of forgiveness.

So there's some of these things that were are within the message.

It could have nothing to do with the message, and you just need prayer.

That is what their church is for.

We're here to pray with you.

This prayer team loves you already.

They don't even know you maybe, but they already love you.

And they're trained to pray with you.

They want to partner with you and join their faith with yours in prayer.

So make yourself available to the prayer that's here.

After every service, every weekend, we make a priority for it.

Yeah, so with that, we want to pray for you.

So, Lord, I thank you so much for your love.

Lord, thank you for the way you love us.

You love us so much that you gave your only son for us.

Lord, you are an incredible God that has loved with always with kindness and tenderhearted and forgiving us.

Lord, we pray that as we walk out, that we have action items, that we can always be examining our life to say, are we kind, are we tenderhearted, are we forgiving?

Lord, help us to forgive or we need to forgive.

Help us to eliminate the areas that prevent us from being kind.

And Lord, help us to be people that are tenderhearted, that jump into action to make a difference.

We pray your blessings and favor on everyone in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.