Knowing How to Love (I Corinthians 8:1-13)

1 Corinthians chapter 8.

1 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

And if you are able, please stand for the reading of God's word.

Starting in verse 1.

Now, about food sacrificed to idols, we know we all have knowledge.

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know as he ought to know it.

But if anyone loves God, he is known by him.

About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father.

All things are from him, and we exist for him.

There is one Lord Jesus Christ.

All things are through him, and we exist through him.

However, not everyone has this knowledge.

Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

Food will not bring us close to God.

We're not worse off if we don't eat it, we're not better off if we do eat it.

But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.

For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, won't his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols?

So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge.

Now, when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.

Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won't cause my brother or sister to fall.

Lord, I thank you so much for this morning.

And I thank you for your word.

I thank you that it's good and right and true.

And please fill me with your spirit to teach your word.

Fill the hearers with your spirit to rightly divide and discern what is from you.

And I ask that you will be glorified today.

In your name.

Amen.

Alright, go ahead and have a seat.

We are continuing through 1 Corinthians, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, in that way.

So just a reminder again: this is all one letter.

One long flowing letter.

There's no breakup, there's no here, is this chunk, and then Paul goes, okay, chapter two.

Next thing, chapter three, next three.

It doesn't work that way.

He's flowing through with that.

But I am thankful that we have those breakups because otherwise we would have one 35-hour sermon.

So there's a blessing that we do it this way, but we have to always remember how do we tie back into what's going on?

So the Church of Corinth, predominantly Greek area, and the gospel has gone there.

There's a church there, but we see that they are what Paul calls carnal, fleshly, worldly, in that way.

There's a lot of divisions in that between different leaders, between I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Jesus.

So they have all these different little factions that there are a lot of sin issues that we see going on through there, especially in chapter 5, if you go back to there.

And not only are there sin issues, because there's sin issues everywhere, but the church is proud of those sin issues because they're so tolerant in that way.

And he's saying, What are you doing?

And he continues forward, and he's talking about all these different things that it seems that they have either written to him about or that he has heard about.

So in this chapter, we see at the beginning, big topic about food sacrificed to idols.

When is the last time you have gone to the grocery store, picked up your food, and thought, this has been sacrificed to an idol?

Can I speak to your manager, please?

I would like to know if this is idol food or not.

This is really something that isn't necessarily something we see in this context in our current day and age, but still applicable.

But so we have to give a little bit of context to what on earth that means.

So, Corinth, again, is a predominantly pagan area where the gospel has gone.

We see that in the book of Acts, and there is a church there, and they're surrounded by not only high intellect, not only a whole bunch of commerce and all these things, but a whole bunch of idolatry.

When we talked about their sin issues in the first few chapters, we talked about uh the giant worship of Aphrodite there, the goddess of pleasure, love, and such, and the uh temple prostitution that's involved in that, and all the illicit things that happen in that.

Corinth is also very, very attached to Poseidon as one of their big gods, gods, idols that they worship.

Why?

Well, if we remember all the way back when we went to the intro, Corinth is not only has one port, it has two ports.

Water everywhere.

Water on this side, water on that side, Poseidon being the god of the sea, to where some of their uh panhillian games is actually devoted to Poseidon.

And so, and there's a million other gods that they're worshiping here.

But having that said, what does it mean that the food is sacrificed to idols?

So, as I understand it, as part of their worship, they are taking, let's say, well, I'll put it this way, and hopefully we don't have any sensitive ears here.

How do you get meat?

You kill an animal.

Okay?

And that's a part of sacrifice, right?

Then that's a part of one of those things.

So we see in the Old Testament, in the sacrificial system in the temple, that a lot of times they are uh slaughtering an animal and pouring out its blood, and depending on the animal, sometimes they have a feast there, and sometimes it's burned up whole in that sense.

Here, it seems that it is then sacrificed in honor of that god and then sold in the public market.

So I don't know if this is true, but I've been in retail too long, and I'm assuming you can charge a little bit extra for the Poseidon meat than you can for the other meat.

And then on the flip side, though, if you're trying to follow Jesus and flee from idolatry, you go, Do I want to eat that?

Do I not?

What's going on with that?

So that is the big struggle, is what was commonplace as a form of worship to these idols is now a struggle, not just in a temple, but in the grocery store, so to speak.

And that's what he's talking about here.

Laying all that foundation.

So he says, now about food sacrifice to idols, we know that we all have knowledge.

And I love how in the CSV he puts that in quotes.

It seems like this is a saying that they love to say.

We all have knowledge.

We all have knowledge.

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

Okay, knowledge is repeated throughout this chapter.

It's something that comes up over and over and over, what we know and what we do with it.

So, doing a little bit of rebuilding here because this is what I like to call the insecure pastor verse.

Here's what if somebody has chosen that you pursue theological education or anything like that, they love this verse because knowledge puffs up, guys.

Come on.

I didn't actually want to go read.

I'm actually better off for not doing so.

I'm just not puffy.

I'm like, You sound a little puffy.

A little puffy now.

So there's lots of different knowledge.

There's the issue is not knowledge, the issue is does it puff up?

Does it build up?

And so here's what this can look like.

Because we look at Corinth, right?

In Corinth, you have these different ports where you have a bunch of different people coming through, all of the different information that flows through, very highly educated, very intellectual, and this makes sense why they're like, well, I'm I'm a Paul Christian, I'm an Apollos Christian.

And so that kind of knowledge, in what they know and what they understand, can cause them to be puffed up as like, okay, but I have the real information.

You have power to the story, I have the whole story.

So that's how someone's intellect can cause them to be puffed up.

The other side of that is the experiential, this is how we've always done it, knowledge.

That puffs up like you would not believe.

And this is what we see often a lot more in our churches and in our day-to-day, to where it is, we've always done it this way, and this is how we do it in our bubble.

And if you don't, if you have different opinion, it's because you don't understand.

A better way that I've seen this described is that imagine talking to a fish in a fish bowl and going, your water looks a little nasty.

You're f you're you kind of got some like you fouled your own water, you're in there, you're drinking it, all these things, and they go, well, no, we've always done this.

This is how we've always been in the bowl.

And not only have I done this, but my daddy has done it this way, and his daddy has done this, and our spiritual fathers have done this, and so all of these different things, this is the best way to do it.

And until you've come in and drank our fouled water, you have nothing to say to us.

Again, knowledge that puffs up in that sense.

There's a whole bunch of different ways that we can go wrong in this.

So the issue is not knowledge versus love.

The issue is does your knowledge, is your knowledge informed by love or is it not?

And that's what we'll see here.

Because knowledge and love are not mutually exclusive.

Because the other way we can go wrong with this is to say, well, all we want to do is be loving, and truth is not a part of the equation.

As long as your loving is good, even if it is not informed by truth, that is also harmful.

So there's a lot of weird ways you can go with this.

So, how does Paul go with this here?

He says, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up in this sense.

So there's a difference between puffing oneself up or building up someone else, and that's the key to this passage.

Do we build ourselves up or do we build up the other?

Which you can see if you've been through the rest of this book so far, really fills in the blanks for how Corinth has been acting thus far.

Because we want to build up our own team.

We're right, they're wrong, we're good, they're bad.

And he's saying, Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

And he says, Well, if anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know as he ought to know it.

So in verse 2 there, he's saying, your knowledge is not complete.

Which is either offensive or intriguing, depending on which way that they are going to interpret that.

He's like, hey, if you think you know something, you don't know it as you ought to yet.

And we'll see for the rest of this chapter what he means by that.

Why him not knowing, why them not knowing is not quite complete.

And then in verse 3, but if anyone loves God, he is known by him.

A little bit out of left field until you sit there and think, as like, it is, this is contrary to their thinking.

It is better to be known by God than to know a thing.

So we uh good way I think that I see that is in Matthew 7, 21 through 23, Jesus talking and saying, saying, like, there are gonna be those of you who say, Lord, didn't we do these things in your name?

That we did these things and we cast out demons and we did all these things, and he's like, I'm sorry, I don't even know you.

Depart from me.

And the same way, it is more important that God knows us than that we know the super awesome thing.

And how are we known by God, according to this verse?

To love God.

Kind of like what we talked about last week.

What is the most important thing in all these things, all these big questions that they're asking in the church of Corinth?

Ultimately it boils down to knowing God, obeying God, and loving one another.

And here he's saying, if you love God, you will be known by him, and that is the most important thing.

So he continues on.

Verse 4, he starts in what we know.

Because he started off saying, hey, look, we all have knowledge, we all know something, but your knowledge is incomplete.

You go, well, what do we know?

Here's what we know.

In verse 4.

About eating food sacrificed to idols, then.

We know that an idol is nothing in the world.

And that there is no God but one.

So he starts off by saying that it's an idol.

We know that it's not real.

We know there's only one God.

There is one true God, no other deities in this sense, which we go, well, yeah, that duh, we for those of you who grew up in the faith, that's you're learning that in Sunday school.

That's something we know very often.

You know, Ten Commandments, all those things.

Little good reminder in Corinth, where there's thousands of gods to worship in that sense.

But he's reminding them: look, it's good that you know there is an idol is nothing in the world, there is no God but one.

When they are worshiping an idol, they think that they are communicating with a deity through that idol, when in reality, they're just sacrificing to a chunk of wood.

And there's no God but one.

But even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many quote-unquote gods and many lords or principalities that we see in Romans 8 in that sense.

There are spiritual forces at work, yet there's one God.

At the end of the day, there's one God, the Father.

All things are from him and we exist for him.

There is one Lord, Jesus Christ.

All things are through him and we exist through him.

Amen?

That's the interesting thing in this.

At this point in time, what he just gave us is very good, true, orthodox belief.

So that's not the problem.

The problem is not that they have the information wrong.

Because if you take that verse, like that'll preach.

If you just take that out of it out of the context here, and you don't tell someone where it's from, you like at the end you'd be like, yeah, that is very true.

What we just saw is that there is only one God, that idols are nothing, and all things are through from God, and we exist for God.

There's one Lord Jesus, and all things are through him, and we exist through him.

And you can look through all of the prophets in the Old Testament and see absolute biblical support for that.

That's what I just finished Isaiah in my own reading.

Like half of it is that statement right there.

So, if that's how the chapter ended, we'd be like, cool, awesome.

Because we know there's only one God and worshiping an idol is dumb.

However, in verse 7, it continues.

If we stop there and this is what we believe, we'd feel pretty good about ourselves.

Like, yep, we got it all information, we got all the good info.

Verse 7.

However, this is the piece they're missing.

Not everyone has this knowledge.

Not everybody understands this in their core and has experienced this redemption in their life.

Some, continuing in verse 7, have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience being weak is defiled.

So, we know that food that's sacrificed to an idol means nothing.

We know that, right?

Right?

We're good mature Christians, we understand that.

However, there are others in our church body, if we're recorded, who don't understand that.

And they matter too.

Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience being weak is defiled.

The muscle memory for those individuals is worship of a false god in their heart.

Even though it doesn't mean that in reality, if it's not like that idol that was sacrificed to actually is the embodiment of a false deity.

We know that, but for them, they have so much experience having that sacrifice, having that thing, having that matter to them.

Because why do why does a person sacrifice to an idol?

They want the favor of that supposed God, whether that is for um health, whether that is for prosperity, whether that is for survival, for their agricultural benefit, for the well-being of their sick child, for all of these different things.

This matters to them.

And even though they were redeemed from this thing, there's a whole lot of spiritual muscle memory bound up in that.

Paul pivots again in verse 18 back to what we know.

What we know in verse 8?

Food won't bring us close to God.

We're not worse off if we don't eat it, we're not better off if we do eat it.

So, once again, what do we know?

What we know is that this is not going to cause us to accidentally worship a false god.

It's food.

You eat it, you get nutrients from it, it's gone, you move on.

We know that, right?

Right.

So he's telling us, which is good, that you're not going to accidentally be surreptitiously duped into following idolatry by eating this food.

So that's just good comfort in that, because there's a whole lot of there's a whole lot of that in our uh in our groundwater, to where you're gonna accidentally get sucked into you know worshiping a false god if you do this.

It's like, okay.

Here, he's saying, it's food, okay?

But in verse 9 again, be careful to see, to perceive, to be aware.

Be aware of what this does.

Be careful.

What's the opposite of careful?

Careless! Exactly.

So, I mean, just by inference, to be careful is to not be careless.

And he's that's the exhortation.

Be careful, keep your eyes open.

Because what are they missing here?

Be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.

What does that mean?

Continuing verse 10.

If someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, won't his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols?

So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge.

So this is why he's exhorting us to be careful, because this right that you have, this good knowledge that you have, that is true, if it is enacted in a certain way without thought and consideration of others, can cause people to stumble.

What does that look like?

Because if they see you who is not stumbling, dining in an idol's temple, because you're like, it's food, okay, whatever.

Or even let's let's go even further, or I'm reaching out to this person and I want to give them Jesus.

I'm venturing into their world space, possibly in those different things.

If they see you doing that, even though you know that you're not worshiping an idol, won't his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food sacrificed to idols?

Because that is his context and that, or her context, and that is all they know.

Is when that happens, it's worship of a false god.

So even though when you or I do that, you're just eating a meal.

When they do that, it is causing them to stumble.

So, this is what is sobering when he says be careful, it's not just like you might want to consider this, he's saying, hey, be careful because even when we are not stumbling, we can stumble others in our non-stumbling if we're not careful.

There's layers to that.

Why?

Because we are a body.

We function as a body, many body parts, formed together, joined by the Holy Spirit, with Jesus as our head.

And when we'll put it this way, over here, this hand, you can say, I'm gonna put a little poison in here, but it's not gonna affect anybody else.

You'd be like, you heard of the circulatory system?

It doesn't work that way, guys.

We all impact and affect each other, and though we don't want to get crazy bound up in legalism in that sense, we want to be careful of how we affect each other.

Elaborate more on that in a little bit to give some some guide rails.

But with that, it's not this is the punchline to this whole passage, it's not all about us.

We matter, and so does our neighbor.

So, here's the the potential damage in verse 11.

The weak person.

The brother or sister for whom Christ died is ruined by your knowledge.

That is heavy.

So imagine scales.

The picture of the scales hanging there.

And then you have here like my rights and the person Jesus died for.

Worth it?

No, in that sense.

And so he's saying, hey, be careful.

Now in verse 12, when you sin like this against your brothers and sisters and you wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.

So just in case we haven't connected those dots to where what does this have to do with me and why should I care?

That's why.

In that sense.

That brings it home to like, oh hey, when we do this, we are sinning against Christ.

Something of note here, as he uses this word weak quite a bit.

Who here likes to be called weak?

No?

Okay.

Cool.

Awesome.

In this context, and just to remember, this is a whole book.

We're talking this much so far.

There's a whole book, and this topic will be addressed in the future as well.

In a lot of different ways.

So, but if for what we're addressing here, notice that he doesn't say, what you need to do is educate your weak brother and sister.

Tell them, stop it.

Stop being so lame.

He doesn't say that at any point in time.

Rather, he says, care about somebody else.

How what you do, which is perfectly okay, might not be okay when viewed by that person.

And again, we're gonna put guide rails on that in a minute.

But when we wield good knowledge without love, it can be sin.

It's pretty intense.

But that is a really good reminder, timely reminder, because we don't always, like I said, we don't go to the grocery store and go, oh, how's this been sacrificed to idols?

I'm not sure, I'm not sure if I should do it or not, or look around and be like, does anyone gonna think this is sacrificed to idols?

Put it on the cart, and we're gonna go through the self-checkout really, really fast, and we're good.

We don't think that way.

But it does matter that we can have the right answers that when applied in the wrong way can hurt other people.

That is immensely applicable.

So I'll allow you guys to connect all of those dots in your own mind of how that works in our own lives.

But with that, we see in John 13, 34 through 35, Jesus just washed his disciples' feet as a servant, including Judas, by the way.

And he washes their feet and he says, I give you a new command, love one another.

Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.

By this everyone will know you're my disciples if you love one another.

How are they known as a disciple of Jesus?

By their love.

And the example he just gave is washing their feet, which he didn't have to do.

Jesus is good at delegation.

We saw that in Scripture, and yet he chose to wash their feet himself.

Continuing, John 15, 12-13.

This is my command, love one another as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than this to lay down his life for his friends.

That's gonna hit a little different at the cross, of course.

So here he's reminding in this whole same speech at Passover, right before his death and resurrection, to love one another as he has loved them, and no one has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.

So, what is his conclusion in verse 13?

If food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat so that I won't cause my brother or sister to fall.

That's his conclusion there.

Like, look, if this is going to stumble them, I'm just not gonna do it, so that I don't cause them to fall.

It's pretty heavy in that way.

He takes it home to personally how you apply this for yourself, and he says, look, if this is going to cause that kind of an issue, I'm just going to forego for the benefit of others.

That's not something we're particularly good at.

I don't know, just me.

I'm not particularly good at that, but for foregoing my own benefits, right, and privileges that I know are even good for the sake of somebody else.

So, what on earth is he saying here?

Knowledge is not the enemy.

What we saw in here was the definition of the knowledge he was giving was true, right, good, and orthodox.

He's not telling them, throw all that away.

Actually, maybe, maybe there are other gods.

Maybe when you do this, you are worshiping and you don't even know it.

He's not saying that.

What he says is, what do you do with that knowledge?

How do we apply this knowledge in a way that thinks of the whole body?

Because when we are living in a way that we see the Church of Corinth seemingly do so in a way that is divisive, in a way that is immature, and putting uh kind of just jostling for position and for preeminence, and saying, but I know this, and but I'm better because of this, and because I do this.

Here he's saying we have a fundamental issue because the issue is not what you know, the issue is what you do with it.

And so, once again, when we wield good knowledge without love, it can result in sin.

That's a big statement that you cannot copy and paste into every situation in life.

And that's the danger we run into in this.

Is say, therefore, we need to be really freaked out at all times to make sure that we are not stumbling somebody at any given point.

That's not what that's not what we're saying here.

We don't need to therefore dive into being bound up in a just crazy legalism of everything I do might possibly cause stumbling to that.

Okay, here number one, know your body.

Number one with that is if we know the people around us, we know what causes them to stumble.

That's the beauty of that.

It's only when we have no idea who the people are around us that we don't know that's the case of that.

But then number two, draw close to Jesus.

When we follow Jesus, we will be led into love in that same way.

Big guardrails here.

Because it can be wielded in a few very, very strange ways.

So, what are we talking about here?

What's the very first thing he says in chapter 8?

Regarding food sacrifice to idols.

So, this is a topic that people have previously worshipped false gods about.

Has actively broken God's law in worshiping other idols.

Right?

Yes.

No one's gonna throw rocks.

We good?

We rock free today?

Because usually at this point in time, and I have no problem with this in any way, shape, or form, I have no beef with this in any way, shape, or form, somebody potentially will be like, this is a really good opportunity for me to tell you that it really stumbles me if we don't do all hymns and worship.

And it's like, hey, that's important, that's not a sin issue.

That's not the same thing, guys.

That is not a, if we don't, basically, if we do other things, then I might accidentally be worshiping another god.

Or being suckered into doing so, right?

You don't have a history of worshiping um the devil through a different contemporary Christian worship song.

I hope.

Right?

Right?

Having that in that way, we can we can apply these in very different ways.

And hymns are great, I love hymns, so I have no problem with that whatsoever.

But when we try to apply that in a way that we're jocking for our own preference, we miss the whole point of this whole passage.

And that's how we swing the other way to say no, but this is how we need to do things because if this is like that's not the same thing, guys.

Preference, stumbling.

Two very, very, very different things.

So, having that said, I would I I haven't cleared this with the other elders, so I may have to actually do a retraction next week.

But, you know, there's a reason why we don't serve wine in communion here specifically, even though other places do, and I and I I I get that, but there could potentially be actually a full-on stumbling issue there for individuals.

So, grape juice.

And thank God we don't have the little things with the cracker on top that you have to peel the thing.

I just COVID communion was rough.

That's all I have to say.

Especially when you have to lead it and you're just like, okay, so we're just going to take the, we're just gonna preach it.

So it was a it was a it was a rough couple years.

So, but with that in mind, what are we trying to say here?

It's not all about us, it's about Jesus, and as we follow Jesus, it's about all of us worshiping Jesus in that way.

So our knowledge is incomplete and puffy if it benefits us but stumbles others.

It doesn't mean the knowledge may be wrong, it just means it may be incomplete if it stumbles others and causes them to drift away from Jesus actively in that way.

Our knowledge edifies if it prompts us to lay down our lives for one another.

Here's the thing.

When we are motivated by the Holy Spirit, when we are fueled by Him in that way, that happens somewhat naturally, which is cool.

Because in and of myself, I don't wanna.

I love all of you guys, you guys are amazing, but I still sometimes I just I just don't wanna.

If it's just me, I want to take care of myself and deal with it.

But it is the Holy Spirit we'll see when we get to chapter 12 that binds the body together, that fuels them to act in such a way.

So, what I am not saying is you need to knuckle down and drum up the willpower to love your neighbor.

Because then you get that somewhat embittered and slightly puffy.

Look, I helped you, you're welcome.

It's not quite the same thing.

When the Holy Spirit feels that, it is a burden and a desire to do so.

It is a I want to take care of somebody else in that way, even if it is not in direct benefit to me.

And that's what's cool.

So, the punchline there, which we have said over and over and over that this bury yourself into Jesus, burrow into him, follow him, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

He is the one who guides us in this.

And as we walk in him, and as we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, to refine us, to grow us, and to bind one another together in that way, he will do so, which is cool.

We can trust that he will do that because we can see in his word that he wants that to happen.

So that is the big takeaway in this.

It's not, you need to know the thing that we know in our little our little bubble, because we know the right things and they know the wrong things, and if you know the right things, then you'll actually do the right things the right way, and then even though they do the wrong things the right way, we'll do the right thing the right way, and we'll take care of one another.

We it's not the point there.

It's also not throw out the knowledge, it doesn't matter.

Who cares?

Just do it, do whatever seems loving.

Whatever's loving, if it's you know, it can it's gotta be right if it if it makes someone feel good, right?

If it's encouraging, there's truth to be had in that.

Rather, may we dig deeper into Jesus, into his word, as we've talked about, and be motivated to have eyes to see one another and to care for one another, to see how people struggle, to see how each other struggle.

That is very vulnerable, by the way.

We don't like to see, we don't like to come across as having weaknesses.

And so it's only in the body of Christ, um motivated by the spirit, that we can actually let our guard down in appropriate settings to have people speak into those weaknesses and care for us in that way without being judged or condemned or told that we are stupid for feeling that way.

So, act as a body.

How do we act as a body fueled by the Spirit?

How are we fueled by the Spirit following Jesus?

Praise the Lord for that.

And just in closing, we see in Philippians 2, 3 through 8, we see the example out of this.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, consider others as more important than yourselves.

Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.

When he had become as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

Praise the Lord for that example.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much that you are good and you are right and you are true, and all true knowledge exists in you.

I thank you that if we lack wisdom, that you are delighted to give it when we ask without doubting, as we see in James 1.

I thank you that truth can edify and build up and grow when applied with love.

And I thank you, Lord, that you are the embodiment of love as well.

With truth informing it.

I ask that we would follow you, Jesus, in everything.

That we would be motivated, even eager to lay aside our rights and our knowledge of different stumbling points to take care of one another.

I ask that we would conform more to your image as that example, who being, even you, Jesus, being God, empied yourself, took the form of servant, took our sin on yourself, that your innocence could be imputed to us in your death on the cross and your resurrection, demonstrating that the price was paid.

And Lord, if there's anyone who is hearing this who does not know you in that way, who has not surrendered their life to you, and has not tasted the goodness that is walking in you, I ask, Lord, that by your spirit you would work on their hearts, you would motivate to convict, to encourage them, to drive them to you.

Be working in that way.

And please, Lord, continue to guide us in that way and guide us further and further to be conform to your image.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.