Don't Let Your Love Grow Cold

It's interesting because as far as uh his hands is concerned, like our church, our family, this was a banner week.

I mean, we launched HHU, our classes on Monday and Tuesday, had great turnouts for that.

Many of you guys came to that, learned.

Wednesday night is always a blast here.

We have our Wednesday night Bible studies, men and women, our art group meets, they're the ones that put on Canvas, they did a great job, and we have stuff all the way down through elementary school.

Friday night was Canvas, and that was just unbelievable.

Um, truly unbelievable.

Last night, going with William to the Braves game was an absolute blast, except for the Braves.

Um, other than that, it was great.

Yeah, it was a great week.

Really special week.

I'll never forget this week.

But as great as our week was, it really couldn't have been a more stark contrast with sort of the feeling of like our entire nation this week.

It was a heavy week.

How many of you felt that?

How many of you felt just heavy all week long?

Yeah.

And so here's the thing when something happens in our world, when there's a current event, even something really, really big, I always pray about whether or not I should talk about it.

And there's a few filters that I'm okay sharing with you guys.

Sometimes it's good to pull the curtain back a little bit.

I have really strong opinions on almost everything.

I have really strong opinions on politics.

I follow politics very closely.

Sometimes I wish I didn't, but I do.

I have really strong opinions on just the current of affairs in the world, the current state of the world, but Sunday mornings are not about me sharing my opinions.

They're not.

That's not the purpose of why we get together.

Sunday mornings are really, if anything, we get together to worship God, to worship him, and through his word to try to discern what are his opinions?

What does he think?

What does Jesus think?

How does Jesus want us to think?

What does Jesus want us to see when we look at the world and how do we live that out?

So it's not about my opinion.

So when there's a current event, there's something big that happens, what I'd never want to do is be like a hot take guy.

Because there are plenty of those in the world, and you don't need to come here on a Sunday morning to get someone's opinions about the world or politics or any of that.

So a lot of times when there's an event that happens, you know, I might I might mention it, but it's not something we're gonna talk about.

This week, I as I prayed and just like I do every week, try to discern, Lord, what am I supposed to say?

What am I supposed to say?

It just became really obvious to me that we needed to talk about what happened this week.

On a variety of levels.

Um guys, the primary reason as I prayed, like, was because I'm I'm your pastor.

And at his hands, we have roles, not titles, if you're new.

You don't ever have to call me pastor.

I'm not Pastor Justin.

I'm just Justin or Jason.

Some of you still call me, that's fine.

I don't care.

You don't have to even it really doesn't bother me at all.

In fact, I kind of like it because that means I don't have to remember your name either.

It makes it easier.

Um But I'm not I'm not Pastor Justin.

That's my role.

It's not a title.

But I take that role really seriously.

I love you guys.

I love this church.

This is my home.

It's been my home for 20 years.

And so, you know, it's one thing if something happens in the world that all of us are just like, whoa, that's crazy.

It's another thing if I'm if I'm aware of the fact that something has happened that has deeply affected our people, us.

And if something has happened that has deeply affected a huge percentage of us, I have a responsibility, I believe, to address it, to try to bring perspective and healing, and ultimately that's God's perspective and God's healing.

Um it became clear to me that this is something we needed to talk about today.

And let me just ask this question if we could be like really honest and vulnerable, this week.

How many of you, if you don't mind raising your hands, and I'm gonna participate in this, but this week, how many of you witnessed with your own two eyes the gruesome murder and death of another human being?

How many of you saw that?

I uh I grew up in the 80s and the 90s.

It's kind of the era when violent movies and television became a thing, and we weren't a Christian family growing up until I was a little bit older.

And so we didn't really have filters on what we watched.

I had an older brother that was eight years older than me.

So from the time I was a little kid, I was watching movies like Predator, stuff like that.

And I probably would have said prior to Wednesday that uh I'm pretty desensitized to violence.

And uh and I definitely learn on Wednesday that I'm not.

Um, you know, I like like a lot of us, I I heard people are texting, Charlie Kirk has been shot, and I don't care where you land on politics, maybe you're someone that's never heard of that person before, and now you're familiar, or um, but I follow that world very closely, very familiar.

And then just a few minutes later, boom, there's this video.

And that wasn't even the only video going around this week of someone being brutally killed.

That's kind of the world we live in, unfortunately.

Now we have to we have to see it.

Um and I, man, did that hit me and affect me because I knew, I knew in that moment I just watched someone die.

And not just even a stranger, someone that, you know, just because of the world we live in and so much social media, someone that like, I know what that person's voice sounds like.

I feel familiarity with that person.

And man, did that hit hard.

My first reaction was, as soon as school gets out, I want to reach out to my oldest and get a hold of him and say, Hey man, do not, do not get online.

If people are saying, hey, look at this, don't do it.

And I as soon as school got out, I got a hold of him and said, Hey man, and he said, Dad, I already saw it.

I asked one of our high school teachers here at his hands last night, how many of your students do you think have seen that video?

And she said, Oh, 100%.

And so, I mean, just the fact that as your pastor, I know that the vast majority of you, and most of your kids, if you have kids at a certain age that have exposure to the world, you watch someone murdered this week.

That's really heavy.

I'm really sorry that you had to see that.

I'm really sorry that we live in a world where things like that happen.

And so all week long I've been thinking and praying, Lord, how do we respond?

Because like like many of you, like the emotions range.

Like just shock and anger.

This has been a really revealing event in our nation for a variety of reasons.

One, it's it's I believe it's the first public assassination.

There have been attempts.

It's the first public assassination of a of a major figure in the political world, at the very least, in like 50 years since RFK.

It's been a long time.

And as we already discussed, because of the nature of our world and technology, it's something we all saw, almost as if it was live.

And and it's been a revealing event.

I got texts from people here at the church saying, I don't know what to do.

I'm seeing comments online from people I know.

And they're laughing about this, they're celebrating this.

And you see excuses made in the media.

Well, you know, this is a divisive person.

Guys, who in politics is not divisive anymore?

It doesn't matter what side you're on, it really doesn't.

The the the biggest voices of both parties, I don't care if it's Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, or Bernie Sanders and AOC, they're all they're all divisive.

I'm trying to.

But it's Jesus was divisive.

Being divisive does not, that does not mean, and hey, actually, and I'm not no one's in trouble.

Let's let's not clap today.

Is that okay?

Okay?

We can say amen.

Um we live in a divisive world.

Someone being divisive, someone having opinions that not everyone agrees with, does not make them less worthy of life than anyone else.

And so if you're like me, not only is there just this shock value and anger, there's you look at the world and go, what world am I living in?

Is this the way that people think?

Is this the way that these are my neighbors?

And so how do we process that?

How do we how do we respond as Jesus followers?

Right?

Not as Republicans or Democrats, not as conservatives or progressives, not even really as Americans.

How do we respond as followers of Jesus Christ?

Because I will say, regardless of whether or not you agreed with all of Charlie Kirk's opinions, if you believe in Jesus, you agree with him on the most important thing.

That Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

And there is nothing more important than that.

And that's something that he was very bold and unapologetic in proclaiming and talking about.

So that's that's a brother in Christ.

And we watch that happen.

How do we respond?

I want to turn to Jesus in Matthew chapter 24.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

In this portion of scripture, Jesus is talking about the future.

Every generation has wondered if they are living in the time that Jesus is talking about.

And most generations have thought they were.

Then you'll be arrested, persecuted, and killed.

You'll be hated all over the world because you're my followers.

And many will turn away from me and betray me and hate each other.

Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold.

Sounds familiar.

Church, family, friends, followers of Jesus.

Do not let your love grow cold.

Whatever you do, however you feel, do not let your love grow cold.

Jesus understands our world, not just because he's God, but because he lived it as one of us.

In fact, the time that Jesus lived, it is so similar to today, maybe even more extreme in terms of the tension politically that Jesus lived in.

Just consider if this seems familiar.

Jesus lived in a time, we're in his area in Israel, there were two major politically oriented groups that were jockeying for authority and power.

And those groups hated each other.

There were people who just checked out.

There were people who said, you know what, I don't have anything to do with it.

Don't want to think about it.

Just want to close myself off from the world.

And then there were fringe groups.

There were violent fringe groups.

There was a group called the Zealots.

One of those became one of Jesus' followers.

And the tension was at a boiling point.

I mean, you're talking like a true knife's edge in terms of how this thing could go.

And Jesus knew that.

And he knew that if the people didn't get out of that spiral and turned to him, he knew exactly what would happen.

He knew that they were on a collision course toward destruction.

And he taught about that, he prophesied about that.

When he came into Jerusalem on his way to the cross, we read this in Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

It says, As he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep.

How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace.

But now it's too late.

And peace is hidden from your eyes.

Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side.

They will crush you into the ground and your children with you.

Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place because you did not recognize it when God visited you.

Jesus is weeping as he comes into Jerusalem, but he's not weeping for himself.

He's not sad about what he's about to endure.

He's weeping because of what's going to happen to the people, because he knows that they have in front of them a choice.

And that choice is Jesus.

They can choose him, they can choose his way.

They can sit at his feet, they can submit to his teaching, teachings like Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 through 48, where Jesus says, You've heard the law that says, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Matthew 5:43–48

I say, love your enemies.

Pray for those who persecute you.

In that way you'll be acting as true children of your Father in heaven, for he gives a sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.

If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?

Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.

If you're kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?

Even pagans do that.

But you're to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Jesus said, Love your enemies.

Pray for those who persecute you.

And he taught that to the people, and they rejected it.

They rejected it.

They'd rather have hate.

That's what they chose.

And he knew that the result of that would be tragedy and devastation.

And just a few decades after Jesus, all of it culminated in a war with Rome that led to the entire destruction of Jerusalem.

Over a million Jewish people were killed to this day.

It is one of the most brutal military campaigns in the history of the world.

And Jesus knew that if they would submit to him, if they would fall at his feet, if they would live like him and love like him, it all would have been avoided.

But they rejected him.

Just a few days after he said those words, Jesus would be standing in front of a crowd of people, facing the cross.

And right before he was crucified, the governor, Pontius Pilate, was trying to figure out what to do with him because he knew that Jesus was a man of peace and that Jesus had committed no crimes.

And he had another Jesus in custody.

This man's name was Jesus Barabbas, and he was a violent revolutionary.

And it says in Matthew chapter 27, it was the governor's custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd, anyone they wanted.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

And this year there was a notorious prisoner, a man named Barabbas.

And as the crowds gathered before Pilate's house that morning, he asked them, Which one of which one do you want me to release to you?

Barabbas?

Or Jesus who's called the Messiah?

He knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy.

But just then as Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him this message Leave that innocent man alone.

I suffered through a terrible nightmare about him last night.

Meanwhile, the leading priest and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death.

And so the governor asked again, which of these two do you want me to release to you?

And the crowd shouted back, Barabbas.

And peace and love and mercy.

And they chose, they chose hate and violence.

I was talking with a friend of mine named Andrew on Wednesday night.

We were just kind of reflecting on everything going on and what it's stirred up.

He said, Man, I'm just getting a lot of we choose Barabbas vibes right now.

It's so important that we don't make that choice.

Because it's tempting to.

It's so tempting to.

The people that Jesus spoke to are no different than the people in our world today.

They're lost.

Sheep without a shepherd.

Even if they know the answers here, they don't know the love of God.

In fact, there's an interaction that Jesus had with an expert in the law.

This man knew all the right answers.

Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

It says, one day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question, Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus replied, What does the law of Moses say?

How do you read it?

And the man answered, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Right, Jesus told him.

Do this and you'll live.

The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, Well, who is my neighbor?

This question, it's really profound and it's extremely revealing.

I mean, this man knows the answer.

He knows, yes, the most important thing for me to do is to love God with everything I have and to love my neighbor as myself.

You can't do one of those and not the other.

I mean, you can't love God with everything you have and then hate his creation.

It doesn't work that way.

And so Jesus affirms that, yeah, you got it.

Ding ding ding, right answer.

And the man says, Well, yeah, but who's my neighbor?

In other words, who do I have to love?

Who am I permitted not to love?

Who am I allowed to hate?

And then Jesus proceeds to tell a story.

It's now a very famous story.

It's a parable of the Good Samaritan.

And essentially the takeaway from that story to this man would be probably not the people that you think.

You have to love the people that you've been taught to see as your enemy.

It's not the answer the man wanted, but it's the answer that Jesus gave.

Do not let your love grow cold.

There are some who will say that love is like weakness.

You know, love, love, love our enemies.

Love the people who hate so much.

No.

No.

We gotta fight.

And yeah, we do have to fight.

But our fight is different.

And we can't forget that.

You can't find a group of people who are hated more and persecuted more heavily than the early church.

And you read the entirety of the New Testament.

And there's not one moment, there's not one moment where Peter or Paul say, you know what, guys, that's it.

It's time to do this.

It's time to throw down.

No, but what they do say in Ephesians chapter 6, that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and powers and principalities in the unseen world.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

We have an enemy, and we have an enemy to fight, but it is not people, it is Satan, it is everything that he stands for, it is everything that he proclaims, and we fight it with truth, the truth of Jesus.

We never stop talking about the truth, we never stop talking about Jesus, and we fight it with love.

And we do not let our love grow cold.

Ever.

That is what we do.

That love is not weakness.

No, it's it's not.

Does this sound like weakness to you?

Matthew chapter 26, they come to arrest Jesus.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

It says, one of the men with Jesus, one of his disciples, pulled out his sword and struck the high priest's slave.

This is one of the men coming to arrest him, slashing off his ear.

Put away your sword, Jesus told him.

Those who use the sword will die by the sword.

Don't you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly?

By the way, the translation there is interesting.

It says thousands, not inaccurate, but the actual words that Jesus used is 12 legions.

That would be 72,000 angels.

Jesus says, if I wanted 72,000 angels to show up right now, if I wanted to take this by force, if I wanted to muscle my way into authority, I could do it.

That's what Jesus is saying.

But if I did, how would the scriptures be fulfilled to describe what must happen now?

What does it look like to love like that, to love that powerfully?

That's not weakness, that is strength.

It was not weakness when on the cross Jesus looked at the people that nailed him to it and said, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

That is not weakness.

That is a kind of strength that, frankly, I have never seen with my own two eyes.

I've never seen love like that.

And so when Jesus tells us that in a future time there will be persecution and there will be all kinds of things, he essentially says, Guys, you're gonna see all kinds of stuff.

You're gonna see war, you're gonna see injustice, you're gonna see suffering, you're gonna see evil, you're gonna see hate, you're gonna get persecuted, you're gonna be hated too, you're gonna see death.

And when that happens, when when everybody else turns away and hates one another, when everyone else jumps into that, that sixth spiral, not you.

Do not let your love grow cold.

That takes work, that takes effort, that takes focus, that takes the Holy Spirit inside of us.

That is not something we can do in our own strength.

That requires a surrender to God to say, God, you've got to give me love that I do not have.

And it is not weakness, there is nothing stronger.

I'll show you guys a few examples I had this week of that kind of love, what it looks like.

A shout out to my friend Ashley, who posted this on online.

If you believe Charlie Kirk deserved to die, unfriend me.

I don't want to know you.

Fellow Facebook posts.

She's referencing a lot of Facebook posts, and yeah, there were some horrible things being said.

But her response was: if you believe Mr.

Kirk deserved to die, call me.

I want to sit with you.

You must be holding deep pain inside of your heart.

And you need love and peace that only Jesus can provide.

That is what it looks like to not let your love grow cold.

You can clap for that.

I said no clapping.

That's worth clapping for.

I got a message from a friend.

He's part of a group of guys that I meet with each week, and we just live life together, pray together.

He said, Be praying for me, guys.

I'm filled with a lot of anger right now in regards to the Charlie Kirk assassination.

I'm stuck working with people who openly celebrate it and laugh about it.

And I'm just so angry.

So just pray for peace.

That's what not letting your love grow cold looks like.

It's it's recognizing, yeah, I'm I'm bewildered.

I'm so angry at the hatred that I see in this world.

Pray.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood.

Pray.

Pray that God gives me peace.

Pray that God fills me with love.

Pray that God gives me the ability to look at these people whose perspective I don't even understand, and say something meaningful, something that will lead them to Jesus.

That's what it looks like to not let your love grow cold.

You know, Jesus is uh he's an interesting man.

You want to talk about divisive?

Jesus once said this.

He said, I did not come to bring peace to this earth, I came to bring a sword.

To divide families.

And you read that, and if you read it out of context, you're like, whoa, Jesus, uh, that's that doesn't sound like love.

But he wasn't calling us to live that way, to make that happen.

He was just saying, look, my very presence on this earth, the very presence of truth, the very presence of purity and goodness and holiness, which is everything Jesus is, that very presence is divisive.

That very presence will divide.

It will.

It will.

But time and time again, he challenges us to choose peace.

He said, Look, me being here, it's going to create all kinds of craziness.

It's disruptive.

That's why the early Christians were thrown in jail, because when a church would start in a city, the city would change and it would be disruptive to everything that was going on.

And people would try to attack it and stop it, and they try to argue, and when they lost arguments, they shot, they killed, to do whatever people do today.

And in so many ways, the world hasn't changed that much.

Jesus is still a divisive person, but we as his followers, we are called to love, to speak the truth, but to serve, to surrender, surrender to the will of God.

And sometimes that's really inconvenient.

Sometimes that means loving people you don't want to love.

It's like this man Ananias in Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

He's told by God to go help a man named Saul.

And he says, Lord, I know who Saul is.

Saul is here to persecute your church.

Saul's the one who's throwing us in prison.

He could have said, I know, I have friends that Saul has had killed.

And God says to Ananias, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I have plans for Saul.

He's my chosen instrument to bring my good news to places on this earth that's never gone before.

And Ananias had to had to go and serve and help a man that his flesh had to hate.

And then Saul became Paul.

And millions of people started following Jesus as the result of his obedience to the Lord.

That's what it looks like to not let your love grow cold, to obey the Lord, even when it's really hard.

And so we'll wrap up and take Lord's Supper, but here's what I just want to say to close.

Jesus told his followers to put their swords away.

He does sometimes call us to give it up.

When we take this meal every week, we are celebrating a different kind of death.

We are recognizing that there's a sacrifice that was made on our behalf.

We sang about it today.

Oh precious is the flow that makes us white as snow.

Jesus didn't have to do this.

Like I don't know what 72 Angels gets done, but I imagine a lot.

Jesus surrendered himself.

And even though he was hated, even though he was lied about, even though he was beaten, tortured, and killed, even on the cross, his love did not grow cold.

Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they do.

He saw people as sheep without a shepherd, in need of guidance, and he has called us as his people to love.

And that love is not meek.

That love is powerful.

That love is unrelenting.

And the only way we can love like that is if we live every single day in gratitude to him for what he's done for us and in complete and total reliance on his spirit working in us and through us to bring love to a world that doesn't have it.

Do not let your love grow cold.

Let's take the bread.

Father God, we thank you for this bread.

Jesus, we thank you for your sacrifice.

And right now, Lord, there are so many people who are confused, hurt, shocked, angry.

And it's not about politics, Lord.

It's not about ultimately.

It's about human beings.

Jesus, people keep saying that we need to lower the temperature.

That is not the answer.

We need to love people.

Lowering the temperature doesn't solve the problem, just slows it down.

We need to love people.

We need to love people, Jesus, the way that you love us, the way that you love people.

We need you to fill us with the same unrelenting love that led you to the cross.

The same love, Lord, that allowed you to allow your body to be nailed to that tree.

The same love, Lord, that was willing to lay down its life, to give up every last breath so that people could be made right with God and know you.

Lord, fill us with that same love.

It's only by you and your power that we can do that, Lord, and we're asking for that.

Let's take the bread.

Now the Jews.

Lord, this is uh your blood.

Every time blood is spilled, it's a tragedy.

Every time life is taken, it is an injustice.

But Lord, you love so much that you were willing to allow your blood to be spilled, to cover the wickedness, the depravity, the hatred, the sin, the ugliness of every part of this world.

You saw all of that.

You saw it outside of us, you saw it within us, and you decided to die for it.

So, Lord, as we take this juice, we are asking for love that doesn't grow cold, for peace, for mercy, for an unrelenting commitment to live the way you lived, and to love the way that you loved.

Let's take the juice.