Philippians 1:1-11 - Pursuing Jesus By Loving Others

Main Idea: We must continue to grow in our love for one another to embrace all that Christ has for us.

We must love others confidently (vs. 3-6)

• Confidently Pray For Them

• Confidently Partner With Them

• Confidently Persevere With Them

We must love others consciously (vs. 7-8)

• Consciously Pay Attention To Them

• Consciously Have Affection For Them

We must love others consistently (vs. 9-11)

• Consistent Love Demands Real Relationship

• Consistent Love Demands Struggles

• Consistent Love Demands Jesus

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

If you would, turn in your Bibles to the Book of Philippians. And we are going to be beginning a new study, verse by verse, through the Book of Philippians.

And I've entitled this series, One Pursuit, that as we read through the Book of Philippians, each week, we are going to see ways in which we are pursuing our one goal as a church.

If you ask people, what is the goal, what's the mission of the church, you might hear some different answers from different people. Maybe if there's a person that their only interaction with the church is through news.

Maybe they might say, oh, the church's one mission is to help the poor. You might hear the church's one mission is to get lots of money. If you happen to find any, let me know.

Most churches are not full of money. If you ask maybe a person that grew up in church, what's the one mission of the church? You might hear something like fighting amongst themselves.

People have plenty of ideas on what the purpose, what the pursuit, what the mission of the church is. But as we'll look in the book of Philippians, we will see that the one pursuit of the church must be Jesus Christ. It must be knowing Him.

It must be being filled with His Spirit. Taking in and learning and indwelling in His Word. Our pursuit must be Him.

This book of the Philippians, this is a letter from Paul the Apostle to the church that was in the city of Philippi. Philippi was a city that was in Macedonia. It was founded initially by Alexander the Great's father, Philip of Macedon.

It was the site of a huge battle in kind of the century before Christ. And it's where Julius Caesar's assassins were finally defeated in a large battle.

And as a result of the Roman victory in that area and by that town, it was granted kind of citizenship as a Roman city. And they were free from the imperial tax that Rome put on many of the other cities and nations that were around them.

Doesn't that sound nice? No imperial taxes? Sounds like a great deal.

The apostle Paul and Silas, they visited this city. It was the first city on the European continent that Paul had personally brought the gospel to. And it was kind of a very well known city.

There were many that were formerly Roman soldiers that were there in that city. Many who had earned some Roman citizenship. So it was a pretty patriotic city.

We're not terribly far from Washington, DC. And I know even in my limited interactions with some of you, some of you are very patriotic, and I think you would find some things in common with the people of Philippi.

Paul brought the gospel to this city, and Paul and Silas, as a result of their gospel preaching, they were thrown into prison. They were beaten before being thrown into prison. In prison, they sang praises to God and prayed all night.

An earthquake came, opened the prison doors, and they were able to lead the Philippian jailer and his family to the Lord. God was doing amazing things in that city and in that place. However, several years later, we now find Paul in prison again.

This time he's in Rome, and he is writing this letter to the church at Philippi. And they've got a lot going on.

There are two women in the church, Yodia and Syntyche, that have such stark disagreement and fighting with each other that Paul has to take some lines in inspired scripture to say, hey, you two, get along.

Not only that, but because the church at Philippi had heard that Paul was in prison again for preaching the gospel, and that went very counter to what Rome wanted, and he ran afoul of even some of the Jews in Jerusalem, was where he had initially

been imprisoned, and now he was in Rome. And they had sent a gift with one of their pastors, whose name was Epaphroditus, we'll meet him in a few weeks, and they had sent Epaphroditus with a gift.

It could have been some money, it could have been clothes, could have been any number of things that doesn't specify exactly what it is in the book of Philippi, but they sent a gift to take care of Paul in his time of need.

However, Epaphroditus, once he had gotten there, he fell very, very sick and almost died.

And so Paul is writing this letter, I believe he sent it by the hand of Timothy, that Timothy would bring the letter to the church to tell him, all right, Epaphroditus, he was sick, you guys heard about that, but he's doing fine now, he's alive, he

is excited to get all the way better and return to you all. All of this is happening in the book, but Paul wants to remind them of a few things as he goes through. And that central point is pursuing Jesus above everything.

And every portion of Philippians that we'll look at over the next several weeks, we will see that our goal, our pursuit, has to be pursuing Jesus. As our church dives into 2024, a season of new beginnings and possibilities, that ought to be our goal.

My prayer is that just as the Philippian church grew in unity, in purpose, in boldness, in love, and in generosity, that we would do the same here at Tabernacle.

And today, we're starting off our series at the very beginning of the book by looking at pursuing Jesus by loving others. Pursuing Jesus by loving others.

1 John 3 and verses 23 and 24 say this, now this is his command, that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and God remains in him.

And in John 15, Jesus said, as the father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my father's commands, and remain in his love.

This is my command. Love one another as I have loved you. The Bible is clear about this truth, that our love for others is the defining characteristic of a Christian.

And from the Gospel of John and the Letter of 1 John, we can see that God views our love for others as an essential part of our love for him. So if we're to have one pursuit of Jesus alone, then we must pursue him by loving others.

Let's read our passage for today and see just how Paul encourages us to love each other based on how Christ loved us and how Paul loved the Philippian Church.

Starting in verses number one and two, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I just want to highlight very quickly before we dive in today, see how Paul describes himself there. There in verse number one, he says, we are servants of Christ Jesus. This would be the word slaves.

We are those at the complete beck and call of our master. And then see how he views these Philippian believers. He says, they are saints.

They are holy ones. They are set apart. All of this is gonna come into play as we read the rest of the passage.

And then he praised this for them. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want us to think about this today as our overarching theme.

We must continue to grow in our love for one another to embrace all that Christ has for us. One more time. We must continue to grow in our love for one another if we are to embrace all that Christ has for us.

Let's pray and we'll dive in. Dear God, thank you for today. Thank you that you have given us your word.

Thank you for giving us this church family, for providing us with a building that we're able to stay warm in. God, for taking care of our needs. God, we ask today that you would help our spiritual needs.

God, we become very focused on the outer and on what we can see, but God, you are concerned with who we are on the inside. And God, we pray that today you would work in our hearts. We love you, God.

We pray that you would bless this time in your word. In Jesus' name, Amen. The first way that I see from this passage that we must continue to grow in our love is that we must love others confidently.

See this in verses three through six of the passage. We must love others confidently. And that must start by confidently praying for others.

Verse number three, he says this, I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you. Always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer.

Paul, despite the problems that were going on at Philippi, still prayed for the Philippians and thanked God for them. He says that he thanked God for them every time he thought of them. And he prayed for them with joy.

Who are you praying for in your life? We so easily gossip about people, complain about people, tell jokes about people. But when will we realize that if we are going to love others as Jesus has commanded us to love them, then we must pray for them.

Prayer is the great foil to our pride and our hatred. How can we continue to look down on and despise those that were constantly asking God to bless, heal, and prosper?

The prayer that Paul is praying for these believers is not one of the imprecatory prayers from the Psalms of God, I want you to do exact judgment on them. He says he is thanking God and making requests for them with joy.

If we are going to love others, we must confidently pray for them. It can be a hard thing to do. We much more often want to complain about people.

We want to talk about people to people. But what God encourages us to do is bring everything to him. And as we bring everything to him, then we see things the way he sees things.

Because can I tell you, we can complain about people, I can say, well, Samantha, you know, Lori, she just really did some things this week.

I can complain to you, but if I'm praying to God and I'm saying, God, I have this situation in my life and I need your strength. God, I need some patience.

Well, then it's much easier to have a spiritual focus when we're relying on the Holy Spirit and saying, God, your will be done, not simply my will be done. There was a missionary to Japan for many years, Dr.

Don Sisk, who said this, how can I say I love you and not pray for you?

We can think good thoughts about people, but if we're going to truly love people the way that Christ does, not just love people the way the world does, if we're gonna love the way God does, then we must pray for others. Can I tell you?

Don't just pray general prayers. God, I pray that you would bless this person and this person and this person and this person. Get to know people.

Interact with them. Ask them how you can pray for them.

Because as we do that, then we are genuinely connecting with and loving people that we are asking for specific things that as they have needs in their life, as they have struggles that they're going through, they know that someone is genuinely in

their corner. That I know that John is praying for me. I know that Daryl is thinking about this situation with me, and he's going to God with me in this thing. Let's pray for people.

But not only should we confidently pray for others if we're to confidently love them, we should also confidently partner with them. We can see this in verse number five of the passage.

He says, I am praying for you with joy in my every prayer because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

If you had to write a letter to a church and highlight for them all of their faults, including legalistic Judaism, like we'll see in chapter three, schismatic fighting, like we'll see in chapter four, and hedonistic rebellion, like we see at the end

of chapter three, if you had to write a letter to a church and highlight all of those faults for them, would you describe that church as your partners in the gospel? Paul here is not primarily concerned with the yet to be sanctified aspects of the

church. He doesn't see them as just all of their faults and their failures. He is mainly concerned with who they truly are.

Do you realize it becomes much easier to confidently love those in your life when you realize that everyone fits into one of two categories?

There are those without Christ, without the Holy Spirit of God, those without genuine hope, without the promise of heaven. These people whom the Bible terms the lost, we can love them realizing that they have been blinded by Satan, enslaved to sin.

And as Jesus said on the cross and the deacon Stephen said at his stoning, they don't know what they are doing. When my one-year-old daughter whacks me with a toy, she doesn't know what she's doing. She's not intending to inflict pain.

And so it's easier to forgive her and to love her, because she simply doesn't know any better.

In the same way, those without God and His enlightening Spirit simply cannot act in a godly manner, because they don't have the knowledge or ability to do so.

This ought to change how we see the lost, how we talk to them, and how we talk about the world around us. The other category of people in life is those that do know Christ, that have turned to Him as Savior and Lord.

For these people, maybe some of those in this room, we sometimes wrongly expect that because they know Christ, that they will always act like Christ. However, none of us can be perfect until we're with the Lord.

And this ought to change how we view other believers. That one brother or sister that drives you crazy is not at their core proud or lazy or whatever your largest complaint about them is.

That brother or sister is at their core, your brother or sister in Christ. You are bound with them together forever as family because of what Jesus has done. And you ought to confidently partner with them as the Lord does.

Do you realize that God has given the Holy Spirit to every single believer? Even the one that drives you crazy. But if God hasn't given up on that person, then neither should you.

Continue to confidently partner with them, to love them through who they currently are, knowing who they most truly are, who they will be, who they are because of Christ. This week, how can you partner with someone else in the gospel?

Maybe you can send someone an encouraging text with a verse or prayer. Maybe you can invite an unsaved friend to your house to play games and invite someone from church to join you as well.

Maybe you can volunteer for a ministry here at the church and begin getting to know someone here at Tabernacle that you haven't gotten to befriend yet. People are worth loving because Christ loves them.

And you can love people by partnering with them. So we're called to confidently love others. We can confidently pray for them.

We can confidently partner with them in the Gospel. And we can confidently persevere with them. We can see this in verse number 6.

I am sure of this. I'm convinced, I'm persuaded of this. That he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Paul here is certain of others' continued sanctification. That Jesus wasn't done with them yet, and so he wasn't done with them either.

There's an old, I think it might be an old Gaither song that says, He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be. It took him just a week to make the moon and the stars and the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.

How loving and patient he must be. He's still working on me. And many of you maybe have taught that to kids, heard it in Sunday school.

What a wonderful truth that God is not done with you. You might wonder, hey, I have gone too far from God. I've sinned far too much.

He could not love me. He could not use me. If others knew everything I've done and everywhere I've been, they wouldn't love me.

Can I tell you, God is not done with you. The one that started the work in you will bring it to completion. God will not leave any task unfinished, and He will not leave you unfinished either.

So don't give up. Have hope. In today's day and age, we cut off others so easily.

However, we are encouraged constantly in the New Testament to bear with others, to forgive them, to be patient and long suffering with them.

Often, we think we're being patient and long suffering with others by simply not telling them what we actually think about them. I didn't go off on Pastor Ron today, so I'm really patient. I'm really loving.

We think that. However, how drastically would it change our lives, our church, and our area if Christians truly persevered and believed and hoped the best about others?

If we weren't constantly keeping a record of their wrongs in our mind, or rehearsing in our mind all the things we dislike about them? Can I encourage us today the same work of sanctification that Jesus will do in other believers?

He wants to do in you as well. If you don't know how you could possibly love others confidently, as Paul did, allow Jesus to do the work in you. He is our model after all.

He is the one that hours before all of the apostles abandoned him and Judas betrayed him, he washed their feet at the Last Supper. He told Peter that even though he would deny him three times afterward, he would receive him back.

We can rely on that patient and loving God to build his patience and love in us as we rely on his Holy Spirit day after day. So, will you confidently love others through their imperfections? Will you pray for them?

Will you partner with them in the Gospel? Will you persevere with them? That God's not done with you, he's not done with them, and so we can continue on this mission loving together.

But not only do I see that we must love others confidently, but we must also love others consciously. We must love others consciously. See this in verses 7 and 8.

He starts off by saying we must consciously pay attention to others. There in verse 7.

Indeed, it is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

Here in this verse, Paul mentions for the first time something that he'll say several times throughout the book of Philippians. It's the phrase, it is right for me to think this way about all of you.

This is the same kind of phrase that he uses in the book of Colossians when he says to set your mind on heavenly things, not on things on the earth. It is a devotion and attention of the mind.

So often, our lack of love for others is not manifested in outright hatred, like, okay, my options are, I love this person or I absolutely hate them. Most of the time, our lack of love is simply indifference to others. We don't care about others.

They never even enter into our mind. And I want us to realize, Paul says that it is right for me to think this way. The phrase here is, it is righteous.

It is a great thing for me to set my mind on you, to intentionally, consciously give you attention in my mind. Love is spelled T-I-M-E. And if we are to love others, we ought to take time for them.

Now, that might be time that we spend in prayer. It might be time that we maybe craft a letter or a text, or maybe have a meal with someone. But we ought to have a love for others that consciously pays attention to them, that thinks about them.

Who can you love this week that you normally don't think about? Who's someone that God might bring to your mind, even in this moment, that you'd say, God, I know you want me to love this person. I kind of just forget about him sometimes.

Maybe the Lord would direct you to a course of action that would say, hey, here's one action that I want you to take this week to consciously pay attention to, to love this person.

Not only, though, are we called to consciously pay attention to people, we are called to consciously have affection for people. We can see this in verse number 8, for God is my witness, how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

Did Paul just like really like the Philippians? Did they have similar interests or hobbies? No, Paul loved the Philippians so much because Jesus loved the Philippians so much.

This word here, how deeply I miss all of you, is kind of that same word desire that we would read elsewhere in the New Testament. That Paul desired to be with Christ, to be in heaven. That's that deep missing, that longing.

It's the longing that Peter talks about in 1 Peter 2 where he says, as newborn babies desire, miss the sincere, genuine milk of the word so that you may grow through it.

It is that severe desire, that love, that longing, the one that we feel for heaven, or that our babies or grandbabies feel for food. That's how Paul felt about the Philippians. And he felt that way because of the affection of Christ Jesus.

During this time in kind of world science history, they viewed the heart was like an important thing that was a center of a person, but they viewed the bowels, the intestines, as where your innermost love came from.

I think the Greek word is splagagnon. It was a fun one to learn in college. It is your innermost being.

If you have maybe an older translation, you might even see it there in the text that I miss you all, I desire you all with the bowels of Christ Jesus. It says from the depths of my person, I love you and I miss you and I desire you all.

God forgive us for loving people in a superficial way, that we only love those with matching personalities, matching hobbies, or subdued opinions. May we love with the deep heartfelt love that Christ has for his people.

I think of 1 Corinthians 13, where this list of what love is, of how God's love is manifested, how Jesus loved us.

I see this list, love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, it is not boastful, it is not arrogant, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Does this describe our love for people in our life, for other people in the church?

Because it describes Jesus' love for you. It's how He loves you, how He has treated you all of your life. That is how we are called to love.

Like Paul loved them, desired them, missed them with the affection of Christ Jesus. That's how we are called to love. Not just consciously pay attention to them, but consciously, genuinely, from our innermost being, loving them.

Will you consciously give of your time and your attention and your affection to others?

But not only do I see that we must confidently love others and that we must love others consciously, but I see in verses 9, 10, and 11 that we must love others consistently. And I see first that consistent love demands real relationship.

Verse 9, he says this, and I pray this, that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment. Our world does not think of love in terms of knowledge and discernment.

That's not, if someone says, hey, you should love Shelley more. Great, I'll grow in my knowledge and my discernment. They go, what?

That doesn't make any sense. Our world loves by allowing the other person to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. A genuine godly love, however, is one that is shaped by scripture.

How do you gain knowledge? By going to the Bible. How do you gain discernment?

By knowing what God says. Can we live and operate in defiance of our Creator and be lastingly fulfilled and happy and in healthy relationship with others? No.

Psalm 1 says, How happy is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or go in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the mockers. But their delight is in the law of Yahweh, and in His law, they meditate day and night.

Proverbs says, There is a way that seems right to a person, but the result is the paths of death. Romans 6 says that the wages of sin is death.

If all of those verses are true, and they are, then we must have a real relationship with others to be able to warn them, given God's knowledge and the discernment His Holy Spirit gives us.

If we truly love people, then we need to love them and tell them what God tells us. That if you continue in this path, you are in danger. If you continue having this attitude, it will harm your relationships with everyone else.

However, this is not a constant harassment of others based on petty opinions or personal standards, but a love that is centered on the Word of God and seeking the best for another person.

But I can tell you that if the only time you communicate with others is in chiding them or critiquing them, your love will be like clanging symbols and bashing gongs.

You must love people in prayer, partnership, perseverance, attention, and affection if you're going to love them in biblical warnings and encouragement.

So often, we want to get after other people and be like, oh man, if you would just get this right, then you'd be a great person.

But if we haven't loved in all of the ways that Paul through the Holy Spirit has outlined, if we're not doing all of that, we can't short circuit that list to come right to this point and say, oh, I just really like getting after people.

I really like telling them what to do. No, no, no, we must love in all of these ways.

And as we do our love, the word here, growing, I believe in verse number nine, oh yeah, growing, it is becoming abundant in, then we are able to, with this basis of love, we're able to grow in knowledge and in discernment, to be able to say, to give

the advice that is spiritual and godly and good, that we would have a loving relationship with people, that we wouldn't be feeding them just what they want to hear, but that we would be feeding them what the word of god says. But not only does

consistent love demand real relationship, but consistent love demands struggles. Verse number ten says, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ. Not every time of encouragement is easy.

Sometimes the choice is not between good and bad, that's normally fairly easy, but between good and best. Paul encourages the Philippians here to approve, it's to test or to scrutinize what is superior, that is what is most valuable.

This is one of the areas that we truly need the Holy Spirit's help in. A thousand things call for our attention every day and every week. But what needs to be done?

I think of Martha, who was loaded down with so many good things, but who was missing what was needed.

As we seek to love people, to show Jesus' kindness and care to others, we must struggle consistently with asking the Lord, what do you want me to do today?

As we talk with people, we must consistently struggle with what is the best use of my words or my time in this conversation.

As we seek to follow God's word and being generous with our money or with our abilities, we need to call on the Holy Spirit to ask, how do you want me to give God? Will you help me to approve what is superior? What is best?

Will you help me to see how I can best love people? What's the point of this struggling for what is best? You can see it there in the verse after, that in the day of Christ, when we stand before Him and give an account, we can be pure and blameless.

I want to reiterate the only way that we can be pure right on the inside and blameless right in our outer relationships is if we have Christ as our Lord, and it's His life that is being lived out in us.

I think of Galatians 2.20, I'm crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in this body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Let's consistently struggle with how to love best by relying on Jesus living through us. And that brings us now to our last point, consistent love demands Jesus.

Verse number 11 says this, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. All of our righteousness comes through Jesus, so that God alone will be praised.

If you want to consistently love people, if you want to be filled that is overflowing with the righteous fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, then you need Jesus.

We will not love people in the way that we are called to in a way that is pleasing to our heavenly Father unless we do it looking to Jesus. We must have Jesus if we're going to love others.

And can I encourage you today, I don't know all of you yet, and I don't know many of you very well yet, but maybe you're in this room and you do not know Jesus as your Lord and as your Savior. Can I tell you that you need Jesus for your life?

Jesus isn't just something for the Christian to be able to live a God-pleasing life. Jesus is what is needed for every single person. The Bible says this, that all of humanity has sinned, has fallen short of God's glory.

All of us in one way or another have rebelled against the God who created us, who loves us, who sustains us through each and every day, who gives us our breath and our life and our health. All of us have rebelled against him.

We have done things, thought things, said things that have ran contrary to what he has expressed in his word. And the Bible says that our breaking of God's law has earned us condemnation, that we are alienated from God.

The Bible says that we are enemies of God. We are the children of disobedience and wrath. That we are outside of the blessing and love of God.

But the Bible also says God loved the world in this way. The world is not just he loves planet Earth so much. No, no, no.

He loves the people of Earth. God loved the world in this way. That he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

That's why Jesus came to this Earth. He didn't just come to be a model, a mimic, something that we would look to and go, oh, that was really nice how he treated others. I'll just do the same kind of thing and I'll be okay with God.

No, no, no. The Bible says that he became sin for us, the one who knew no sin, so that we would be made the righteousness of God in him.

On the cross 2,000 years ago, Jesus took the sins of all the world, placed them on himself, and he died in our place. And he gave us his righteousness. But the Bible says this, you don't just get it automatically.

God offers it to you as a gift. Romans 6, 23, I quoted the first part of it earlier. It says, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Christ calls to you today, if you do not know him as Savior. The Bible says, now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.

Will you turn from your own path, from following your will for your life, trusting in who you are or what you have done in order to curry favor with God?

Will you turn from that and turn to Christ alone as your Lord and Savior, realizing that he already paid the payment for sin all we need in order to gain a relationship with God, in order to have a home in heaven one day, in order to become a part of

the family of God? You don't have to give an amount of money. You don't have to go into the baptistry. You don't have to attend church for 52 weeks in a row.

No, no. All that is required for salvation is turning to Christ alone. The Bible says this, that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead, then we will be saved.

It says, for with the heart, man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made as to salvation. The Bible says this, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

No matter where you've been, no matter how long you've been in church, no matter how little you've been in church, God is calling to you. If you do not know him as Savior, will you turn to Christ alone for salvation?

For the believers today, you need Christ no less than those that do not know him. You need his strength, you need his righteousness. It is the only way that we can continue as a church.

It is the only way that we can love others the way that Christ has loved us. We need his Holy Spirit to empower us each and every day, to fill us. It is to overflow.

It's to brim over with the righteous fruit of the Spirit. We need him so desperately. We must continue to grow in our love for one another to embrace all that Christ has for us.

We saw it consistently throughout the passage. He gives us our end goal. The day of Jesus Christ.

That one day when we stand before him, that we would be pure and blameless. Right on the inside, right on the outside through what Jesus has done. So, we must continue to grow in our love for one another if we are to pursue Jesus.

I want to ask you today, have you ever personally accepted the love of Christ, which he showed by dying for your sin?

If you do not know that, I want to invite you today, after the service, I'm going to be standing right in the back by that giant 12 foot tree. I want you to talk to me.

I would love to set up a time where I can talk with you about everything that I've said from the Bible and invite you to put your faith completely in Christ alone. Will you, Christian, confidently love others through their imperfections?

You say, you don't understand how broken this other believer is. You don't understand how broken you are. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we like to think we're pretty great, and everyone else is just a little bit.

That's not the case. We are all broken. All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags before God.

Anything good in us is from Him. So will you confidently love others through their imperfections? Will you consciously give of your time and your attention to others?

Will you consistently grow spiritually, growing in discernment and knowledge and in what God has said, so that you can love better? Today, the call is before us. Jesus loves you.

Jesus loves others. Will you follow Him? Will you pursue Him by doing the same?