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I have three points tonight. The first point is about loving people in general. Just loving people in general. And if you would, look down at 1 Thessalonians 3, verse 11. Now God himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you, and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another. And this is the part I want to focus on. And toward all men, even as we do toward you. Of course there's a lot in the Bible about loving each other, loving the brotherhood, loving our brother and sister in Christ. But the Bible also just wants us to love people in general. And so the Bible just says that we should increase and abound in love one toward another. And toward all men, just people out there, just random people. Our default mode should be to just love people. We should be loving people. What does that mean? It means that we have positive feelings towards people. It means that we do good unto other people. It means that we bless people, and we wish them well, and we mean it, and we really want to help people and see what's best for them. Now look forward to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. So 1 Thessalonians 3, we see that God wants us to love people in general. Yes, love the Christians and the church people, but He says also that our love would just abound toward all men in general. Just that we would love mankind in general. We would just love people. When we're out and about, when we're going through our lives, whether you're at work or at school or wherever you are, love people. Look at Matthew 24 verse 10. The Bible reads, And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Now we see that iniquity abounding is an enemy of love. It causes love to grow cold when iniquity abounds, and I can think of two different reasons why that would be. Reason number one is that if I have a lot of sin and iniquity in my life, I'm not going to be very loving toward other people because I'm obviously focused on myself. Because sin is when we're being selfish, we're doing things for ourselves, we're not thinking about other people. Love would fulfill God's law and take care of other people. And so number one, obviously if sin abounds, well then the people who are doing the sins aren't very loving because it's not loving to commit sin. But then not only that, I think part of the reason why the love of many wax cold is because there's so much sin in our world, sometimes it can be easy for us as Christians to not love the people of this world because we just think, oh they're too sinful. And we can start getting this prideful, arrogant attitude where we're better than everyone else, and where we just don't love people, where we just constantly despise and look down on other people. Now if you would go to Titus chapter 3 where we started, I think of the story of the publican and the Pharisee, and they go to the temple to pray, and if you remember the Pharisee was someone who despised other people. And so he's praying with himself, he's not even praying to God, but he's just going through the motions of praying, and he prays thus with himself and he says, Lord I thank thee that I'm not as other men. And the Bible says that he despised that publican. He says, oh thank you God that I'm not like this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. So he's looking down on this guy who's a publican, who actually was a sincere man, who actually in his heart at that very moment, the Pharisee had no way of knowing this, but in his heart what was he saying? God be merciful to be a sinner. And he was humble, and he was seeking the Lord, and he actually got saved the Bible says, he went home to his house to justify, and he prayed to the Lord for salvation, he called upon the Lord for salvation, and he got saved and that Pharisee's in hell right now. Even though he's looking down on this guy who's a poor publican. Now here's the thing, we don't want to be like that Pharisee where we despise sinful people. Obviously a publican is a sinful guy, but we don't want to just go around despising sinful people. We need to understand that God wants us to love people. Now if you would look at Titus chapter 3, we'll start in verse number 1 it says, Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers but gentle, to show and all meekness unto all men. And here's the part I want to focus on verse 3, For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another, but after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. And we'll come back to that in a moment, but the point here is that when you look down on the people of this world and think that they're trashy or wicked or sinful or all these different things, you should realize either A, you were that way in the past, we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, or if you were fortunate enough to have grown up in a Christian home, you should realize that that would have been you if you hadn't have grown up in a Christian home. You probably would be going down that same path right there. So you don't want to just despise and have disgust for other people because of the fact that those people are walking a road that maybe you either walked in the past or you could have walked in the past if God had not blessed you with a Christian home. The Apostle Paul looked inside and said, I know that within me, that is within my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. So he looked inside of his heart and he saw a lot of bad there. And so I think all of us could look inside of our heart and see that dark side and see that rotten side within us, that sinful flesh that we have, and realize that if we had not been taught the Word of God, we would be out living an ungodly life. I know I would be if I had been blessed with Christian parents that brought me up in the nurtured admonition of the Lord and God to just week after week after week of preaching and more preaching and Christian summer camps and Bible studies and sermons and reading the Bible, hearing the Bible, singing it. I grew up with so much good preaching and Bible reading and singing and Christian parents, Christian home, Christian family, Christian relatives, all these Christian influences. Hey, that's why I am where I am today. It's not because I'm just inherently a good God. No. And neither are you. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none that doeth good, no one on one. And without Christ, all of our mouths would be an open sepulcher and we would all be living a rotten life. It's just that simple. And so before you despise other people, realize that we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, stupid. Disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after the kindness and love of God our Savior, and look at verse 4, it says, the love of God our Savior, don't miss this, toward man. So notice God's love is toward man. Notice just that singular word man. That's talking about mankind. That's talking about humanity in general. God has love toward man. Not just a certain elect and everybody else is just doomed no matter what. You know, he only died for certain people, right? Like the confidence would teach that he didn't die for everybody. No, God's love is toward man. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Yes, only those who believe are the chosen people of God. They are the elect. But he loved everybody. He extended that offer to everybody. He died for all. He died for everybody. He's the Savior of all men, especially those that believe. And so if God has a love in general toward man, a love toward man, a love toward humanity, if God so loved the world, let me ask this. Do you think that we should also love man? Should we also have benevolence and good will toward man if God had good will toward man? Shouldn't we also have good will toward man in general? And again, because iniquity abounds the love of many whacks cold. That could mean two things. It could mean either we're abounding in iniquity so we don't love like we should because we're so focused on self or how about this, when our world abounds in iniquity, we start just getting cynical and we start getting disillusioned and we start getting jaded and just thinking, everybody's so rotten, everybody's so bad. Hey, yeah, I know, but guess what? We're supposed to love them anyway. We're supposed to love people. Because guess what? We have those same rotten proclivities even in our own heart. Go to Hebrews chapter 5 if you would. Hebrews chapter 5 should be close by there in your Bible, so a few pages to the right. Hebrews chapter number 5, love people. Love people, I mean, that's the default mode. I mean, when you just run into somebody, when you just meet someone, I'm just talking about anywhere in the store, just in business, whatever you go through in your life. What's your default mode? Are you just automatically just bitter, closed off, malevolent, or do you actually care about people and just have a general goodwill and love in your heart for people? Because that's the attitude we should go through life with. You know, I go through life trying to like people. And people have to talk me out of that. But I start out, now there are people that I don't like. And I mean, there are some super evil people in this world that I hate. But they have to talk me out of that because my default mode is to love people. You know, I'm going to start out loving people. And I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt. And sometimes I've been accused of giving people the benefit of the doubt too much. But I'm going to keep doing that. Because of the fact that even if I'm 99%, that's not 100% about somebody being a wrong person. I try to see the good in people. I try to like people, love people. That should be our attitude as we go through this life. Not just being negative and just acting like everybody's an idiot and everybody's so bad. There's too much of that. And the Bible predicted in the last days that it would be like that that people would be hateful and hating one another because iniquity would abound, the love of many would wax gold. And that's pretty much where we're at today where people have a really bad attitude. I mean, think about all these dudes out there in the manosphere and they're just so hateful toward women. And they can call it whatever they want. They could lie and say, you know what, your actions speak louder than your words. And we can pick up what you're putting down. We can read between the lines. These guys hate women. And it comes through loud and clear and it's wicked. And then you've got women out there that hate men. And it's wicked. Don't be a person who just hates humanity. Love people. Love people in general. Look at Hebrews 5 verse 1. Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. And then look at this next phrase. Who can have compassion on the ignorant? So God's plan in the Old Testament with the high priest because we're not talking about Jesus now, we're talking about the Old Testament high priest was that he would have compassion on the ignorant. Right? And now he's got, oh, you idiot, you're pathetic. Right? No. Have compassion on the ignorant. Bear with people. Condescend to men of no estate. People that aren't smart, judge back. Oh, you're dumb, what an idiot. You know, why not be nice to those people and help them understand? Or just realize that everybody's not an intellectual and that's OK because God made all kinds of people and everybody's not cut out to be an intellectual. Everybody's different. God has chosen the foolish things that this world confound the wise, by the way. There are a lot of intellectuals and pumped up minds that are not being greatly used by God at all. And then you've got all kinds of simple folks out doing the Lord's work. And who's going to be more greatly exalted in heaven? It's pretty obvious. The high priest was to have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way. You know, those that go astray, those that get away from the Lord. Why? For that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. He gets it because he's human, too. That's the idea behind the high priest. And by reason here of God, as for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins. You know, the high priest, he had to also make atonement for his own sins. He's helping atonement for other people's sins under the Old Testament sacrificial system, but then he also had to deal with his own sins because he's human, too. Now, of course, in the New Testament, our high priest is Jesus. He has no sins. But yet he is able to be moved with the feeling of our infirmities because he was tempted at all points, like as we are, yet without sin. Jesus Christ is, of course, superior to the Old Testament high priest. But the Old Testament high priest was a human being and he was supposed to have compassion on the ignorant. Guess what? So were we supposed to have compassion on the ignorant because we ourselves also are compassed with iniquity. And sure, we want to help other people get the sin out of their life, but we also have to get the sin out of our own life because all of us are human and none of us is perfect. So number one, love toward people in general. Number two, specifically, we need to have love for the lost when we're out solely. Love for the lost, out solely. Turn, if you would, to Mark chapter 10. While you turn to Mark chapter 10, I'm going to read for you a famous passage from the book of Jude. Hopefully you have a King James Bible because this verse is butchered beyond recognition in the modern versions. The modern versions aren't going to say anything even close to this. But of course, the King James Bible is the word God, that error. And so we know which one is right. Jude, verse 22 says, And of some have compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Notice that there is compassion for the lost in the same breath with hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. You see, real love isn't just an absence of any hate for anyone or anything in our lives. Every single person on this planet has love of some kind and has hate of some kind. These are just part of the human experience. These are just natural, normal emotions. And of course, the Lord himself is recorded as loving and hating. This is just what it means for us to be human. We have love and we have hate. We need to love the right things and hate the right things. And the Bible says here that we should have compassion on people and pull them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. In order to love the flowers, you have to hate the weeds. Obviously, there's a reason why I hate predators, child molester, human traffickers, right? And people will say, Oh, you know, pre-child love, Pastor Anderson, you're such a hateful guy. Well, of course, I hate predators who hurt innocent people because I love people. You know, I love people. And so evil people who hate God and hate everyone else and want to harm and defile, then obviously those people are anathemaied. But look at Mark Chapter 10 because we saw that we're going to have compassion when we're out witnessing and still winning the loss. Look at Mark Chapter 10 and we'll just kind of jump into the story for the sake of time, but this man comes to Christ and he wants to be saved. This guy's all mixed up and this guy thinks that he's super righteous because Christ just finished listing a bunch of commandments to him and telling him he has to keep the law and he comes back with this answer in verse 20. All these have I observed from my youth. So this guy thinks that he has kept all of God's commandments and that he's followed the law and that he is apparently without sin. And, of course, that's not true because nobody has followed God's law to a T. And if you've kept the whole law and you're offended at one point, you're guilty of all the Bible says. And so Jesus, what's Jesus' reaction to this arrogant, false, stupid, wicked statement just from some ignorant, lost guy who just doesn't really know what he's talking about? He says, Jesus, beholding and loved him. Right? I mean, look, even the foolish, the disobedient, the deceived, the ignorant, the one who you knock on your door and ask them, how do you know you're going to heaven? Oh, because I'm a good person. I mean, I was just soul winning on Wednesday, and the first thing this guy said, when we asked him how he knew he was going to heaven, oh, we're great people. And it's like, when people talk that way, you're almost embarrassed for them because it's so embarrassing. It's like, that's so embarrassing to just say that about yourself because it's so braggadocious or boastful. It's kind of like, wow, really? Did you just say that? That's a pretty ridiculous answer. But you know what? We go out there, and we get answers like that every time. Right? Oh, we're great people here. You know, I'm a really good person. I rescue animals. You know, whatever. And they give you these answers, but do you react like Christ reacted? Do you love them anyway? I mean, look, when I'm not soul winning, I want those people to get saved because I love those people. And specifically, each door that I'm at, right? I get to that door, and I'm at that door with that person, and I love that person. That's part of soul winning. If you're not feeling that way, you're not doing it right. And I'm not just saying in general, yeah, yeah, I love the laws. No, no, no, I'm talking about you're face to face with a real person, flesh and blood person, and you love that person. That's going to make you a better soul winner right there. And you say, well, how do I do that? Well, you can't fake it. It's got to be real. Love people. Jesus looked at him, and he loved it. Not because he was so smart or so spiritual or so righteous. I mean, hopefully this guy eventually got saved, but he definitely didn't get saved on this day. He goes away sorrowing, and he doesn't get it. He still thinks that salvation is by works. He's confused and whatever. But the point is that we need to love the lost. We need to love people, and not to just have disgust for people or just look down on people where we should actually care about and love people. You know, that's my question about people who have this kind of slam, bam, one, two, three, repeat after me, somebody where they're not really doing a good job of being thorough. You know, are you really caring about that person right there, or are you just trying to just, you know, get to the fast food place, or are you just trying to just wrap it up or just trying to just mark off another salvation and get to the next one and get to the next one because you're in some kind of a context or something, right? You know, each person is a real person that you should love and have compassion for and care about that person as you're talking to them, beholding them, love them. That's a big part of soul waiting. Care about people. Now look, I've seen people be too thorough about soul waiting where they're just beating a dead horse, and it's like, look, when somebody gets it, move on. If somebody gets point one, boom, let's go to point two. Let's go to point three. I'm not saying to just run it into the ground, beat a dead horse, but you know what? We need to just be as thorough as necessary, right? And that's gonna be different for everybody. You know, I've won a lot of people Lord in 10 minutes, and people say, oh, how can you do that in 10 minutes? Well, I don't watch my Bible Way to Heaven video. It's like seven and a half minutes long, and then tell me what I left out, right? And so if people are receptive, I can go through that with somebody in like 10 minutes The basic soul waiting demonstration video that we uploaded like 15 years ago to YouTube is nine minutes and 59 seconds long because that was YouTube's limit back then. They only allowed 10 minutes. So we were like, we gotta do this in 10 minutes. Tell me what I left out. I didn't leave anything out. And I've had a lot of conversations that went just like that conversation. So it can be done in 10 minutes, but you know, sometimes it's gonna be 15. Sometimes it's gonna be 20. Sometimes it could be 30, right? Because everybody's different, and people are gonna have different issues. People are gonna get it at different speeds and so forth. So I'm not saying to beat a dead horse, but I'm saying witness to that person like you actually care about that person because you do actually care about that person. Love them. Beholding him, he loved him. If you would, flip over to Matthew chapter nine. Matthew chapter nine. While you turn to Matthew nine in Mark chapter one, a leper comes to Jesus and says unto him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion. So this leper comes, falls at Jesus' feet, and says, Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean. I don't want to be a leper. You have the power to heal me right now. Please do this, right? What is Jesus' reaction to this? Well, if you're reading the NIV, Jesus got angry, which makes absolutely no sense. And he was moved with indignation. He said, I will, be thou clean. It doesn't make sense. If you're reading the King James, he's moved with compassion. He put forth his hand and touched him and said, I do want to, right? Because that's what I will means I want to. If you want to, you can make me clean. I do want to, be thou clean. Or if you're reading the NIV, it's, heh, wait. Love people. Jesus had compassion. He cared about this guy. He's not going through the motions. He had a human, real feeling of love and compassion for this leper. Look at Matthew chapter 9, verse 36, very famous verses. When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then said he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray he therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Hey, Christ wanted laborers out there in the harvest, winning souls, getting people saved because when he saw the people, he was moved with compassion. He was moved. He felt something, right? In his heart and in his bowels, he had love and compassion for the lost, and he wanted more people out there knocking doors, preaching the gospel to every creature, and we should feel the same way. And we should want to fulfill that wish of Christ himself, that more laborers would be sent into the harvest. Look over to John chapter 13. While you're turning there, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3 says this, but if our gospel be hid, it's hid from them that are lost. What's he saying? He's saying these are the stakes. If we don't preach the gospel, if we hide it under a bushel, it's hid from them that are lost. They're the ones who lose. They're the ones who get hurt. If our gospel be hidden, what about these lost people? What's going to happen to them? If our gospel be hid, it's hid from them that are lost. In whom the God of this world had blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine under them. So the Bible is saying that we should care about the fact that if we don't preach the gospel, unsaved people are going to hear the message. They're doomed. We've got to help them. We've got to save these people. We've got to have compassion and pull them out of the fire. We should love the lost. Number one, we need to have love for people in general. We need to just be a loving person. When we meet someone, we should automatically start out liking them and make them talk us out. But go into it with love for humanity in general. And not just loving people that are just like you. I'm saying loving people whether they're red, yellow, black, and white. Loving people whether they're rich or smart or dumb. We should just, oh, this person's not that smart. Spies them. No. Not everybody is super smart. Not everybody's super athletic. Somebody's a total spash. Love them anyway. Somebody's not athletic, love them. Not just like, oh, this guy doesn't even lift. What a joke from God. Love him. But look, there's people out there that maybe are awkward. They are not smart. Maybe they're not athletic. Maybe they're just a total idiot or whatever. But here's the thing. We should love people that are dealing with us. Even if they're someone that we normally in our flesh would tend to look down upon, that's a wicked attitude. Did you know what the Bible says? We should esteem others better than ourselves. Now look, I've heard people say this. Well, you know, I am better than these people. So if I think I'm better, this is true. I am better. I've had people say that. And here's the thing. Number one, that's not even necessarily true. But number two, even if that were true, the Bible commands you to esteem others better than yourself. Even if you are better than someone or think that you're better, you should never think that way. You're supposed to think of other people as better than you, whether that's reality or not. Esteem others better than yourself. That's what the Bible says. So don't go around thinking, well, you know, I'm just going to objectively rate everyone, and if I'm better, I'm better. Is that what the Bible says to do? Measure yourself against other people and see who's better and then look down on the people below you? No, the Bible says just go ahead and esteem others better than yourself. You should just have an attitude that's humble and putting other people in a higher place of esteem than you put yourself. Not bragging about yourself. You know, we laugh at that guy who says, oh, we're great people here. That's why we're going to heaven. You know, I'm a great person. And you say, wow, aren't you listening to yourself right now? But then it's easy for all of us as Christians to sometimes get an attitude that we're better than other people in some area or other. And we shouldn't have this attitude that thinks that we're better than other people. I am better, so it's okay. You know, this idiot, I saw somebody posted something on Facebook the other day about Andrew Tate's inflated ego or something. And somebody said, well, you know, whether you like Andrew Tate or not, his ego's not inflated because he is an MMA champion. And he is a multimillionaire. He has all these achievements or whatever. Now, let me say a few things about this. First of all, number one is that no one is allowed to have a big ego no matter what their achievements are. It doesn't matter what. I don't care if you climb Mount Everest on your hands and you're a self-made man and you're a multimillionaire and you won the Olympics and you've done all these things. So what? Be humble. Be me. Nobody gets to... And number two, Andrew Tate is a human piece of crap. Okay? That should be taken out like a dog and shot. Okay? There's that. And you know what's funny about that is that this guy is so prideful and arrogant and wicked. He's a God-hating reprobate. He's a literal pimp who destroys people's lives for a living. Oh, you know why he's a millionaire? Because he destroyed people's lives to become a millionaire. Because he is a literal pimp. Because he is a pornographer. Because he's a human trafficker. And you know what? I hate human traffickers because I love people. Because I love people. I love people. I don't want to see a bunch of teenagers abused and hooked on drugs and raped and pimped out and prostituted. It's so super evil. Yet we've got Christians today defending Andrew Tate. Right. And you know what? Any Christian who defends Andrew Tate needs to get right with God. Amen. Okay? Need to get right with God. Because you're wicked if you defend Andrew Tate. I don't care why you're defending him. I don't care what context you're defending him. If you defend him in any way, shape, or form, you're wicked. And if you listen to him, you're wicked. Okay? You are wicked. Any Andrew Tate fans out here? Alright, good. Just making sure. But I'm telling you. You've got Bible college students today with Andrew Tate as their home screen. Andrew Tate on the screensaver, right? Like he's some kind of a kid. He doesn't love people. He's arrogant, he's prideful, he cares about himself. And you know what? He's so much better because he's athletic, or he's rich, or whatever. But you know what? In God's eyes, he's literal trash, and he's heading for a trash can. That's right. Going to that great trash can on his health. And here's the thing. No one, no matter what their achievement, has the right to have that attitude that he has. Hateful toward women. Abusing women. Abducting women. Destroying women's lives. Who maybe isn't proven. Shut your stupid Andrew Tate loving mouth. Okay? Because his own mouth has condemned him. And I hope, and I know he's been arrested. And that he's going to be facing trial. I hope he faces the fate of Ceausescu. When it comes to Romania, I hope that they give him the Ceausescu treatment. Okay? Because that guy should be taken out of shot. He's evil, he's wicked, he's perverted. And so, well you know, he's got the right to brag because of his achievements. No, nobody has a right to brag. Nobody should be bragged. Ever. And when you see somebody being really prideful like him, or like Donald Trump is super prideful. That's a sign of a super wicked person. When you have people just brag about themselves and praising themselves. And so this attitude can infect Christians. Yeah. Today. This attitude of we're better than everybody else. And you know what? I've also seen of late infecting besides this Andrew Tate garbage and this Manosphere garbage, MGTOW garbage, womanating garbage. You know, another thing that I've seen infecting too is basically this white supremacist attitude that I've seen creeping into Christian circles. Because of course you've got the woke crowd and the critical race theory crowd, you know, going the other direction. So now you have a lot of Christians swinging the other way and start, you know, becoming all proud of being white or something. And you know what? You ask me, am I proud to be white? No, I'm not. Because God forbid that I should glory save at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? Shouldn't be proud that you're black, proud that you're white, proud to be a Latino, proud Asian. No, I'm a proud Christian. Because God forbid that I should glory save at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only thing that I want to be proud of or glory in or glorify is Christ. It's no glory being white or any other race. You know, don't buy into this stupidity. And just because the world goes all crazy with the critical race theory, you know, don't go the other way and start being racist and acting like, you know, there's something to that because there isn't, you know. And you say, well, you know, if you look at these test scores, you know, somebody posted something the other day and it was like, you know, showing the IQ of people in Japan and China or they were showing like Asians have a really high IQ or something and then other, you know, they're showing like these Asians are really smart and then this other race over here isn't this smart and blah, blah, blah. And they're like ranking all these people. But, you know, the Asians are loving this part of the story. But here's the thing about that though. Here's the thing about that. You know, God made us all different, right? So let's say there's certain people, even if we just totally took race out of the equation, even within a race, even within an ethnicity, even within a nation, you know what? There are going to be people that are smarter than other people. There are going to be people that are more athletic than other people. You know, we've all got our God given gifts and talents, right? I mean, some people are going to be more musical than other people, right? Some people are going to be better communicators than other people. Some people are a better artist than other people. And obviously a lot of that stuff is going to be just inborn, right? You know, we all just have different strengths and weaknesses, but sit there and say, oh, look, you know, I'm part of this race or I'm part of this group of people or whatever, or I'm in the Mensa club because I have this, you know, big giant IQ or whatever. It's like, well, la di da! Who cares? We are all nothing compared to God and yet He loves us anyway. You know, I'm glad God's not looking down at my IQ and just thinking that I'm a total idiot and treating me like I'm an idiot. You know, I wonder when I get to heaven if God's going to act like I'm stupid when I get there. It's like, oh, you're so stupid, human, you're pathetic, I know everything. Do you think that that's how God is going to treat us? Do you think that that's how Christ walked around on this earth? It's like, I'm the Son of God, everybody else is stupid. I'm sure Christ is way smarter than everybody else. But to sit there and say, well, you know, the facts are that, you know, I'm more athletic, I'm smarter, I'm more successful, I make more money. You know what? You're a fool to think that way. Because we're all nothing compared to the Lord and it's our identity in Christ that matters. And that's what we should glory in. And having this attitude of, well, I'm better because I make more money. Numbers don't lie. I make more money. I'm better because I have this high IQ or something. I'm better because I'm athletic. You know, I'm better because I'm musically talented or whatever. You know what? That's all meaningless. And it's the enemy of being a loving person when you're despising, looking down on other people, thinking that you're better than other people. You know, that's the opposite of loving people, right? Loving people is seeing the good in people and thinking about their good qualities instead of focusing on their bad attributes or weaknesses that they have, right? And we're supposed to love people in spite of their flaws. Because guess what? God loved us in spite of our flaws. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And, you know, scarcely for a righteous man would one die. Yet, perfect for a good man, some would even dare to die. But God commended his love toward us while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I mean, Christ accepted us just as we are as we sing the song, Just As I Am, without one click. And you know what the Bible says? As Christ perceived us, Romans chapter 15, we ought to receive one another the way that Christ perceived us. And so we've got to receive people in spite of their flaws and weaknesses. So number one, love toward people in general. Love people. Don't love yourself. And you know what? Now I'm hearing all this thing about self-love. As if it's a positive thing. But you know, the Bible says in the last days it was a bad thing that men would be lovers of their own selves. But now that's like a buzzword, like, oh, you've got to have self-love and everything. You know, how about Jesus, then others, then you? That's how you spell joy. That's how you love Jesus, you love others, you come last. We need to love other people, think about other people, and to esteem others better than ourselves. To love our neighbor as ourselves. So number one, love people in general. Number two, love people out-soul-biting. Because I'm telling you, if you go out-soul-biting and you don't love people, people can sense that. Even if it's on a self-conscious level. Because there are all kinds of things that science doesn't understand about just the different pheromones and signals and vibes that we're putting out. If you knock on somebody's door and you truly love that person when you talk to them, you know what? They're going to be able to sense that, whereas if you don't love them, they're going to be able to sense that too. You despise them or discuss with them. And you know, sometimes we can be so judgmental of people without knowing all the facts. You know, I've been out-soul-biting before and just had my soul-biting partner just swearing, oh, this is a lesbian, this is a sodomite. And you end up telling the person, and they're not. We don't want to just jump to these kind of conclusions about people without knowing all the facts. And I've said it over and over again, you know, if I'm 99% sure somebody's a sodomite, I'll give them the docile anyway for the 1% chance that they're not. Because 99% is not 100%. And I've been out-soul-biting before, knocked on the door, rainbow sticker on the car in the driveway, knocked on the door, lady comes to the door. Based on her appearance, she looked like a lesbian, right? But, you know, I'm not just going to jump to that conclusion. And she ended up not being a lesbian, she's married to a man, just a normal person. You know, a lot of people just have those stickers because they're just liberals and they're just brainwashed and hey, we need to support this and whatever. And she ended up getting saved! I won her a prize! Just the other day, also, another situation just like that, 99% that it was a lesbian ended up not being a lesbian. Gave the gospel. Didn't get saved, but hey. We don't want to just automatically just leap to conclusions, jumping to conclusions about people. When we're out-souling, we give people the benefit of the doubt, love people, have compassion, realize that people out there are affected by our culture in a bad way and they're victims in many ways of our culture. We need to pull them out of the fire, get them out of Satan's grip, right? And not just get so disillusioned and jaded where we go out-souling with this adversarial attitude like it's us against them. No, actually, we're their best friend and the devil's the enemy and that lost person, we're the best friend that they have, they just don't know it yet. And even if they're rude to us, it's sort of like when you are trying to rescue a drowning person, the drowning person will sometimes attack you. Isn't that the classic where somebody's trying to pull the drowning man out of the water and he's punching them and hitting them and drowning them? That's what's happening when you go to some door and somebody slams a door in your face. That's the drowning man punching you in the face, but you're still the lifeguard and you're still there to try to get him out of there. And if you can save him, save him. Do what you can. Love the loss, after the past we're lost. You know, I witnessed to a guy recently and this is what he said to me. I witnessed to a guy and this was not out door to door, this was just in my personal life. It's just a guy that I know and so I gave this guy the gospel and this is what he said to me. He said, you know, he said no one has ever talked to me about this before. This is an adult young man and he said, you know, I've never had someone share their faith with me personally. I've never had someone actually talk to me about this and actually explain this to me. What a tragedy. But you know, I wonder how many other people are out there that are the same way where nobody has ever taken him. And he said obviously I've heard about Jesus, but I've never had someone make it personal to me. And he thanked me, he didn't get saved right then and there, but he said that he enjoyed listening to the gospel and he was thinking about it. And it made an impact on him, but that just really moved me when he said, you know, nobody's ever explained this to me before. You know, I've never had someone talk to me about this. You know, I wonder how many people in our lives have never been approached with the gospel. Because here's the thing, yeah, growing up in America, you're going to hear about Christ, you're going to hear the gospel, you're going to hear Bible verses, nobody's without excuse, everybody's hearing about it, it's out there. But how much more powerful is it when it's one on one and it's coming from someone who really cares. Right, it's coming from someone who actually cares about you and they're talking to you personally. That's more powerful than just seeing something on TV, hearing something on the radio, seeing something on the internet. You know, how about this, we go out and knock on doors, you know what, every time we go soul winning, let's try to bring that personal vibe, even though we just met that person, let's try to bring the love, bring the compassion, because that's going to make a difference. But number three, the third point, is love for the brother. This is the one that's the most obvious. So we said love for people in general, loving humanity, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, and so should we love people, number one. Number two, specifically love the people that you're witnessing to when you're out soul winning. Love that lost person that you're witnessing to. And then number three is love for the brother. Look at John chapter 13 verse 34, I command when I give unto you that you love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have loved one another. You know, the church should be a place where we love each other. It should be a loving group of people, it should be like family, and in many ways, it even transcends family. You know, sometimes there's even a friend that sticks closer than a brother. And I know we apply that verse to Christ, and of course it does apply to Christ, but in its primary context in the book of Proverbs, it's just saying in general, there's a friend that's sticking closer than a brother. Like, we could have a friend in our lives that will stick closer than our brother. That's the way life works. Obviously it's also prophetic of Christ. He is the ultimate friend that's sticking closer than a brother. But whenever we see the Christological application, we don't want to lose the original meaning as well. We want to believe both, amen? And so, there are friends that stick closer than brothers as well. And sometimes our church family can be just as important as our flesh and blood family. And sometimes it can be even more important, depending on people's situation. Hopefully your family is also part of your Christian brotherhood as well, hopefully if they're saved. But sometimes when you have an unsaved family, people at church are a closer relationship than an unsaved family. And so, church needs to be a loving place, a place where we love one another. And that should manifest in how we act, how we care about other people, how we treat other people, how we feel about going to church. If it's like holy teeth to get you to go to church, that makes me wonder, do you love the people at church? Because if we love the people at church, we want to see them. I mean, we want to go to church and see our friends. We want to go to church and see our brothers and sisters in Christ. And say, well, you know, there's just not a lot of cool people at church. But you know, that's the exact attitude of preaching against this whole circuit. Oh, these people aren't smart enough, these people aren't athletic enough, these people aren't good looking enough. And then here's another one we haven't covered, these people aren't cool enough. Have not God chosen the uncool of this world? Cool in faith? Right? I mean, you know, the Bible says, of course, have not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith. But you know, God has chosen the uncool to confound the cool. That no coolness would glory in his presence. You know, being cool is overrated. It's something that only young people care about because they're immature. As you get older, as you grow up, you start realizing that coolness doesn't matter, character matters. Who you are on the inside, your actual qualities are what matter, not just being cool. And you know, oh, there's no cool people at church. Well, you know what? Then love the uncool. Love the dweeb. Love the nerd. Love people. Love the brotherhood. If you don't want to go to church, I question whether you love the people at church, because if you love the people at church, you want to go see the people that you love. Now look, I want to go to church to worship the Lord. I want to go to church because I love God, but I also want to go to church because I love the people at church, so I want to see my people. You know, when I'm on the road trip, I miss my people. And when I'm out on the road trip and I'm preaching at these other churches, and one of my church members has actually flown out to hear me preach in Sacramento or Texas or wherever, I'm always just so repressed to see one of my people, one of my friends, one of my church members. It's great to see people that I love. Part of going to church is because you get to be around people that you love. You get to be around your brother and sister in Christ. And instead of having this attitude of what's wrong, you know, yeah, we can find something wrong with everybody at church, right? If we just want to start crossing them off the list, we can find something wrong with everybody. You know, I'm going to get crossed off the list, you're going to get crossed off the list, you know, we've all got problems. But you know, I don't want to cross people off the list. I want to go to church and I want to love everybody at church. I want to love every single person that made the word about church. I want to walk in and just, I love this guy, I love him, I love her, I love these people, I love all these people. But what if some of them turn out to be Judas Iscariots? So what? That doesn't affect me. They're the ones going to hell if they're Judas Iscariot. That's not my problem. Ignorance is bliss, because everybody's innocent until proven guilty and I'm just going to love people, you know, and give people the benefit of the doubt. You know, if they turn out to be bad later, well, whatever, that's their problem. I'm not going to be like, let me, you know, oh, I wish I ended up loved them. It's really no harm, no foul if I love somebody who turned out to be a wicked person. You know, I'd rather accidentally love a wicked person who turned out to be some horrible Judas Iscariot than end up not loving the true people of God. Big deal, right? Because I love them in the integrity of my heart. I didn't know that they were an enemy of the gospel or enemy crept in unawares or something. So we need to love one another, meaning love our fellow church members, love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Look at chapter 15. They're there in chapter 13. Go to chapter 15. It says in verse 12, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Look at verse 17. These things I command you that you love one another. This doesn't seem optional. We're supposed to love one another. This is important. Go to Romans if you would. Romans chapter 12. The Bible says in 1 John chapter 3, this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 1 John 4.11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us love his spirit. Look at Romans 12.9. Let love be without dissimulation. What does dissimulation mean? It's when you're being fake. It's when you are conniving and you don't have real, true love, but you have ulterior motives or you're fake about your love. There's a lot of fake love out there in this world, isn't there? There's just a lot of people who claim to be so loving. There are a lot of churches that talk a lot about love. They talk about where it comes to love. But their actions show that they are hateful. It's funny, I get labeled by this world as a hate preacher. And of course, they call Christ Beelzebub and they're going to call us as his preachers. They're going to call us all kinds of names like that. So you know, I'm a hate preacher or whatever. And then they'll label some United Methodist guy or some Roman Catholic or Anglican guy. He's so loving. But I guarantee you that that guy is hateful. And these guys, most of the time false teachers, are reprobates, which means they even hate God. They hate the truth. They hate the gospel. That's why they preach lies. That's why they preach damnable heresy, because they hate the truth. Pastors who don't preach on sin, they don't preach doctrine, they don't preach the Bible, it's because they don't love their people. And they can get all gooey and draw little smiley faces and hearts on little notes that they send people and text all kinds of wonderful little loving emojis. But you know, at the end of the day, that's not really the proof that they really have love. And so we need to have love that's without dissimulation. And you know what? This has to be from the heart. And it's only something that you know about yourself. Hopefully you could look at my life and look at my actions and hopefully you would see that I love my church, that I love Christ, that I love my family. Hopefully you'd be able to see those things about me. You'd be able to see that I love my wife, that I love my parents. Hopefully if you know me and you've been around me, you'd know those things about me. Hey, this guy loves his children. This guy loves lost people. I've been soul-fitting with him and it really seemed like he loved lost people. But at the end of the day, you've got to look inside and see whether you really love people. And if not, you say, well, what do I do? How do I fix it? Well, you know, love's the fruit of the Spirit. You've got to walk in the Spirit. You've got to put on the new man. If you be filled with the Spirit, you should be abounding in love. I mean, let me put it this way. If you're not a loving person, you're not filled with the Spirit because that's the fruit of the Spirit. Number one is love. And so the Bible says here, let love be without assimilation, right? Not a fake love. A real heartfelt love. Abhor that which is evil. Because again, part of true, real love is hating that which is harmful, hating that which is destructive. Hating that which is wicked, right? Hating the pimps of this world because you love the human trafficking victims. It says, let love be without assimilation, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. And watch this, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love, right? Let it be like family, kindness, affection. What does affection mean? Think about the word affect, right? It means you're affected. It means people create an emotional response in you. You have affection for them. You're moved by them. Be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love. And I love this last part. In honor, preferring one another. Preferring one another. Right? What does this mean? Preferring one another. Again, this has to do with esteeming others better than yourself, putting other people first, preferring them over you, preferring them over other people even, and saying, you know, God's people are my people. You know what bothers me is when people have decided, oh church people. You know how church people are. And I'm thinking like, yeah, I know that church people aren't always what they're supposed to be, but you want to know what's even worse? Non-church people. Like, do you really think that non-church people are just so much better than church people? The problem is just people. We're all sinners. Nobody's perfect, right? Love people anyway. But this attitude, oh, non-church people. Guess what? It's not like we just go to the DMV and we just go to Walmart and we just go to the grocery store and everybody's just so wonderful everywhere. You know, it's just people, my friend. God's people should be our favorite people. We should love everybody. We should love the world. We should love, and I mean the people, not obviously the things that are in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life. But we should love man, and we should love the lost out of somebody, but man, we should really love God's people. Brothers and sisters in Christ, I mean that's our closest circle. And so it says, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love in honor, preferring one another. And so I've got other scriptures here, but I'm just going to wrap up with that and just close by saying, you know, love is going to keep us humble. Right? So we don't get prideful. We need to love people of other races. We need to love people of a lower economic status. We need to love people regardless of athletic ability, intelligence, good looks, coolness, artistic ability, musical talent. You know, let's love people. Let's stay humble and realize, you know, we're not that great. You know, I saw a sticker, and you've probably seen this sticker before, it said, people suck. You know, that's not the right attitude for us to go through as Christians, to go through life like that. I mean, don't go through life like that. And you know what? Let's face it. If your life's been anything like mine, this life is going to kind of chew you up and spit you out. Life's going to do a number on you, kids. I mean, look, those of us that have been around for a while, we've been through some stuff. Right? Amen? We've been through some gnarly things in your life, right? Yeah, you don't have to raise your hand because I know these. Hey, life is going to do a number on you. But you know what? I don't care what life does to me. I don't care how many people stab me back. I don't care how many bad experiences I have with people. I don't care how many times I get burned. I don't care how many times I get ripped off. I don't care how many times I get robbed. How many times people mistreat me. I'm never going to be a people-suck kind of guy. You know, I want to go through life loving people. And I hope that when I'm 80, 90, 100, if God would bless me and allow me to live that long, I hope that if God bless me, I live to be 100, I know that between now and 100, I'm probably going to get jerked around by so many more people. You know what I mean? I'm probably going to get mistreated by so many more people. I'm probably going to have so many more bad things happen to me and go through so many more nightmarish episodes of my life. But you know, I hope I still get to the end and say, you know what, I love people. I love people. I love the lost. And realize, you know, yeah, yeah, people, you know, maybe people suck, I suck. You know, we're all unrighteous. We've all got problems. Love will keep us household. We actually care about getting people's aid. Love will help keep the church united. And we need unity in our local churches. And while we're talking about loving the brethren, it's about loving your pastor. Your pastor is human. He's your friend. He loves you. Love him back. Love one another. Love will help us keep the sin out of our lives. Because love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And love will help us to be patient with other people. And to realize that everybody's got problems, we've got problems, but you know what, let's just love people. If God in heaven, who is so much greater than all of us, so far beyond us all, in every area, can love me and love you with all the bad things about us, we should be able to love one another. Like, think about how many steps down he's going to condescend to us, right? For God to relate to me, I believe that when I get to heaven and when I'm face to face with Jesus Christ, I believe that he is going to treat me actually kindly and affectionately and with respect. You know, in fact, I read in the Bible that Christ is going to gird himself and serve us when we get to heaven. You know, Christ is going to be saying, well done, thou good and faithful servant, to some people that are a lot lamer than he is. Because, you know, if I get to heaven and God says to me, well done, thou good and faithful servant, it's like, wow, that's kind of a joke, in a sense, because man, I'm nothing. You know, coming from you, Christ, you know, you're saying that to me, you're telling me that I did a good job? What? Right? But guess what? If God can treat us that way, do you think maybe you could treat the person that you think is not as smart or not as wealthy or not as cool or whatever, do you think you could treat them well? Do you think you Asians could treat the rest of them? Remember when I was smart as you? Hey, walk in the Spirit and be a loving person. Love people, as far as I'm aware.