(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. All right, it's good to be back here in Phoenix. I appreciate, well Tempe, right? Appreciate the opportunity to come and preach here again at Faith Forward Baptist Church. Thank you, Pastor Anderson. This evening, I know normally you'd be doing a Bible study, but I'm gonna just preach a pretty simple sermon. It's not very deep theologically or anything. It should be things that we all already know as Christians, some real basic fundamentals, but what I'm hoping is that you could walk away this evening with just some real basic principles to help guide you in life, just in general, and everything, all the decisions that we make just on a day-to-day basis, how we live our life, every decision we do should be based off of principles that we get from the Word of God. We should have priorities in our life, and we make decisions based on that, especially major decisions, but even the small decisions, we need to make sure that we're living on a day-to-day, being guided by the truth, being guided by God, and being guided by our love for other people, and those are the three guiding principles that I'm gonna teach on this evening. Look down there in Matthew 22, where we read the whole chapter. Near the end there, in verse number 36, Jesus is confronted here with this question, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets, and this is a great summary of a lot of the Bible. It says all the law and the prophets hang on these two major commandments, these two principles of loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, body, strength, all of your being, loving God, that's gonna encompass all the commandments that talk about worshiping the Lord, and even just within the 10 commandments, you should have no other gods before him, not to make any idols, remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, these are all commandments revolving our love of God. And then the second, being love thy neighbor as thyself, is not to kill, not to steal, everything that would be against your fellow man, your fellow, your neighbor, these two commandments should guide everything that we do that kinda hangs, the law and the prophets hang on those two commandments. Now turn if you would to 1 John chapter five. We're going through three principles tonight, so the first one is loving God, but I'm gonna spend more time on the other two principles. I can't preach this sermon without teaching on loving God, it's just, it's a great commandment, there's no glossing or skipping over it because it is so important, but the other two are really tied in with loving God also as well, and I wanna hopefully just be real practical on how we can achieve this, when we hold to these values, it really ought to guide us from day to day. 1 John chapter five, the Bible says there in verse number two, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. So obviously if we're going to love God, if that is gonna be a guiding principle of ours, then we're gonna have to get in the word of God and know what his commandments are so that we could follow them and keep them. The love of God is not something that's just a feeling that you have in your heart, you know, you could talk to many people today and just your average person on the street, if you just ask them the real basic question, you know, do you love God? I'm sure many people would say, yeah, of course I love God, and they wouldn't be being deceptive, it's what they would genuinely think or feel, but when we look to the Bible and see, well, what does that even mean? You know, what does it mean to love God? How does that play out? Well, how could you say you love someone if you don't regard anything that they say? Right, how can I say I love anyone, love anyone in my family, love any of my friends, and I just really don't have any regard to anything they say, I can just go on living my life and say, oh yeah, I love you, but then I don't do anything for you, I don't spend time with you, I don't listen to you, but that's how many people are with God, right? I mean, how much time are you spending listening to the Lord through his word? How much time are you taking heed to what he said by actually not just listening to him, not just reading, but putting it into practice, looking at the law and going, you know, wait, I need to change some things in my life, I need to get some things in order here and show God that I do respect what he says, I do care about how I live, I do wanna hold standards in my life that are gonna be in line with the word of God. These are all things that, you know, when it comes to loving God, we need to pay attention, it's just like the Bible said there, I always read that, this is the love of God, we keep his commandments, and look, his commandments aren't grievous, they're not to our detriment, they're for our benefit, they're there for us, God knows us, God loves us, and the great immense love that God has for us, he put these commandments in place because he knows what's good for us, he knows what's best for us, just as much as parents know what's better for their children than the children know for themselves, the Heavenly Father knows what's best for his spiritual children, for us adopted children here on this earth than we know for ourselves, and he put these rules, these commandments in place to safeguard us, honestly, you wanna have a life full of joy and peace and all of the good things that everybody seeks in life, you know, look to the word of God and take his word seriously because God wants you to have that, he wants you to have a great life here, he wants you to be very fulfilled, he wants you to have a life full of love, God's not some mean God that's just, you know, every misstep, you're just gonna be, you know, thrown into hell or something, that's not who God is, of course, God made rules and commandments and laws that once we break those, we're guilty, we're transgressors of the law, but he provides the forgiveness through Christ at the same time, and that love and that forgiveness that he offers to us is, shows, you know, God's love is commended through, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It's exalted, his love is lifted up in that regard. Turn, if you would, to John chapter four. So loving God should be a guiding principle in your life, it's something that we oughta have just at the forefront and think about every day, you know, am I doing anything that would show my love for God in what I do, or what's your schedule like? Think about what you've done this week so far, right? Here you are in church, so hey, amen. You say, I love God, I'm here at church, I wanna hear the word of God preached, I wanna improve my life, but you know, how has your day been, how's your week been? What else are you doing? Can you look at your life and say, yeah, you know, I am doing things that, I am listening to God, I am praying to God, I'm speaking to God, I'm seeking the Lord with my heart, and I love the things of God, and amen, right? That's what we should be doing. John chapter four, look at verse number 21. The Bible reads, Jesus saith unto her, woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship, ye know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So in order to love God, obviously we wanna worship Him, and the Bible says that we need to worship Him in spirit and in truth, and that's gonna lead us to our next, my next principle here is the love of the truth. Obviously we love God, and like I said, I'm not gonna spend too much time on that one point, that could be an entire sermon in and of itself, but loving God is gonna be done through the truth, and we should have a love for the truth. And hopefully that's what even brought you to Christ, that's probably what brought you to this church, is that you love the truth, you wanna know what's right. And thank God, God is a God of the truth. Turn if you would to John chapter 18. And this is a really important principle as believers that we ought to exalt is the exaltation of the truth. Cause there's nothing, there's nothing contrary, the truth is never contrary to God, to the Bible, to anything good. And here's how you're gonna know the truth is when you know the word of God, and if you hear anything that's contradictory to what we know and hold, and understand perfectly is true in the holy word, then anything else you could compare against that, and if it's contradictory, then we know it's not true. There's a lot of people who have a claim on the truth today, and there's a lot of people who want to make you think that, oh, this is true or that's true, but you know, we shouldn't be scared of challenges to what we believe, shouldn't be scared to challenge your faith, to challenge why you believe what you believe, if you love the truth. The truth fears no investigation, right? We ought to be able to always be willing to challenge and look at and determine what's true because God is the author of truth. God is truth. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the truth. He embodies the truth. John 18, look at verse number 37, the Bible says, Pilate therefore said unto him, art thou a king then? Jesus answered, thou sayest that I am a king, to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. So Jesus is like, look, this is why I came in this world, to bear witness of the truth. That's a pretty important thing if you're saying, this is why I came in this world, hey, I'm gonna bear witness of the truth. It's a very fundamental foundational principle that we ought to have is that seek of the truth, what's right, what's true. Earlier in that passage, if you remember, Jesus, excuse me, Peter denied Jesus three times and he kind of abandoned the truth in that regard. And this is what I want you to be thinking about too as we go through these various passages is what does it even mean to love the truth? Well, you're gonna seek the truth, you're gonna want to know the truth, but then we're gonna also live according to the truth. So your action should be determined by what you hold to be true. Peter held to be true that Jesus was the Christ, but then he failed in this one moment in his life to act on that. And we need to keep these principles guiding us knowing that hey, this is what's important in life. And you may have to make decisions in your life and I'll tell you what, one of the reasons this comes to mind is I've been trying to teach my children and something I wanna get across very well, very importantly is what are our priorities in this life? What do we actually care about? What is it that matters? Right, does money matter? Does your pleasure and vacationing and where does all that fall, where does all that land? And the best time to teach these things are when you have to make sacrifices or when you have to do things, you have to act on things that matter. You know, what matters in this world is people. What matters in this world is God. And what matters in this world is the truth. What's right? What's true? And we need to use these foundational principles to guide us in every decision that we make. As I mentioned, you know, we're out here not because this was some planned vacation but because we have family that's not doing well and just decided, you know what, it's important that we can be here for our family and to support people that we love because people matter. You know, the money that it takes to do something like that or whatever, hey, you can make up money some other time, you can deal with it, work around it one way or another, you can deal with lost vacation, you can deal with all this other stuff that's really not that big of a deal but when it comes to what's gonna motivate you, what's gonna drive you, what's gonna guide you, how do we live our life, what decisions do we make, it oughta be based on these things like loving God, loving the truth and loving people. John chapter eight, the Bible reads this in verse number 28, then said Jesus unto them, when ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself but as my father hath taught me, I speak these things and he that sent me is with me. The father hath not left me alone for I do always those things that please him. As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, we be Abraham's seed and we're never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin. So remember, these are all tied together, loving God. Well, if you love God, you're gonna keep his commandments. Well, Jesus said that if you continue in his word, then you're gonna be his disciples and you're gonna know the truth and the truth's gonna make you free. And he said, what do you mean made free? Like we're not slaves, we're not in bondage to anyone. And Jesus says, well, no, you are. When you commit sin, you're the servant of sin. You're in bondage to sin. So part of keeping God's commandments is gonna keep you out of sin. And knowing the truth, it actually liberates you. It makes you free. And not just knowing the truth, but then acting on that truth, right? Acting appropriately, not just having this head knowledge and going, yeah, I'm just gonna put that to the side. You gotta put that into practice. You gotta know, now that I know the truth, well, I'm gonna avoid the pitfalls of sin. I'm gonna avoid the wrong way, every false way. The Bible says, you're in John chapter eight. You can flip over to John chapter 17. Verse number 17, the Bible reads, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. This ties so closely with what we just read in John chapter eight. Sanctify them, what does that mean? Set apart. Become more holy, right? Be sanctified through thy truth. Well, how are we gonna get that? Through God's word, thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. One chapter earlier, verse number 13, John 16, 13, the Bible says this, howbeit when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whosoever he shall hear, that whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. So what do we know? Jesus is the truth. We need to follow Christ. God's word is truth, and the Holy Spirit's gonna guide us into all truth. Now, part of loving the truth means you're gonna have to hate every lie, every false way. Otherwise, how can you say, it's just like loving God. You wanna love God, you gotta hate the false gods. You gotta hate the idols. Hate the things that lead people away from God. If we love the truth, we're gonna hate every false way. And we don't give place and just pretend like, well, everything's okay and everyone's fine. When it comes to the lies and the false way, especially the really damaging lies that would go specifically against salvation, those are the worst lies ever. That's why you never say, how many times do you go out and you preach a gospel to people, you're like, oh, I respect what you say, I respect all religions. Well, you know what, I don't respect all religions. I don't respect all the false prophets. I don't respect the Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't respect the people that are out there preaching a false gospel. No respect for them. They're damning people to hell. They're lost, they're deceived, they're deceivers, and they're leading people astray. And I love the truth. The Bible says in Psalm 119, verse 126, it is time for thee, Lord, to work, for they have made void thy law. And God's law is continually being made void in this world. People are always fighting against God's law. No one wants to talk about the Bible. No one wants to talk about the Old Testament, especially. No one wants to talk about the Word of God out in the world. They're always trying to make void God's law. There's abortion bans going on right now in this state. They're trying to make void the law against murder. Well, it's time for thee, Lord, to work. God, you need to come and work. They made void thy law, verse 127. Therefore, I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. Therefore, I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right. Hey, your way is right, God. I'm gonna esteem your precepts, your laws, your governance, your word concerning all things to be right. That's where the truth lies. It's in the word of God. It's in his laws. It's in his commandments. It's in his precepts. And then the Bible says this at the end of verse 128, and I hate every false way. I hate every false way. I love God's word. I love his precepts. I love his commandments, and I hate every false way. And it always boggles my mind, you know, the people who have the itching ears that just want to be told that everything's good and everything's fine and everything's right. It's so hollow, it's shallow, it's empty. If it's a wrong way, if it's just a pat on the back saying, hey, everything's good, hell's not that hot, you know, your sin's not that bad, why would you want to have anyone lie to you? I mean, really, about anything. It's empty. It's meaningless. Lies have no value. Lies have no substance. It's just smoke and mirrors. Behind it, there's nothing. The truth has substance. The truth is real. It's always kind of boggled my mind that there are people that just don't have any interest in knowing the truth and would rather just be lied to. That's what turned me on the most about coming and attending Faith Ward Baptist Church all the way back in 2006 when I first started coming to this church was just, hey, there's someone who's just willing to open up the Bible and preach what it says. And not worry about, oh, am I gonna offend this person or that person? Is this person gonna leave? And look, this is important because back in those days, there weren't very many people there. Seriously. And I know what that's like too. You start a church in your house and you don't have very many people, the temptation might be there to hold back, to not say things that might offend somebody. You know, you got a sermon all prepared on 1 Corinthians 11 and some dude in super long hair walks in. What are you gonna do? Well, I'll tell you what you're gonna do. You're gonna preach the Bible. You're gonna preach the word of God because if it's true, it's true. And people need the truth. They don't need lies. No one needs someone just telling you everything's okay or sugar coated or tone it down for you. The word of God is truth and it is what it is and say, there you go. You can take it or leave it, but it's God's word. And the person that loves you is gonna be the one that tells you the truth. You're not gonna hide things from you. You're not gonna hold it back. I don't know how many, I mean, I've had people come in and ask questions before like, oh, we wanna get married and this and that and people were seeing each other and it's like, well, look, have you been married before? You're divorced. Well, look, this is what the Bible says about that. I'm not gonna lie to them. I'm not gonna try to string them along and get them to come to church a little bit longer before I show them what the Bible actually says. No, you gotta tell people the truth right away. But this is what I'm talking about. This is where you decide, is this important to me? Is the truth important to me? If it's important, then you're not gonna hold it back. Is loving God important? Then you've gotta serve him. You gotta obey him. Hopefully you come to church because you love the truth. Bible says in First Timothy chapter three verse 15, but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is a church of the living God, which is where we're at right now, by the way. The church of the living God right now, this assembly, this gathering together of like-minded believers is the church of the living God, which is, by the way, the pillar and ground of the truth. Of the truth. Pillar and ground of the truth. Church of the living God. That's why we're here. We love the truth. We wanna hear this. We wanna hear God's word. We wanna hear his precepts. We want this to guide us. This is the light that's gonna shine our path. This is what's gonna guide us. This is what's gonna keep us from stumbling. This is what's gonna make us successful in this life. And you know what? You come to church, hopefully to hear that. Now, that's not the only reason we come to church. It's a big reason you come to church. But Hebrews chapter 10 gives us another reason because leading into my third point here, loving other people. Hebrews 10, 24, the Bible reads, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Hey, church is important. Yes, you need to hear the truth. Yes, we need the guiding principles. Yes, we need to know what the word of God says to guide us and lead us. But you know what? We also need encouragement. We also need to edify one another. We're in a crooked and perverse nation. It's dark out there. There's people lying all the time. We need to be there to support one another. And I hope, I hope you don't just come into church like one minute before it starts or one minute after it starts and then leaves like one minute before it's over. You're missing an important part of church. Why do we not forsake the assembling of ourselves together according to Hebrews chapter 10? Because we need to consider one another. We need to be thoughtful of one another. You need to get to know one another. How can you be considerate and be thinking about other people when you don't even know them? Be considerate of others and to provoke unto love. What are you doing? You're provoking people, you're provoking them not to get in a fight. You're provoking them unto love, unto good works. Hey brother, you wanna go out soul winning next week? Let's partner up. Getting to know what's going on in people's lives. Making that connection and being there for people. Look, that matters a lot. You could look at it as part of discipleship or just loving your friend, loving your brother or sister in Christ. Bible says this in Romans 13, turn if you would to 1 Thessalonians chapter two. In Romans 13 verse number eight, the Bible reads, Owe no man anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. This goes back to the two great commandments. For this thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. You know, we make decisions. Is this, is what I'm gonna do actually gonna harm people? Well, that's probably not very loving. I mean, it's simple, right? It's so simple. But we need to hold these truths dear so that it guides what we do. And that hopefully you don't even have to think about it. You need to take these truths and make them part of who you are, part of your character. That's what I love in the book of Acts, the Bible talks about the apostle Paul when he's waiting for his friends to show up. And it says, and Paul, as his manner was, you know, he's stirred up in the spirit. He sees people given to idolatry and it's just, hey, as his manner was, he's gotta go tell him the truth. He's gotta preach the gospel. He's gotta preach these. He can't just sit by. He's like, well, I'm waiting for other people to show up and he can't just sit there and wait and do nothing. He has to start preaching. That's just, it's just something that he's embodied that's part of who he is. And we need to add to who we are a love of God. That it's something that we don't have to consciously think every day going like, well, wait, how am I gonna love God today? You decided already, hopefully a long time ago, this is important, I'm gonna love God and I'm gonna do things to make sure that God knows that I love him and I do love him. It's not just a show. It's in my heart. I wanna get closer to God so I'm gonna hear what he has to say for me. I'm gonna pay attention to those things. I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna read my Bible. I'm gonna get in church. I'm gonna do the things that God is telling me from what I understand, what God's telling me, what I need to do in the Bible. Not only that, I'm gonna seek the truth. The truth is of God. I'm gonna wanna know the truth. I wanna know what's right. I wanna be wise. I wanna, you know, the Bible says that wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom with all that getting, get understanding, right? Like it's important. God doesn't want us to be dummies. He doesn't. Let's get some education, but let's get real education just in the truth, things that are true, things that are right. But loving others. We can get real holy and set apart and read our Bible and pray and get some great understanding and understand great mysteries and great knowledge. And we could understand all kinds of things about the truth. We could go on YouTube and search every single conspiracy theory and find every rabbit trail and get every piece of truth on the internet under the sun. But it's all gonna be for nothing if you don't love your neighbor, if you don't take what you have and actually apply it towards other people. That's what 1 Corinthians 13 is about, that charity. Though I have all faith and I understand all mysteries and I have all knowledge and I speak with other tongues, what is it profit? What's it good for if you're not actually using it to help other people out? We live in a world, we're full of people. And obviously the number one most important thing we can do is tell other people the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians chapter two. 1 Thessalonians two and Philippians chapter two are two of my absolute favorite passages about this subject. I love these passages. I hope you do too and you see the spirit behind what's being taught here and allow this to take hold in your heart and really get into what the Bible's teaching here, what the author is saying, what the Holy Ghost is saying here through these passages about the dedication and the love of ministry and serving others, that heart and mind to serve, to be there for other people. I mean, if we're gonna have any guiding principles or any guide at all, Jesus Christ is our example. He's our guide. He's who we follow. We call ourselves Christians. We're supposed to be following Christ, right? Well, what did Christ do on this earth? What did he do? He served. He didn't come to be served. He didn't come to be ministered unto. He came to minister. He served others. He bare the burdens for other people. He gave of himself. He made the sacrifice. So if we're gonna follow him, we need to have that same mindset, the same drive to care. Look, it's about people. It's why we're here. But we need to do it the right way, according to truth. We need to do it for the right reasons, to have a love of God. 1 Thessalonians 2, look at verse number four, the Bible says, but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak. How much do you even value the fact that God has entrusted you with his gospel? He's entrusted you with that truth. Paul's recognizing this here. Look, this is a big deal. God allowed us. He put this in our trust. He says, hey, this is your job. You have to go forth and do this. Wow. You've allowed us to be put in trust with the gospel. Hey, even so we speak. Not as pleasing men, but God which trieth our hearts. You're not a man pleaser. You're not just going out to tickle your ears and just tell how everything's gonna be okay for everybody, because it's not gonna be okay for everybody. We're gonna go forth and preach the truth. We're gonna preach the truth in love, but we're gonna preach the truth. We're not gonna hold back. We're not gonna censor the word of God. Verse five, for neither at any time used we flattering words. We're not gonna go around and tell everyone out, what is flattery, too, by the way? It's not just politeness. You're going a little overboard, right? You're kinda, you use, no, I'll pass on that. I was thinking about, I was teaching my kids some stuff, but we're not gonna go there. Right? Flattering words. What are you doing? You're going overboard, right? You're kinda bowing down to people or whatever, and look, we don't need to do that. We're bringing the truth. When you bring the gospel, you bring the truth. And this is part of, you know, we don't have to go around telling everyone how much you respect everything that they do and tell the Jews how much you respect the Old Testament and everything. Look, just preach the truth. Neither at any time usually flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness God has witnessed, nor of men sought we glory. Now look, this is important. This is preaching truth and doing right for the right reasons. You're not seeking the glory. You don't wanna get the, you know, well, I just wanna have the viral video on YouTube so everyone knows who I am. Who cares? Now look, the viral video that gets the truth out there, amen, that's good. We wanna get the truth out. We wanna broadcast the Bible, broadcast the word of God, broadcast the truth as much as we can, but not for the fame, not for the glory, not so everyone can look to you. It's so that the word of God can be preached. Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you nor yet of others. When we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, look at, and I love this verse so much, being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. Pretty powerful. Now look, going out and preaching the gospel is already a sacrifice. Going out and traveling, which you all do here, this is awesome. You go out to the small towns, you go out to other states, you go out to other parts of the world, and you're preaching the gospel, and you already have a sacrifice there. This is even another step further. You're saying, you know what, though? When we went out there, it wasn't even just trying to impart the gospel of God, but I mean, we're willing to give our own souls unto you. That's how bad he wants them to succeed. It's that heart of service of ministry and say, look, we really care about you. Yes, we want you to get saved, but not only do we want you to get saved, I want you to grow, I want you to learn, I want you to be discipled, I want you to become awesome servants to Christ also. And whatever that takes, we'll sacrifice, we'll give, we'll take of our time, we'll take of our resources, we'll take of our energy and our strength and our might and give that to make you succeed. It's not just the gospel of God, but also our own souls. You're dear unto us. Verse nine, for ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preach unto you the gospel of God. You say, we didn't want to be a burden unto you at all. So when they could have come and said, hey, you need to take care of us, and it would have been right to do so, there's nothing wrong with that, and preaching the gospel and saying, look, those that preach of the gospel, you can live of the gospel. But instead he's saying, you know what though? We didn't want to put you out at all. So what did we do? We just labored night and day. We just worked really, really hard because we care about you, we didn't want anyone to be charged with the preaching of the gospel unto you. Ye are witnesses in God also how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe, as ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory, for this cause also, thank we God without ceasing. Because when ye receive the word of God, which he heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. And you notice how these things are just so intertwined. You're loving people and what are you bringing them? The truth, the word of God. Because you love people and because you love God, because God is the one who entrusted us with the truth to go out and preach to people. Philippians chapter two. Philippians chapter two, I brought up earlier, you know, Christ is our example. Well, Philippians chapter two references the mind of Christ. Look at verse number one. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. That's the humility. Where you're esteeming other people better than you. It's not where you just think you're a total piece of trash or something. It's where you just think other people are more important. You know, when you're willing to give of your own soul, you're gonna see other people as being very important. And practically speaking, that's not always easy to do. Getting the principles is easy. We can see this all day and all night in the Bible over and over and over again, this being taught. But when you put it into practice, what does that mean? Well, the world's full of sinful people. World's full of people who you may not like very much or may do you wrong or may offend you or may say things you don't like. Well, does this say to only go forth to those that are good to you, to those that love you, go serve those that serve you? Cause I don't remember reading that anywhere in the scripture. But God commended his love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's the attitude that Christ had. Even while we sin against him, directly against Christ, he still gave himself as a sacrifice for us. That's overcoming evil with good. So when we put this into practice, what it actually is gonna look like is you can't have any pride. If you're gonna go forth and preach the truth to people and love people and love God, be ready to eat crow, be ready to just go forward and not worry about what people are saying about you or even if you like the person that you're talking to, that you're trying to help. But you have to care enough about them to try to help them. And you know what, this is important in church too. I mean, I have no idea what's going on here, but I've been in churches long enough now, both pastoring and just being a member of churches to know that there's always conflict, there's always gonna be some people that don't like other people and everything else. Hey, you gotta be able to get over that. You know, the church is supposed to be having a unity of at least doing this work together, right? You're called as a body of Christ. Hey, if one member suffers, all the members should suffer with it. And one member rejoices, all the members rejoice as well. You don't have to be the absolute best friends with everyone here, but you know, you oughta care about each other. Every brother and sister in Christ, you oughta care about them, love them, and be willing to do things for them. And you know, when the meal train comes along, whatever, they'll be like, I don't like that person very much, so I'm not gonna do anything for them. Well, you know, shame on you. That's not very Christ-like. And think about, I know it may be a silly example, but think about that. This is what I mean about putting these principles into practice and just being willing to just say, hey, what if God treated you that way? And all of your infractions are like, well, you know what, I wanna help you now. And you know what, God does see how you treat other people. And He will deal with you the way that you deal with others. Keep that in mind too. Verse three, again, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. So you know, we ought to be looking to ourselves and looking to support our families and be independent and be able to do our own work, but He says, but every man also on the things of others. It's not just enough that, well, I've got my salvation, I've got my Bible, I got all this stuff over to myself, and I'm just gonna go live over here and be a hermit somewhere and not talk to anyone ever. That's not good enough. You need to also be concerned about the things of others. Verse five, look at this, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. This mind, this esteeming others better than themselves, this mind was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Christ is the example, and if you actually just ponder on this for a minute and think about God Almighty, God who made heaven and earth, God who has our breath in His hand, came down as a human being, as His own creation, embodied, took on flesh and blood. How far are we below God? Jesus came to this earth and took on the form of a man. And not just that, He humbled Himself. He became a servant. He served His own creation. And when you're struggling of whether or not I don't know if I can do good for this person, I don't know if I can humble myself enough to help that person because they said this or they posted this on Facebook or whatever, what did Christ do? He humbled Himself, and not only did He humbled Himself unto death, it was even the death of the cross, which was a cursed death. He was mocked and ridiculed and shamed while He was dying for the very people that were doing those things to Him. And if anyone ever had the right to be able to just say, no, I'm not doing that, of course Christ would have had that right to do that. But He didn't. Thank God for us, for all of humanity. And if He could do that for us, what should we be doing for others? Last place we're gonna look, 1 John chapter three. 1 John chapter three, we're gonna tie this all together with three guiding principles in our life. Love God. We love God when we keep His commandments. We love God when we listen to God. We love God when we pray to God. Having that focus on serving God. Loving the truth. We care, the truth matters. Doctrine matters, right? The gospel matters. We're not gonna muddy the gospel. We're not gonna play around with that. Make it real clear, and what matters? Loving your neighbor as yourself. That matters. 1 John three, verse number 16, the Bible says, hereby perceive we, what? The love of God. Because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for who? The brethren. God loved us. Well, we should love God, and in so doing, we're gonna lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world good, and seeth his brother of need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? This is a love that's in deed, that's not just in word. It's actionable, it's what you do. It's not just up here, it's not just, oh, yeah, amen, I heard that in church the other day, and you just go out and don't live it. Hey, here's someone that's got this world good. God's blessed them, they've got stuff. They've got wealth. And here's a brother that's in need. They're in legitimate need. And he's just like, nope, I'm not gonna help him. Well, I love you, brother. Verse 18, my little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed, and in what? In truth. In truth, truth matters. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. The love of God, the love of the truth, the love of your neighbor, let these be motivations, be guiding principles in your life. When you make the decision, when you decide, hey, am I gonna do this, am I gonna do that? Should I make this sacrifice? Well, does it line up with this? Yes, if it does, then do it. And if it doesn't, maybe you need to reconsider. Let's bow our heads, have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for loving us. We thank you for the humble, the humility that you showed when you died on the cross, and took our sins, and the love that you gave us. Dear Lord, I pray that you please help us to overcome our own flesh, to overcome our own weaknesses, to overcome our own pride, and be able to impart not only the gospel of God unto others, but also our own souls, as we saw that was done for the Thessalonians. Dear Lord, I pray that you would help us to have that same heart and that mindset. Dear Lord, I pray to please bless this church and help it to grow and thrive and continue to reach this lost world and continue to just sound forth the truth unashamedly and very clearly, dear Lord, because it's something that's valued here. God, we love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.