Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest
questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search
and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead
pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth
for the life we're searching for. Please take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter
22 today as we continue our message series called Out of the Shadow. Today we're going
to talk about loving others well. Loving others well. This is really a relationship series
where we're talking about what it means to get out of the shallow end of relationships
and get into the deep end of relationships and love others well. I think that we would
all agree this is an incredibly important type of a message, an incredibly important
time for us to mirror what the world ought to see about relationships. In Matthew chapter
22, let's stand together. I'm going to read several verses beginning in verse 35. The
text we actually began last week, this is part two of what I started last week, where
Jesus is giving us what we know as the great commandment. Now you know the background behind
this, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are trying to trip Jesus up as it pertains to
the commandments. If they can get Jesus to say one commandment is more important than
another, they can falsely accuse him of not being the Messiah, not being truly sent from
God. So they send this lawyer to try to trip him up. In verse 35 we pick it up. One of
them, a lawyer, asks him a question, testing him. Teacher, which is the great commandment
in the law? And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment.
The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments
depend the whole law and the prophets. Jesus gives us profound answer that we quote to
this day that is such an important answer to the question that was asked. And it should
be one of the guiding verses of your life. Let's bow together. Father, in Jesus' name,
by the power of your Holy Spirit, illuminate this text for us today so that we might know
exactly how to love well. We ask this in Jesus' name, all God's people said. Amen. Please
be seated if you would. I absolutely love our graphic for out of the
shadow. It looks like the deep end of the ocean, right? It shows a mountain in the background.
It shows the water, a shallow side, and then it shows the deep side. And just in commemoration
of that graphic that I left so well, I've kind of been searching out ocean movies, deep
sea movies to watch. Have you ever noticed that every ocean movie is a disaster movie?
It's always about a shipwreck. Think Titanic if you would. Or the perfect storm. It's always
something where things don't work out well, right? And so this last weekend, the last
couple of days, I decided to watch a movie that I've never seen before and it was a movie
made in Australia about a shipwreck of five young people whose boat capsized out off the
Australian coast. Really encouraging movie. Four out of the five die of shark attack.
Really encouraging movie. And it illustrates the fact that when you get into the deep end,
there are all kinds of dangers that are present. In the course of the movie, you not only see
these four that are striving to get to this little island about ten miles away that they're
swimming to with a great white shark circling them all the way. And you know exactly what's
going to happen. At the same time, it goes from that shark to other great and beautiful
places in the bottom of the ocean that you want to see, that you want to be around. And
it just perfectly illustrates the fact that wherever there is the deep, there is the beauty
as well as the risk. And that's true of relationships as well. Sometimes we don't want to go deeper
in relationships because we're afraid of the sharks that lurk below the surface at the
same time. Other beautiful, amazing things lurk beneath the surface. One of my great
experiences in life has been scuba diving and snorkeling off the coast of the Bahamas
where we were able to spend a week or so about fifteen years ago, something like that, even
longer ago. My friends and I were out snorkeling and we would go down thirty feet or below.
We could see about fifty feet to the bottom. And I saw some of the most beautiful marine
life I've ever seen in my life. Manta rays, barracuda. At one point I saw a shark big
enough to make me his breakfast or his lunch, but for some reason, thankfully he wasn't
interested in me in that day. But I saw all kinds of beauty at the same time I was captured
by the danger that was involved. And I have to tell you today, the reason we don't often
go deeper in relationships is because we're afraid of the danger that's involved. We could
be hurt. We could be in some way have trust violated. I began to think about relationships
and how important it is to go deep and I realized that in my lifetime I've experienced a lot
when it comes to relationships. All the great things in life and all the rough things in
life usually happen through relationships. I've experienced all kinds of ridicule, all
kinds of mockery as a young boy growing up with hearing aids as being the only guy in
the classroom that was deaf and not able to keep up with everyone else. That's years and
years ago. That doesn't affect me today, but it's one of those things that I kind of remember.
As an adult, I've weathered all kinds of criticism and slander and all kinds of conspiracies
against me as an individual or as a pastor even. You might surprise you in the church,
some people don't like the pastor. It's hard to believe, isn't it? But on the other side
of that, I've experienced the best of relationships. Incredible loyalty, incredible love, incredible
amazing commitment to help bring out the best in me and that I see that in other relationships
as well. But until you go deep, you don't get to experience any of those things. This
whole series is about going deeper. It's about taking risks. It's about loving God in a deeper
way and loving those around you in a deeper way as well. So let me ask you some questions
as we get into Jesus' text here. What if we learn to love with more investment, more
dedication, more depth? How would our lives change? How would the lives of those around
us change? What if we loved as a lifestyle, an expression of our faith? What if our faith
met, our faith in Christ met that we would love to the same level that He loved us? What
if that became a hallmark of our lives? How would that change family? How would that change
personal relationships? How would that change culture if we were able to love the way Christ
called us to? How can we love our neighbor well? How can we love others well?
Well last week we began looking at Jesus' statement to the Pharisees and the lawyers
and He gave first of all the first part of that great commandment. Love the Lord your
God with all of your soul, with all your might, all your strength. And we focused on what
it meant to love God well. To realize that God's love for us is what initiates all this.
That we don't have the ability to love God well without God first loving us and we explore
that. We spend some time in that. Today is the second part of that where Jesus said the
second is likened to it that you love your neighbor as yourself. Today I'm going to use
the world's oldest illustration to talk about what it means to love God well and then love
others well. And it's what we call the vertical and the horizontal illustration. That is if
our vertical relationship with God is strong that means our horizontal relationship with
other people is also going to be strong. But if we don't have a strong vertical neither
will we have a strong horizontal. So let's talk about that vertical foundation first
of all. The vertical foundation begins there in verse 37. You shall love the Lord your
God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind. And as
you know Jesus is responding to these men trying to entrap them. And I just want you
to see here by way of remembering what we said last week that the highest value that
Jesus Christ put on his relationship with us is that it is a relationship characterized
by love. Not about religion. Not about good work. Not about having a perfect past. It's
about a relationship that we have with him. And when you read this response that Jesus
gave to the lawyers you come to the same conclusion that we all would have to come to. God desires
for each of us to be in relationship with him and he makes it possible through Jesus
Christ. You and I it's possible for any of us in this room to have a relationship with
God through Jesus Christ. In fact if you leave today without a relationship with God through
Jesus Christ it's because you want to leave without that relationship. He's made it possible
for you to have it no matter what your past is like. No matter what your present is like.
No matter how fearful you may be about having a deep relationship with God. Jesus has made
this possible for it to be real in your life. Don't leave without Jesus today. Don't leave
without him. Because it is the foundation for every other kind of relationship. This
vertical foundation that we have. Jesus Christ came to demonstrate that. In fact he came,
he revealed the Father to us, he redeemed us by paying for our sins on the cross. And
that's what the Gospel is all about. You know I love to talk about the Gospel. And the Gospel
is fully involved here in Matthew chapter 22 verse 35 and following. When I share the
Gospel I love to share it out of Ephesians 2. The first ten verses of Ephesians 2 say
just about everything you need to know in a capsule form about the Gospel or the good
news of Jesus Christ. Some people think the Gospel is simply Jesus died, was buried, rose
again the third day. That's definitely in the center of the Gospel but there's more
to it. Let me spell the word Gospel for you. I love to do this. Most of you know how to
do this yourself. The G of the Gospel has to do with God's character. God's character.
Ephesians 2 talks about the mercy of God, the love of God. God's character is that he's
a loving merciful God who doesn't want to punish us for our sin and at the same time
the Bible reveals him as a just judge who will by no means let the guilty go unpunished.
And that's a problem. Why? It's a problem because of the offense of sin. I mean it's
not a problem that God loves us. It's a problem that God is a just judge because of the offense
of sin. You and I, the Bible says all of us have sinned and fall short of God's glory.
And the Bible says in Ephesians 2 that we were dead in our trespasses and sin. So the
offense of sin is a wall between ourselves and this holy yet loving God. The only answer
to that is Christ, the sufficiency of Christ. When Jesus Christ came and lived on this earth
he lived a perfect life and he laid his life down in sacrificial death so that our sins
would be paid for and we would have the possibility of a relationship with this holy and just
God, the sufficiency of Christ. Not the sufficiency of religion, not the sufficiency of good works,
not the sufficiency of anything else. Jesus Christ was sufficient to give us the open
door for a relationship with God. That's the S of the gospel. The P of the gospel involves
you personal response. See all that Jesus did on the cross made it possible for you
to turn from sin and put your faith and trust in Jesus as Lord and as Savior. But you have
to do that on your own. None of us as Christians in this room were Christians because our family
was or because we attended a church or because we've done good things like other Christians
are supposed to do. We have to personally respond to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Put our faith and trust in him. The E of the gospel is eternal urgency. This is forever.
It's life and death and eternal life and death. And that's why we're urgent about sharing
with you. Then the L of the gospel is life transformation. You know you can't have Jesus
Christ living inside of your life and still be the same person you were the day before,
the week before, the year before. Jesus changes us from the inside out. That's good news and
that is the gospel. Now the reason I share the gospel with you here is because that's
the basis of our vertical relationship with God. Again it's not religion, it's not good
works, it's purely the good news that Jesus brings us by dying on the cross to give us
eternal life. And once you enter into that you are loved unconditionally by God and have
the capability of loving him in return, loving him with all of your heart, with all of your
soul and with all of your might. You know I came to Christ many, many years ago but
I've never ceased being grateful for it. There have been a day that I can recall that
I wasn't thankful that I'm forgiven, especially when I sin. When I sin I'm really glad that
I have the forgiveness of Jesus purchased on the cross for me and I know you are too.
I'm grateful for what he's done for me and that really establishes the relationship I
have whereby I can love other people. We'll see more of that in just a moment but that's
the vertical. The next thing I want to point out of this text though is what I call the
important interpretation. Kind of a warning. And here's what you find in verse 39. Jesus
says the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now I want to pause
and just look at those two words as yourself for just a second. Many people read this verse
and they say, oh okay so before I can practice neighbor love I have to practice self love.
Before I can really love anyone else I have to love myself well but that's not what the
verse actually says. Some people read this and they take that approach and they go out
and they try to love themselves really, really, really well. But in my experience and according
to the scripture we already love ourselves really, really well. In fact we may love ourselves
too well, right? We have to deny ourselves in order to love other people well. I've noticed
that with each of our kids as they were growing up they loved themselves really, really well
early on. Have you ever been around a two year old that didn't love themselves more
than everybody else? That didn't want everything directed their way? You know what happens
when we see an adult that's really, really immature we say they're being a baby. Now
why do we say they're being a baby? Because they're acting like a selfish baby, like a
two year old. I say all about this, I say this, you do not have to learn self love before
you love other people. As a matter of fact you need to learn to deny yourself before
you love other people. And I'm going to tell you what that exactly means in just a moment
but first let me just say that the Bible warns us that in the worst of days, that the worst
of times, that the biggest problem will be that people are lovers of self. Paul actually
said this to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3, but realize this, that in the last days difficult times
will come for men will be lovers of self, unloving, irreconcilable, lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness even though they have denied
its power. Now we're not supposed to hate ourselves but neither are we supposed to cultivate
even more self love. So what's Jesus saying? Instead of that, here's what he's saying,
elevate your love for others to the same level of care you have for yourself. Would you feed
your neighbor when he or she is hungry? You feed yourself. Would you take care of them
if they're heartbroken and bleeding? You take care of yourself. And here's the key behind
it all, others are just as important in the eyes of God as you are. And aren't you thankful
they are? I mean that's the whole basis for why God sent his son Jesus to die for the
sins of the whole world. God so loved the whole world that he gave his only begotten
son. So the important interpretation we need to have in this verse here is we do not have
to pause and learn to love ourselves before we love others. Experience the love of God,
love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. The second is like unto it,
love your neighbor with that same vertical love that you have with God and experience
with God. So let's get to that place now. That place, that's what it means to have the
horizontal application there in verse 39. Love your neighbor. So this is based on everything
we have in the way of love from God. When you and I experience the love of God, we can
live life loving others well. I want you to take a moment and think about the life of
Jesus and how he interacted with people, how he loved people. Think about his selflessness,
think about his compassion, think about his service, he served everyone. Think about his
ultimate sacrifice and laying his life down on the cross. This is how Jesus lived it out.
And then Jesus gave these amazing commands to his disciples that were destined to follow
him, determined to follow him, and he gave these commands of love. John 13 is one of
the greatest. Listen to these words. A new commandment I give you that you love one another.
Even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know you
are my disciples if you have love for one another. If you remember last week we talked
about the four different words in the New Testament for love and the one that's in
this verse and all the verses I share today is agape love. This love is not friendship
love based on common interests. It's not erotic love based on sexual attraction. It's
not family love based on biological connection. It's unconditional love. Unconditional love
is love with no guarantee of response. It means that I'm called to love my neighbor
in spite of what my neighbor says or does to me, for me or against me. It means it's
not predicated on that. It's predicated on the fact that I'm already in a love relationship
with God himself. It's the kind of love that Christ has for me and the kind of love
Christ has for you and when we show it, when we demonstrate it, we stand out in a very
broken world and that's what Christ intended. In the Luke account of this great commandment,
Jesus follows the statements that we've been looking at today. Love the Lord your God with
all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. The second is like a good love your
neighbor as yourself with a parable and it's the parable of the good Samaritan. And in
that parable Jesus pointed out a man who was robbed and left for dead on the side of the
road and two religious leaders passed him by and didn't stop to help him at all. And
then finally the Samaritan stopped and the Samaritan was not of the same ethnicity, didn't
have anything in common with the guy on the side of the road. He wasn't the same religion
but he showed compassion. And Jesus told this story, this parable in response to the question
who is my neighbor? Love your neighbor as yourself but who's my neighbor? And then you
have this parable. And after Jesus tells this amazing parable, he says go and do the same.
You want to know how to love your neighbor? You do what the man in this story did. He
loved without any hope of return, without any expectation of response at all. He just
loved. He just loved. I think that's a pretty powerful illustration and a pretty timely
response after Jesus teaches that. So show mercy on those, not just in your family or
in your circles but show mercy and compassion on the neighbor in every direction you can
possibly imagine. And one of those great conversations about love in the Bible, and there are a lot
of great conversations about love in the Bible folks, I mean go to the book of 1 John and
look at all the references to love. I'm going to pull up 1 John chapter 4 for just a moment
and read several verses in 1 John chapter 4, verse 7 and 8 and then verse 11. That's
1 John. And I want you to notice how many times the word love is used. And each time
it's used, it's used in the agape form of love. Beloved, let us love one another for
love is from God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does
not love does not know God, for God is love. And then beloved, if God so loved us, we also
ought to love one another. You don't have to wonder why John called himself the disciple
whom Jesus loved, right? I mean he's all about love. Seven times in those three verses he
uses the word love, agape love, agape love, agape love, agape love. And once the word
beloved, which means I know that I'm beloved, I know that you're loved with that same kind
of love. So John's reflecting everything that Jesus said as he gives those verses. So the
obvious question after you read that is how do we do that? How are we supposed to love
with that kind of love? That's hard, that's difficult, how do we do that? And he answers
in verse 19 of 1 John, and I want you to see it on the screen and I want you to say it
with me. Are you ready? We love because he first loved us. You talk about simple, profound
truth. We love. After all those commands to love, seven times he says love, love, love,
love, love. We love because he first loved us. I want you to let that settle in on you
for just a few minutes. We don't love because we have learned the psychology of it. We don't
love because we've got great experience at it. We don't love because we want to love
necessarily. We don't love because just we're supposed to love necessarily. We love because
we've been loved. The way you know how to love is look at how you are loved by Jesus
Christ. Now that's why it's so important for us to begin this with a vertical relationship
because once you know how much you are loved by God, you are able to love others. So let's
listen to the practical application of this. Just bear with me for a minute. We love God
because he first loved us. Amen? We love others because he first loved us. We love our family
because he first loved us. We love our neighbors because he first loved us. We love the church
because he first loved us. We love the lost because he first loved us. We love people
who are different because he first loved us. We love the difficult people in our life,
the annoying people in our life because he first loved us. We love our enemies because
he first loved us. Are you with me? Say amen if you're with me. We love because he first
loved us. How many in this room are loved by God but you just register your
understanding that you're loved by God? You're part of the we. We love because
He first loved us. If this is true then that means I can love you regardless of
your response because He first loved me and you can love me regardless of my
response because He first loves you. So how do you love people who can hurt you
or who do fame you or who lie about you? You love them because they first loved
you. How do you love people who ignore you or ghost you or slam slander you? You
can love them because He first loved you. We love because He first loved us. I
want to tell you friends you can do this in the power of Christ. You may not want
to do this. It may not be easy for you to do this but you can do this in the
power of Christ and we can transcend this eye for eye, life for life kind of
culture we're in. This cancel culture where if you say something or do
something wrong against me you are out of my life buddy. You're completely out. We
can transcend that by loving even when they do something to us that's hurtful
and painful. Now you may need boundaries and you may need extra grace and you may
need time in order to do that but you can love in spite of it all.
That means we turn on that big light. If we can let that illustration of a big
light called love get turned on because we are first loved by God and you shine
it without blinking to everyone no matter how they respond to you that's
what it means to love because you were first loved in spite of whatever anybody
else does for you. What an incredibly weighty and yet amazing command. Love the
God the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your
mind love your neighbor as yourself. Now verse 20 is the last verse of this
section we've been looking at and I want to take just another moment and look at
this again. Notice what it says in verse 20 on these two commandments depend the
whole law and the prophets. So I wonder how many of you have heard a message that
talks about that verse right there or read a book that talks about that verse
right there on these two depend all of the law and the prophets. Why would Jesus
say that? Why would Jesus say that the 10 commandments are really dependent upon
loving God and loving others. They're built on loving God and loving others.
When we see the 10 commandments we don't see them that way do we? We see the 10
commandments as being pretty black and white, pretty harsh, pretty
prohibitive and if you get into the theology behind the 10 commandments you
know they're an expression of God's character. They're an example of how God
wanted his people to live and also evidence that we need a Savior because
we can't keep those 10 commandments on our own and the legalist looks at the
10 commandments given in the scripture and says oh man that means that that I've
got to keep these commands or I don't love God and if I don't love God then
thunder will come and start crashing and lightning will strike me and and I'll
perish. That's kind of the way we look at the 10 commandments but as you look at
what Jesus said in verse 20 keep in mind he's quoting back the Shema of Deuteronomy
chapter 6 verse 4. Hear O Israel the Lord I God is one God you shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind love
your neighbor as yourself. He's quoting a thousands and thousands of year old
tech that is based on the 10 commandments given in Deuteronomy 6 and
Exodus 20. There's a connection between loving God well, loving others well and
those 10 commandments. So I summarized the first four of those commandments last
week and the first four of those commandments are all about the vertical
relationship our interaction with God. I'll go over them very very quickly with
you for just a moment. Those first 10 are by the way before I do this let me just
keep in mind that even though the 10 commandments are so prohibitive in
nature thou shalt not they are for us. Now you know this is true when our kids
were growing up they were always on bikes and trikes and running around in
the yard and and whenever I would see a child moving towards the street then I
would go all commandment on them right I would say don't go in the road. Now if our
child had stopped and said why are you being so negative why are you being so
harsh? My answer would have been I want to save your life I want you to live to
tomorrow stay out of the road. Now I was giving them a commandment that was good
for them that was prohibitive and sounded very negative. All of God's
commandments are for us they're for our benefit they're for the benefit of all
around us. So expressing the 10 commandments relationally because that's
what we're talking about loving God and loving others how do they sound? How do
they reflect love for God? Last week we looked at commandment number one you
should have no other gods and we talked about what it means to love God
exclusively. If you want to love God well with all your heart soul and mind don't
love anything else in the way of God love God exclusively. Commandment two love
God personally not in a graven image don't try to reduce God down to a sad
answer a pet answer or a visual of some kind. Love him personally for his
character for who he is. Commandment number three don't take his name in vain
love God honorably. Command number four observe the Sabbath that simply means
love God by being with him spend time with him move away rest from your
labors take the labors and put them aside and spend time with God. That's how
you love God well. But the next six commandments the second set of
commandments here talk about what happens when we love others well respect
others well. Now before I give you these next six I want I want your attention
for just a moment I don't I don't think I've lost it but when you dive into the
ten commandments you kind of wonder ah somebody wandered off on commandment
number three or four. I want you to listen real carefully here's why I think
this is significant I think it's unique that these commandments are about
loving people beyond friendships most of the time we think of our neighbor as our
buddy our friend my neighbor next door or maybe somebody that lives on my
cul-de-sac or somebody I see in the grocery store or somebody I see at the
workplace but neighbors remember anybody most particularly those that are not
like you not like you at all not around you at all think beyond friendships
think beyond your neighborhood think beyond your workplace think of culture
think of society think of the world when you see the word others think of all
others how can I live and how can I love but benefits all others that I possibly
might come into contact with I may never speak to them I may never be around them
but how do I love them well after all again Jesus loved the whole world and
gave his life for them how do we do that so having said all that I want to look
at this next six commandments very briefly about how do these commandments
reflect love for others commandment number five it's the commandment that
says honor your mother and father I love the little catch at the end of that
says that your days may be long upon the earth I used to stress that part of that
to my kids by the way when they learned the Ten Commandments but here's the
relational expression of that love others by honoring your family do you
know what happens when the family breaks down you know what happens when no honor
is given in the family you have a culture that doesn't have roots it
doesn't have direction love others by honoring your family commandment number
six love others by valuing every life the Ten Commandment there number six is
thou shalt not murder well we see that's pretty black and white but basically
it's emphasizing the sanctity of life as a whole it means that we care about
everyone from conception to the grave God values every life and love values
every life as well you cannot advocate taking innocent lives and still love
people commandment number seven thou shalt not commit adultery let me just
phrase this relationally love others by respecting vows that's a commandment
against committing adultery and loving people means we keep our vows to each
other and we respect others vows to the people that they've made vows to and
that's how you interact and love people well by honoring and respecting vows
commitment number eight do not steal love honors by honoring their possessions
by not trying to get their possessions from them honoring them as their
possessions what God has blessed them with not what you want to have and then
number nine love others by being honest that is thou shalt not lie living with a
sense of integrity to build up the trust that we actually have with each other
and the trust that should be in culture it calls us to the honesty expressed by
loving people with truth and then commandment number ten love others by
learning contentment don't covet your neighbor's wife the commandment says or
his donkey which I confess I've never confessed or coveted anybody's donkey
that I can remember in my lifetime but these are practical applications for
that day and that time love others by learning contentment so having walked
through those six let me just ask you let me challenge you what would happen
if we loved others in these ways what would happen if we loved in such a way
honored God's values honored people around us lived in such a way that says
how I live matters because I left God with all my heart and I love all those
around me how I live my life matters I would say this when we live this way the
gospel has credibility light is shining salt has been taken out of the salt
shaker and is sprinkled in our culture and we have a chance to point to Christ
this by chance someone would say how is it that you live your life the way you
do how is it that you love me even though I've been spiteful to you we have
an opportunity to say we love because he first loved us how is it you weather
these storms how is it you handle all this with patience we love because he
first loved us see that ought to be the testimony of the church and Jesus said
that should be the testimony of the disciples they'll know that you follow
me and that I came because of your love here's what I want you to do today I
want you to dive into the deep end of your relationships with those things in
mine and not fear the sharks and not fear all the things that you anticipate
might happen and look at the beauty of deep relationships and look at what you
can invest in others in the way of relationship by loving them well in
spite of how they respond to you you should love the Lord your God with all
your heart with all your soul with all your mind and the second is like unto
it Jesus said you shall love your neighbor as yourself today when you leave
I want you to leave with the idea of I'm gonna align my life with this vertical
and the horizontal and I'm going to do it in the power of Christ not just
because I ought to but because he first loved me just a moment I'm gonna give
you an invitation to I'm gonna invite you first of all on your way out to
stop by the decision station they're lit up back here and these are places
where people are there they're present to talk to you about any decisions you
may want to make to follow Christ and that decision to follow the gospel by
putting your faith and trust in Jesus is so incredibly important and we will man
those stations before we have this closing word of prayer just a moment
secondly I invite you to our guest reception room right outside the center
exit door and across the hallway I'd love to meet you if you're a guest here
today tell you just a little bit about our church takes about ten minutes and
have a little gift for you love for you to stop by third I want to invite you
to come back next week next week we're gonna talk about marriage and how this
diving deep into marriage will be such an important thing for us and following
week another aspect of relationships and so forth for these next six or seven
weeks but before we do all that before I close you in prayer I want to introduce
a special couple to you today and many of you may have already received this
little brochure little flyer that introduces Alex and Morgan far I'm gonna
ask him to stand right now if you would right where you are and come on up here
if you went on the stage so people can see you this is Alex and Morgan far I
want you to give them a welcome while they're coming out by the way
thank you Alex and Morgan and our little brochure here tells about their lives
and we tell us that they they have two children this has been a long process
that we've been in and talking to them about coming as our 81 pastor that
we're calling Alex to do but it's also been a little delayed because five weeks
ago you had your most recent child and so we kind of didn't want to rush the
thing you know and we spent some time doing that the way we call people to our
church is through the process of searching and then putting them before a
personnel committee and our personnel committee is a great group of
individuals that had the opportunity to interview both of you and came back with
the unanimous recommendation that we present you to the church and so in just
a few moments we're gonna do that but I wanted just you to be on the stage
they're gonna go out to the guest reception area guest central area and
we'll see you right after the service okay would you one more time let them
know how much you appreciate them being here today
now the way we call ministers on staff is is this way we we meet them we vet
potential leaders who would come to be interviewed and we spend time with them
and then we bring a recommendation to our personnel committees I've shared
and that's what we've done with Alex and his wife and again it was unanimous from
them then we introduced him to the congregation and we asked the
congregations to simply affirm them so I'm gonna do that here in just a moment
and we have this information I hope that you'll take the opportunity to meet them
out at guest central at the end of this prayer but if you today will join us in
inviting them to come as a one pastor and why then I would you indicate that
by standing with us right now if you would join with us in that this is time
to affirm that and we thank you for doing that and I want to lead us in a
closing word of prayer and then you're dismissed please get to know them today
if you will father in Jesus name today as we move out of this building into the
world I pray for the light and the salt that you've called us to be to be in
operation today because of the love that you've given us Lord today help us to
love because we have been loved by you I ask this in Jesus name amen God bless
you have a wonderful Lord's Day