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We're back in Ephesians 5 this morning.

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If you want to go ahead and pull that up on your Bible,

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if you don't have one, there's one in front of you.

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I want us to try something new this morning together.

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And then moving forward, I would like us to create this habit.

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Okay?

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And so back in December, I was doing my Bible study

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and I was reading through the book of Nehemiah.

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In Nehemiah chapter 8, Ezra brings the law of Moses into the church service.

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Okay?

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So he's with all these people and he's bringing the law of Moses.

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He's bringing the Word of God into the place.

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And it says in verse 5 of chapter 8, it reads,

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And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people,

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for he was above all the people, because he was on the stage.

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And as he opened it all, the people stood.

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And so I'm going to read our passage this morning.

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And if you're able to, I'd like for you to stand as we do that.

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Because this book is the Word of God.

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And we should have no less respect for it than they did in Nehemiah's day.

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And so I don't want to do this because this is formal.

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I want us to do this because this is a sign of honor to the words that are written.

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So I'm going to read Ephesians chapter 5, the first two verses this morning.

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Paul writes, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children,

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And walk in love as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us,

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a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

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Let's pray.

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Father, we are so grateful.

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So grateful for your Word that is life.

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And Father, as we read it and as we try to understand it,

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I pray God that you will be in our midst this morning.

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I pray that your spirit will fill us.

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I pray that your voice will be heard louder than mine.

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And so God, as we study your Word this morning,

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I pray that it will be a fragrant offering to you.

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What's your name? You pray.

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Amen.

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Thank you all.

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Now, no one has ever asked me for fashion advice, ever.

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I don't know what colors are in right now.

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I don't know what style of jeans are the best option.

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I just wear what is comfortable for me, and I just go with it.

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I wouldn't say, I'm not talking about fashion,

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I'm talking about the way my future is like.

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I would say, I can replace – and I'm just OK about it,

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but I get in that situation reallyrologically,

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but I still have to row and rupture –

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going to don't浉

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I have to do the same thing about angles,

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don't slow down,

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I would say, I couldn't hide my feelings,

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I would say, It's OK, it's OK, I know –

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I sit down on at觀,

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I would Mathew – by the swan

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and we would certainly worry.

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The same is true for Lord of the Rings.

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This, calm down.

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The same is true for Harry Potter and any of that.

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I think that's one of the main reasons why I'm not a Dallas Cowboys fan.

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I have nothing against them.

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It's just that when you grow up in Texas, there's this expectation that you root for the Cowboys.

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I'm looking forward to rooting for them today.

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Too soon? Too soon?

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However, when I was in middle school, I jumped on a bandwagon.

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And it is one of my greatest regrets to this day.

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I don't know if the trend made it up here to Iowa, but when I was growing up in El Paso,

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for about a year, the popular jeans that everybody was wearing to school were called Jinko.

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Think bell bottoms, but so much worse.

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They covered my shoes.

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They dragged on the ground.

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They had these massive pockets on it where the bottom of the pocket would be like my calf.

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When you get time later, look those things up.

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I thought I was cool, right?

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I thought I was cool.

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I thought I was cool.

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I didn't want to feel left out. Everybody else was wearing that.

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Saying that after you look up those jeans, please, please, please don't think any less of me.

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We like to imitate those around us, don't we?

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When I was growing up, the popular thing was now jean bottles, right?

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And you would have a carabiner hook and you would attach it to your backpack.

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Now it's what? Stanley cups.

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Those fads, those are fads that just come and go.

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As the seasons change, when I pick up my kids from school, every teenage boy looks the same.

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Same hairstyle, same clothes, same look of boredom on their face.

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They all look the same.

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They're imitating one another.

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And I'm not saying that's always a bad thing either.

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We just read Paul encouraging us to be imitators, but not with things that are going to change,

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but to be imitated.

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Now that's a pretty tall order when you think about it.

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Paul says that as dearly loved children of God, we are to imitate our heavenly Father.

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Now the word imitate is the word from which we get our English word mimic, okay?

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Or mime.

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So the picture that Paul gives us here is that we are to mimic or to imitate God in the same way that a child mimics their Father.

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Now all of us who are parents can relate to that idea.

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We have watched often in horror as our children mimic us, don't we?

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Now it's a tall order.

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God is holy, right?

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We are not, and we prove that daily.

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Because he is God and we are not, there is a lot about God.

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That we could never come close to imitating.

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His omniscience, his omnipotence, his omnipresence, right?

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They're just the beginning of that list.

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But in this passage, Paul challenges us to imitate just one characteristic of God.

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Just one, how he loves us.

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We are to live a life of love.

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And that love is to be based on God's demonstration of God's love.

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And that love is to be based on God's demonstration of his love for us in his son Jesus.

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We are to love others in the same way that Jesus loves us and gave himself up for us.

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Now we obviously won't be able to cover everything about God's love this morning,

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but I want to give us a few points to consider.

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The first being, if you truly want to be an imitator of God, love is going to cost you something.

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Now we know that God's love cost something, Jesus died on the cross.

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But have you ever considered what else it cost him?

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Philippians 2 says that our attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus.

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He emptied himself of his glory and took on the nature of his servants.

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Now I want you to imagine for a second, the best vacation that you've ever been on.

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Maybe he was sitting on a beach, maybe he was going for a hike in the mountains.

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The place doesn't necessarily matter, but I want you to think about your mindset when you're on vacation.

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No pressure, no stress, you aren't thinking about work, you're just on vacation and you're enjoying life.

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Budgets don't matter, you know, kids are taken care of, you're just enjoying life.

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But think about that Sunday before you go back to work.

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Or think about that Monday when you walk into the office.

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It's a different feeling, isn't it?

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Wouldn't you much rather be on a vacation instead of dealing with the stress of making money?

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Or dealing with coworkers you don't like.

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Now I'm not comparing vacation to heaven, that's not what I'm saying,

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but it cost Jesus something to come down to this earth to serve us.

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Knowing the whole time what the end was going to be.

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Knowing the whole time that he was going to die a horrific death.

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Do you think he was sweating drops of blood as he sits on his throne next to his father?

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Do you think the angels that surrounded him and were constantly giving him praise ever wanted to kill him?

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He gave that up for us.

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It cost Jesus physical pain.

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Isaiah says that he was pierced for our transgressions.

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But think of more than that, we're not just talking about dying on the cross.

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The guy was a carpenter.

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I would love to know what came out of Jesus' mouth when he hit his thumb with a hammer.

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Probably not the same words that come out of my mouth when that happens.

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He walked everywhere.

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Have you ever tried to walk a couple miles with blisters on your feet?

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These are things that he gave up to serve us.

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True love has to cost something.

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Is your love for others costing you something?

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Far more times than I'd like to admit I've failed to love others

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because I was unwilling to give up some of my time.

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Maybe it was just not convenient at the time, or even more likely I was just selfish with my time

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and there was something else that I wanted to do.

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More than whatever I could have done to love someone else.

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There have been times when I've failed to love others because I was unwilling

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to part with some of the financial resources that God has blessed me with.

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Now some of those times I meant really well, but there was no follow-through.

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But I'm sure other times I was just being selfish with the money that God has given me.

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And what about the times I don't love someone else?

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Because I was worried about what others might think of me.

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I was worried more about the fact that loving the unlovable might cost me my reputation

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more so than I was worried about loving the other person.

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I was more concerned about myself.

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If I want to imitate the love of God, then I need to love others even when it costs me greatly.

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And let's be honest, loving people is hard, isn't it?

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It's going to cost us our pride at times.

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It's going to cost us our ability to defend ourselves.

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How ironic is it that I would be willing to lay down my life for my family in a heartbeat?

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I wouldn't think twice about it.

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But I'm unwilling at times to let them have the last word.

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You can have my life on one hand, right?

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If there's any sort of danger, you can have my life.

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But on the other hand, you're not winning this argument.

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Isn't that ironic?

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Loving people is going to cost you something.

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We also learned from Jesus that we are able to love others even when they don't deserve it.

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The best verse in my opinion to illustrate this point is Romans 5a.

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But God shows his love for us, and while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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We very clearly see that Jesus did not love us because we were deserving of his love.

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There was nothing in our lives worth dying for, but Jesus did it anyway because he loves us.

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Not only that, but as we observe the life of Jesus while he was here on this earth,

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we find that Jesus always loved those who others considered unlovable.

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The poor, the distressed, the diseased, the tax collectors, the social outcasts.

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It's pretty easy to love those who love us and treat us well.

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But the real test of our love is how we treat those who mistreat us or those who are different from us.

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But if we're going to imitate the love of God, then we have to learn to love those who are hard to love

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and those who don't deserve our love.

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As Jesus made it quite clear, anyone can love those that love us in Matthew 5.

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Anyone can love those that love us.

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That's so simple that even the tax collector can do it.

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It's easy to love those who love us.

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That's so simple that even nonbelievers can do that.

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In some respects, I struggle with this principle more when dealing with people in the church

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rather than people outside the body.

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When I think about loving people outside the body, it's easy to justify in my mind,

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well, they just don't know better.

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They're not followers of Jesus yet.

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Of course they're going to act that way.

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I can love them. That makes sense to me.

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But I guess within the church, I have this expectation that people should know better.

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So it's really pretty easy for me to love the people in the body who are always encouraging me

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and others who are always willing to pitch in and do whatever it takes to help out.

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It's easy to love those who are faithful to minister here week after week.

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In other words, it's easy to love those that live up to my expectations of how a believer should act.

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But it's harder to love those who are always criticizing, right?

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It's harder to love those who are always complaining without ever offering to be a part of the solution.

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It's really difficult to love those who work behind the scenes to undermine our church leadership.

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It's far easier to think that those who don't measure up to my expectations

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of how they ought to act within the body of Christ are really worthy of my love.

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But the fact of the matter is, no matter how much I'd like to think differently,

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I'm a pretty hard person to love too.

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But God loves me anyway.

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Even though I don't deserve it.

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So if I want to imitate His love, then I must love everyone, especially those who don't deserve it.

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Now I believe we know this, intellectually we know this,

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that we are supposed to love those who don't deserve it, but do we practice it?

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One of the hardest things for me to do is to pray for someone who is wronged me.

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Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute you.

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I don't think that means that everyone who is your enemy is going to persecute you.

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In my experience in the church, a lot of times those that persecute you are fellow believers.

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At our last church in La Mesa, there were all these rumors about me and about our church.

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We were at cult. We didn't preach the Bible.

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My favorite one still to this day is that we did a naked streaking through this park once a year.

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I love that one.

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I tried to get people on board with that, didn't work out.

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I heard from fellow pastors that they couldn't believe that I allowed such and such to attend our church.

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Most of those rumors came from other churches.

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Why? I don't know.

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But in James chapter 4, he writes, do not speak evil against one another brothers.

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The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law.

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But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

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There is only one law giver and judge.

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He who is able to save and to destroy.

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But who are you to judge your neighbor?

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That gets me right there.

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How many times have I spoken ill of another believer?

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John tells us that no one has ever seen God.

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But if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

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It is not a good testimony to nonbelievers when the church people can't get along, is it?

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We need to love even when others don't deserve it.

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The next way to imitate the love of Jesus is with action.

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God could have just told us how much he loves us, but throughout the scriptures, God has not only declared his love for us.

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He has demonstrated it through his actions.

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We see this all throughout the scripture.

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God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt.

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He provided for them in the wilderness.

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And in spite of their rebellion, brought them into the promised land.

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He sent them prophets to bring them his word and to warn them of the consequences of their behavior.

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It wasn't just words, it was accompanied by actions.

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Now I am much better at this, at showing actions than I am with my words.

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Now I tell my family all the time, every single day, multiple times a day, how much I love them.

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But if you want me to write a poem describing my love for them, you're going to be disappointed.

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I tried to show my love through my actions with them.

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Sometimes it's doing the dishes.

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Sometimes it's picking them up from school or the other dozen activities that they are a part of.

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The other day we were at the performance for Charlotte's Web at the high school.

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The spider dancers are my favorite in case you were wondering.

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But during the intermission, Asher and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and use the restroom.

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Now we could have easily just gone in there and done our thing and left,

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but I felt it was an appropriate time for me to show him how much I love him.

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So when he was done with his tinkle, tinkle, shaky shake,

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we were both standing at the sink washing our hands.

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And I thought to myself, you know what, I can show Asher that I love him

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by throwing a handful of water on him.

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So I did.

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I did that because I know him. I know how he would take that.

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I wouldn't do that to River. If I did that to River, he'd be upset at me.

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But I know him well enough and I love him enough to know this would lighten the mood a little bit.

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So Asher walks out of the bathroom covered in water and we have a good old time about it.

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John writes in 1 John 3 18, dear children,

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let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

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One of my favorite books is Mere Christianity.

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If you've never read it, I highly encourage you to do it by C.S. Lewis.

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In it, he wrote this,

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the rule for all of us is perfectly simple.

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Do not waste time bothering whether you love your neighbor.

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Act as if you did.

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As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets.

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When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

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True Christian love is more than just emotion.

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It's a choice that we make to put the well-being of the other person ahead of our own.

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And that takes more than just words. It requires action on our part.

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If I want to imitate God's love, then I must be willing to take whatever action is required to meet the needs of others.

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Regardless of my feelings about the other person.

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This is why we live out our faith.

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James tells us that without actions, our faith is dead.

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So you could come here every single week and consume knowledge and worship and pray.

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But if you aren't loving others, if you aren't serving others,

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if you're not caring for others, then that is a dead faith.

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Jesus tells us that people will know that you are my disciples by how you love one another.

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I love getting asked the question, why are you doing this for me?

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Has anybody ever been asked that question? Why are you doing this for me?

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It gives us the perfect opportunity to share our faith.

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As a believer in Jesus, we should love people with our actions.

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So much that they become suspicious. Or sus, as my kids call it today.

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Are you loving people well enough that they think you are up to something?

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I saw a story the other day about a guy who had some Mormons come visit him.

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He was outside in his front yard in his driveway working on his car.

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He had a flat tire, so he was about to go change that.

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As he was about to jack it up, these two Mormons ride up on their bikes.

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We've all been there. We all know what's about to happen.

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They're wanting to speak with him. He declines.

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A little busy right now, but they are persistent.

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He tells them that if they will change his tire, he will listen to what he has to say.

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So they did.

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Now he was messing with them because he had no intention whatsoever of converting to Mormonism.

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But at least he got his tire changed, right?

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If you are having a hard time having gospel conversations with people,

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I want to challenge you to begin to love them with your actions.

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Take them a meal. Go to their kids' sports games.

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Shovel their snow. Whatever it takes.

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So that you will get the opportunity to share why you are doing what you are doing.

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Finally, the last way we are to imitate the love of Jesus is by understanding that love must be given freely.

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It has to be given freely.

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This is not a situation where I will love you if you do something for me.

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I will love you if you change your behavior.

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I will love you if you will just come to terms and agree with what I have to say.

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In a sense, this is the essence of God's love for us in Christ.

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That's why Paul writes that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

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Now that is very clearly a reference to the Old Testament sacrifice system.

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It is described primarily in Leviticus.

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God prescribed five different types of sacrifices that his people were to make to him.

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Three of these sacrifices, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fellowship, or the peace offering,

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were made as a voluntary act of worship to God.

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The other two sacrifices, the sin offering and the guilt offering, were offerings that were required when people had sinned.

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Except for a single exception in Leviticus 4.31, the voluntary offerings are always described as an aroma pleasing to the Lord.

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And the required offerings are never described in that same way.

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The fact that the voluntary sacrifices were described in that way makes sense since they were voluntary sacrifices which denoted Thanksgiving

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or they denoted devotion to God and God would have been pleased with that, right?

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On the other hand, the required sacrifices came about as a result of sin or disobedience.

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And therefore God would not have been pleased with those because of the reasons for the sacrifices.

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So when Paul describes the death of Jesus as a fragrant offering, as a sacrifice to God,

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he is reinforcing this idea that Jesus voluntarily gave up his life for us.

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Voluntarily.

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This shouldn't surprise all of us since Jesus made the same point in John chapter 10, verse 17, he says,

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For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

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No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.

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I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.

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This charge I have received from my Father.

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The greatest act of love in the history of the world was not coerced or forced.

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Even though the Jewish leaders, the Roman authorities condemned Jesus and nailed him to the cross

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at the behest of the mobs of the people who shouted crucify him, Jesus willingly laid his life down for us.

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As he prayed in the garden shortly before those events were consummated, Jesus made it quite clear

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that he had the power to stop what was about to happen.

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Now although we've seen that love, the love that imitates God is much more than just words or an emotion,

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that doesn't mean that our attitude is not important in this situation.

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When it comes to loving others the same way that God loves us, our attitude matters.

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I can do, you can do all the right things out of a sense of obligation or because that's what I'm expected to do,

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but that doesn't seem to be the kind of love that God has for us.

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In spite of the tremendous cost he knew he would pay, Jesus freely gave his life for us.

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So if you are going to imitate the love of God, we need to love others in the same way.

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Because God is God, I'm certainly not capable of imitating who he is, but I can and I must imitate the way that he loves me

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in the way that I love others.

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The way you love others can change somebody's wife.

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It can change somebody's day.

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It can change somebody's trajectory.

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We need to love people well.

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Love your enemies.

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Love the non-believer.

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Pray for those who persecute you.

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And we don't do it out of obligation, we do it as a voluntary sacrifice.

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Sometimes we have to swallow our pride.

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Sometimes we have to keep our mouths shut.

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And so however the Lord is speaking to you this morning,

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my prayer is that you will walk in obedience to that.

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That when people view cornerstone, when people think about cornerstone,

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they won't think of our building, they won't think of the activities that we do,

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they will think about how much they are loved.

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That's my challenge to you.

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That's prayer.

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Father God, I pray right now that as we think about the love that you have for us,

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I pray Father that you will overwhelm us, overwhelm us with your goodness and grace.

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Help us remember, help us be aware of what it cost you to serve us,

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what it cost you to love us, what it cost you to lay down your life.

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And Father I pray that you empower us through the power of your Holy Spirit

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to love others the same way.

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And so Father where we have failed in those ways,

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I pray that you will forgive us.

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Where we have not been imitators of your love,

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I pray Father that you will forgive us.

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And I pray Father that you give us opportunities.

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Today, this week, going forward to show others how much they are loved by you.

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And I pray Father for Kingdom Impact.

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As we worship and as we offer this offering to you, as we worship freely in this place,

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I pray God that it will be a fragrant offering to you.

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I pray that nobody in this room will worship out of obligation,

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but will voluntarily give you praise because of how good you are.

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We ask all these things in your name. Amen.