WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.560 Amen. So John identifies for us here that the church can sometimes have a credibility problem 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:17.320 in that sense of, and perhaps we have seen and heard this over the years, that the finger that 00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:23.120 is pointed, ah, the church is full of hypocrites. They say one thing and they do another. They 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:29.820 always seem to be fighting and splitting, and often we have to hold our hands up and say, 00:00:30.059 --> 00:00:36.820 well, yeah, there's a measure of truth in that. But the other thing that John does for us is he 00:00:36.820 --> 00:00:45.640 helps us to see why that credibility problem often exists. It's because sometimes we can be very good 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:54.100 at holding on to truth without then showing compassion and love. And John makes clear that's 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:59.700 an ugly combination. Francis Schaeffer was someone who understood this 50 years ago. 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:09.760 For the Lausanne Evangelism Conference back in 1974, he wrote a paper. And in that paper, 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:18.900 he said, the church must have orthodoxy of doctrine. So we must always hold on to truth. We must always 00:01:18.900 --> 00:01:25.140 hold to the pure doctrine that we find in God's Word. And he said, we must have an orthodoxy of 00:01:25.140 --> 00:01:31.400 community. By which he means we must practice what we preach. There must be a real community 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:37.760 shaped by the truth of God's Word. And in this paper, he talked about the impact that the early 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:44.879 church had as they practiced those one another's that we find in the New Testament. Love one another, 00:01:45.019 --> 00:01:50.040 encourage one another, bear one another's burdens. He said, the early church turned the world 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:58.080 upside down because of their combination of truth and love. Because they became known very quickly for 00:01:58.080 --> 00:02:06.480 their care for the poor, for looking after abandoned children, for caring for their own widows and orphans, 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:13.219 but also within wider Roman society. When plagues came to towns and everybody was running for their 00:02:13.219 --> 00:02:21.020 lives, Christians would often be the ones who would stay and care and showed love. John is one of these 00:02:21.020 --> 00:02:31.259 apostles who is teaching what he had seen and heard from Jesus, his Savior. And he is encouraging the 00:02:31.259 --> 00:02:37.400 church to put that into practice. And Schaeffer identifies, and you can read the church in the first 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:44.520 four centuries especially, it grew and the mission spread because of that combination of truth and 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:53.560 loving action. And so whenever we come to a letter like this, it is a reminder to us to recover that 00:02:53.560 --> 00:03:02.180 fundamental. Leon Morris, the New Testament Bible scholar, said that in the first century Roman world, 00:03:02.180 --> 00:03:11.040 it was very easy in every other religious society to be very religious but not particularly righteous. 00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:17.599 That the gods of Rome did not place a high demand on the worshiper to be righteous. 00:03:18.939 --> 00:03:23.980 But John says, and Jesus says, that absolutely cannot be the case within Christianity. 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:30.540 We must worship the true God in the right way, and we must practice love. 00:03:30.539 --> 00:03:37.620 And so this little section reminds us that Christian faith must be shown in Christian love in a Christian 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:44.419 way of life. To go back to Francis Schaeffer, if we speak the truth but we lack love, 00:03:44.939 --> 00:03:53.199 why would anyone listen? Our message would have no credibility. So this is a very simple reminder that 00:03:53.199 --> 00:04:00.120 we need to be both truth people and to be loving people. And in this section, John, who loves to use 00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:05.400 contrast language, will hear him use contrast language. He'll speak of the old and the new 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:11.400 commandment. He'll speak in terms of light and dark. He'll speak in terms of love and hate. And in this 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:19.060 section, he is applying another of his tests. We could call this the social test or the test of love, 00:04:19.699 --> 00:04:24.240 as he makes the point that love for Jesus is shown in love for our brothers and sisters 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:30.780 in Christ. So two things for us to think about. First, that we are called to obey God's command, 00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:38.120 and that command is to love one another. Even as he introduces this section, he sets the tone. 00:04:38.840 --> 00:04:46.259 So the NIV translates the greeting, dear friends. It's literally the beloved. And so it's setting the 00:04:46.259 --> 00:04:51.720 tone there. Here is Pastor John, and he loves these Christians. They are beloved to him. 00:04:51.720 --> 00:05:00.920 He is writing of a God who, he'll say in chapter 4, is love. And so his commands are a reflection of 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:08.480 his character and his will. So his commands are loving commands. So the whole tone is connecting 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:15.020 the command with love. It's interesting that he says in the first instance, I'm not writing a new 00:05:15.019 --> 00:05:23.699 command, but an old command, which you've had since the beginning. Perhaps there in his mind, 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:30.240 he's thinking about basic to humanity being the reality that we are made in God's image. And to be 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:37.719 made in God's image is to be made for relationships of love. Our God is an eternal fellowship of love, 00:05:37.859 --> 00:05:42.979 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as we are made in his image, we're made to reflect that love in the 00:05:42.980 --> 00:05:50.480 way that we love God and the way we love one another. Or perhaps he's thinking of the basic 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:56.879 teaching of the Old Testament, Leviticus 19 verse 18, love your neighbor as yourself. Or perhaps he's 00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:02.000 thinking of the second table of the Ten Commandments, which Jesus summarizes, love your neighbor. 00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:10.520 Or all those collection of laws about justice and care for the poor, all about love for the other. 00:06:10.519 --> 00:06:17.719 Or perhaps he's thinking back to those basic Christian doctrines that this church was taught, 00:06:18.359 --> 00:06:25.779 being taught the message of Jesus as he summarized the law as love for God and love for neighbor. 00:06:27.459 --> 00:06:33.240 Perhaps John himself had shared that message that Jesus gave to his disciples when he encouraged them 00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:44.199 to love one another. God's people are to love each other. It's an old command. But then in verse 8, 00:06:44.259 --> 00:06:51.660 he turns it and says, yet I am writing you a new command. And we say, well, how is that the case? How can it be 00:06:51.660 --> 00:06:59.640 both old and new? And look at how he continues. Its truth is seen in him. 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:08.360 So like our primary school football, my experience of primary school football was that every Monday 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:14.740 afternoon for a certain period in the run-up to summer, one of my friend's dads came in to coach, 00:07:14.740 --> 00:07:21.019 to teach us. We had a horrible football pitch. We were fairly average players, and he tried very hard 00:07:21.019 --> 00:07:26.379 to teach us the basics of how to pass, how to shoot, all those kind of things, how to dribble. 00:07:27.980 --> 00:07:30.980 I don't know how good he was as a coach, but imagine 00:07:30.980 --> 00:07:40.699 if Lionel Messi was that dad who came in and coached. Then we'd still be getting taught the basics, 00:07:40.699 --> 00:07:48.979 but all of a sudden there'd be a very different standard being on display. And John's point is 00:07:48.979 --> 00:07:57.439 that Jesus is shining the truth of love for others so perfectly that it comes to us as something 00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:06.599 altogether new, that his way of life is the way of love. And we see that in so many ways. 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:14.500 Think about the love that he displays in the way that he taught, how radical it was, the parable of 00:08:14.500 --> 00:08:20.960 the good Samaritan. Here is love now to be extended to anyone who has need. 00:08:22.140 --> 00:08:28.400 The practice of forgiveness. When Peter said, should I forgive someone seven times, Jesus says, no, 70 times 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:40.139 seven. And even as Jesus explained his loving action of foot washing, that love looks like service of one 00:08:40.139 --> 00:08:49.240 another. The mission of Jesus, the lifestyle of Jesus represents a quality of love unknown and 00:08:49.240 --> 00:08:57.819 unparalleled. It is a love that welcomes sinners, those who are excluded, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, 00:08:57.820 --> 00:09:06.120 even the thief on the cross knew the love of God. A love that is so patient and forgiving to his 00:09:06.120 --> 00:09:12.580 disciples. Remember how often we find the disciples fighting for glory, how often we find them 00:09:12.580 --> 00:09:18.460 misunderstanding the nature of the kingdom, and even at the point of his arrest, abandoning him, 00:09:18.460 --> 00:09:28.379 and yet he restores them and uses them on his mission. And of course, we see the love of Jesus 00:09:28.379 --> 00:09:37.660 principally and wonderfully in his day as he lays down his life for his friends. Indeed, laying down his 00:09:37.660 --> 00:09:44.340 life to turn enemies of God into friends of God in this ultimate demonstration of self-giving, 00:09:44.340 --> 00:09:53.500 sacrificial love. Jesus shows us what love looks like in a whole new way. And so the true light shines, 00:09:53.600 --> 00:10:00.780 to use John's language, it breaks through the darkness, it reveals the beauty of perfect love. 00:10:02.860 --> 00:10:10.639 But look again at verse 8. He says, yeah, I am writing you a new command. Its truth is seen in him. And we 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:18.379 recognize that. We can understand that. But then he says, its truth is seen in you. Its truth is seen 00:10:18.379 --> 00:10:30.379 in the church. How can that be? Well, in love, as Jesus laid down his life, as he gave his body to be 00:10:30.379 --> 00:10:38.100 broken, his blood to be shed, he told his disciples he was establishing the new covenant. And the wonderful 00:10:38.100 --> 00:10:43.620 anticipation about the new covenant that we find in the Old Testament is that then the law would be 00:10:43.620 --> 00:10:51.879 written on the hearts of God's people. And that law is a law of love. So now the law of love is written 00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:59.379 in our hearts. And Jesus said, well, the new covenant anticipates that the Spirit would come to live in 00:10:59.379 --> 00:11:06.600 believers' hearts. And the Spirit who is God, the Spirit is the Spirit who is love. And so now the Spirit of 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:14.840 love lives in our hearts. And so now as the people of God, we have the power of God, the grace of God to 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:23.800 obey God's command to love. So that we too, in a lesser way, can shine the truth of this command 00:11:23.800 --> 00:11:32.040 to one another and to a watching world. So as Jesus shines the light of his love into our hearts, 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:42.120 it empowers us to both live in the light and to practice love in our Christian family. 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:47.939 Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I hope it sounds wonderful. What does it look like? What does this 00:11:47.939 --> 00:11:53.599 kind of community look like? A gospel community? When we talk about gospel community, we're imagining 00:11:53.599 --> 00:12:00.860 a church that's shaped by God's love for us in Jesus. People have been transformed by the person and 00:12:00.860 --> 00:12:07.100 the work of the Lord Jesus. I think we understand that it means much more than spending one, maybe two 00:12:07.100 --> 00:12:14.259 hours together on a Sunday. It involves committing to sharing life together. It involves, as Bob was 00:12:14.259 --> 00:12:21.500 praying, suffering together and rejoicing together. It's us committing to die to self together, 00:12:22.539 --> 00:12:30.639 to die to sin together, a commitment to be a worshiping community growing together in faith. 00:12:30.860 --> 00:12:37.940 Maybe my last plug for this little book, I just realized I've always misspelled his name, Caleb 00:12:37.940 --> 00:12:43.740 Batchelor, Visible Grace. Lots of copies still up there. He has in his last little chapter some 00:12:43.740 --> 00:12:52.220 practical expressions of how do we make the fact that Jesus has shown us that we've received grace 00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:58.139 from the Lord Jesus. How does that work itself out practically? He suggests that we would be a group 00:12:58.139 --> 00:13:03.179 of people who would pray for one another, and when we pray for someone, we can let them know to encourage 00:13:03.179 --> 00:13:12.399 them. We can make room in our lives for one another, find those margins, or you'll find those natural 00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:19.460 times when we can welcome others in, sharing meals, going for a walk, doing the shopping, that we can share 00:13:19.460 --> 00:13:26.340 God's Word with one another. We can talk to one another about how God's Word is speaking to us. 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:32.280 We can text and we can message one another to encourage each other with the realities of God's 00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:40.320 Word. We can be creative and looking to find ways to express love for one another because Jesus has first 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:47.000 loved us. So that's the first thing I want us to see, that we obey God's command to love one another. 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:53.220 The second thing is this, and it's from verses 9 to 11, we're called to walk in the light of Christ's 00:13:53.220 --> 00:14:00.580 love, which too means we love one another. Before we get to our text, just to think about 00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:07.259 coal mining for a moment. Think about coal mining in Midlothian, where this was spread all through the 00:14:07.259 --> 00:14:13.179 UK, north of England, and Wales, actually in France and the States as well. There was a period in the 00:14:13.179 --> 00:14:18.939 coal mining industry when both women and children were employed in some of the most dangerous work 00:14:18.939 --> 00:14:26.879 down the mine shafts until Lord Shaftesbury in the UK stepped in and made that illegal. And very quickly 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:33.659 after women and children were taken out of the workforce, pit ponies were introduced. So these 00:14:33.659 --> 00:14:41.139 hard-working beasts that could maybe for 15 or 20 years largely live and work underground. But the thing 00:14:41.139 --> 00:14:48.659 with these pit ponies, because they spent so much time living in the dark, they actually lost their 00:14:48.659 --> 00:14:59.340 ability to see. When you think about the warning that we have from John in verses 9 to 11, 00:15:00.779 --> 00:15:08.720 he's talking to those who would claim to be in the light, but not really living in the light. 00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:14.899 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 00:15:16.660 --> 00:15:22.080 Somebody who says, I'm very religious, but they're not very righteous, is to be in the spiritual 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:30.120 darkness. Verse 11, anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:36.720 darkness. They do not know where they're going because the darkness has blinded them. There's like 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:43.980 that process if we're not seeing and living in the light of God's love for us in Jesus. We lose the 00:15:43.980 --> 00:15:54.960 ability to see that light. We're in this danger zone of stumbling into hidden dangers and temptations. 00:15:56.259 --> 00:16:03.480 John puts it in very stark terms. We're in danger of instead of loving, turning to hate. 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:13.840 To be indifferent towards others. He says that's possible even while we're claiming my doctrine is 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:24.259 pure. So, he'd have us to examine ourselves. It's really easy to talk the talk, but can we 00:16:24.259 --> 00:16:32.639 walk the walk? So, John deliberately uses these strong contrasts. You're either in the light or you're in 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:38.399 the darkness. You're either practicing love or practicing hate, and that's related to the character 00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:47.039 of God. There is no mixing in God. God is holy. God is light. God is holy love. And so, to be God's 00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:55.399 people is to be pursuing a life in the light, which is a life of love. And John makes plain in verse 10, 00:16:55.399 --> 00:17:02.220 anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light. And there is nothing in them to make 00:17:02.220 --> 00:17:07.539 them stumble. To live in the light, not just claiming to live in the light, there will be 00:17:07.539 --> 00:17:13.220 evidence of that. We will be showing love to our brother and our sister in Christ. 00:17:15.220 --> 00:17:24.779 So, he says this living in the light, pursuing the light, is so helpful for us growing in love. 00:17:25.980 --> 00:17:30.940 We're getting to that point where I imagine I am not the only one who's counting down to October 00:17:30.940 --> 00:17:37.820 holidays. Now, perhaps some of us are going away to find some sunshine and some warmth. October's 00:17:37.820 --> 00:17:41.580 about that time where we start thinking, oh, if only we could bathe in some winter sun. 00:17:43.019 --> 00:17:50.440 John's message is that Christians should be those who are eager to bathe in the sunshine of God's love 00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:59.600 for us in Jesus. And as we do so, we will find our hearts being warmed so that we have love for one 00:17:59.600 --> 00:18:05.940 another. And it's only as we're living in the light of God's love for us that we will be enabled to 00:18:05.940 --> 00:18:10.059 reflect that love for us to reflect that love to one another when things get hard, when people are 00:18:10.059 --> 00:18:20.400 awkward or challenging. Two things that we can see are true. One, we need the light of Christ to see 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:29.980 clearly. By which I mean we need to learn to see our brothers and sisters in the church as Christ Jesus 00:18:29.980 --> 00:18:40.360 sees them. It's very natural for us to reach snap judgments. But what we need is to have our minds 00:18:40.360 --> 00:18:48.180 and our hearts trained by God's Word so that we would see one another the way Jesus does, 00:18:48.180 --> 00:18:56.400 and that we would be on the lookout for grace at work that we could celebrate. So think about what 00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:07.019 John has already told us about a fellow believer. In chapter 1 and verse 3, a brother or sister in 00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:14.180 Christ is someone who shares fellowship with God the Father, with God the Son, with God the Holy Spirit. 00:19:14.180 --> 00:19:25.880 Chapter 2, verse 2, a fellow believer is someone whom God has loved so much to send Christ Jesus to die to 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:37.940 cleanse them from sin. Chapter 2, verse 1, that brother or sister has Christ in heaven representing them, 00:19:37.940 --> 00:19:45.420 praying for them, praying for them, speaking to God for them, saying, I have paid for their sins in 00:19:45.420 --> 00:19:54.420 full. And the wonderful thing that we're also reminded is that when we are in Christ, we have fellowship 00:19:54.420 --> 00:20:00.940 with God, and we have fellowship with one another. And that's not something that's just true for the 00:20:00.940 --> 00:20:07.259 hour that we spend together. That's true for all of life, and that's true for eternity. 00:20:07.940 --> 00:20:14.559 And the wonderful thing about eternity is the glorious hope that there will be no sin, there'll be 00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:24.299 nothing coming between us. But until then, do we have that spiritual eyesight where we are seeing one 00:20:24.299 --> 00:20:31.740 another through the lenses of the gospel? It's really easy, I think, to find reasons to grumble, 00:20:31.740 --> 00:20:39.900 but we need to be looking for reasons to celebrate God's grace. So we need the light of Christ to see 00:20:39.900 --> 00:20:48.019 clearly. We also need the love of Christ if we are to love deeply. Because I think when we begin to 00:20:48.019 --> 00:20:55.259 struggle to practice love for one another, and I say practice because it's an active thing, 00:20:55.259 --> 00:21:02.500 that sometimes we struggle because we lose sight of just how much God has loved us. 00:21:03.259 --> 00:21:09.519 And so we always need to keep in view God's love for us in the gospel to let that transform us. 00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:17.000 And when we think about how God has loved us in the gospel, He has loved us so much that He has given us 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:24.660 spiritual life when we were spiritually dead. He has forgiven us from all our sin when we deserve 00:21:24.660 --> 00:21:31.839 eternal condemnation. We have received eternal life, which is knowing life with God and with Jesus, 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:39.660 His Son. He has written the law of love in our hearts, and He has displayed perfect love for us in 00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:48.460 the Lord Jesus. He has given us His Spirit, and the Spirit is at work in us to show us in His Word, 00:21:48.840 --> 00:21:56.420 the glory of Jesus. And He is working on our character to make us more and more like Him. 00:21:56.420 --> 00:22:09.420 To be a follower of Jesus is to be beloved of God. And when God the Father looks at us, 00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:18.800 He loves us as much as He loves His Son. And we need the fuel of that love to set the fire of our love 00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:28.839 burning for one another. Because John recognizes that the church must practice what she preaches. 00:22:29.440 --> 00:22:39.879 If we are to be faithful in our calling, then we must show love for God and His truth and love for one 00:22:39.879 --> 00:22:46.299 another. To go back to Francis Schaeffer for a moment, he continued in that article to say we must 00:22:46.299 --> 00:22:55.339 practice the content, practice the truth we say we believe, demonstrating to our own children 00:22:55.339 --> 00:23:04.899 and to the watching world that we take the truth seriously. And ultimately, that's the answer, isn't it, 00:23:04.919 --> 00:23:11.500 to the church's credibility problem. If we were to have this powerful combination of gospel truth and 00:23:11.500 --> 00:23:16.880 gospel community. And this would truly be a wonderful legacy that we would hand down to our children 00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:22.359 here in our local church. And what a witness and testimony, what a light that would shine 00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:30.779 into our dark world, which is known so often for division and hate. Increasingly, it's vengeance and 00:23:30.779 --> 00:23:36.500 not forgiveness that we see. Where people are living in loneliness and without community. 00:23:36.500 --> 00:23:45.299 What an opportunity that we have to make a difference. So as we close, how can we do it? 00:23:46.319 --> 00:23:54.240 How can we love each other as Christ has loved us? Because I think we recognize that John is giving the 00:23:54.240 --> 00:24:02.200 church here a high calling, isn't he? He's calling us to a quality of life, a quality of love that transforms 00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:09.360 a Christian community together to become more in the image of Christ, where we are each for the other, 00:24:09.480 --> 00:24:16.720 wanting to demonstrate love, and to live in such a way together that it would make Christ seem both 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:23.500 beautiful and compelling to the people outside our walls, who perhaps are apathetic, indifferent, 00:24:23.500 --> 00:24:30.420 or utterly ignorant of Jesus and what Christians believe. It's a high calling. 00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:39.299 Perhaps sometimes we feel the weight of that. We sense our own weakness. We sense our own failures. 00:24:39.600 --> 00:24:47.380 And our stories, I am sure, when we look back, there are times where we would confess hypocrisy and 00:24:47.380 --> 00:24:55.620 failure and indifference. We battle with sin in our hearts, and it pulls us back into that darkness 00:24:55.619 --> 00:25:03.239 and blindness. It pulls us towards hate and indifference instead of to love, to words that hurt 00:25:03.239 --> 00:25:09.979 instead of healing, where it's very easy for us to disconnect our doctrine from practically doing good 00:25:09.979 --> 00:25:16.639 to one another, to search out failings rather than put our faith into action. So what's the answer? 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:33.200 Well, John tells us, doesn't he? We must live in the light, the light of Christ's perfect love. 00:25:33.980 --> 00:25:42.680 He is the true light that shone in the darkness, showing us grace for the undeserving, for the unlovely, 00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:50.180 for the enemy of God, showing us His redeeming love as there on the cross He broke the power of sin, 00:25:50.460 --> 00:25:58.480 as He secured forgiveness by giving Himself as a ransom. He showed us reconciling love, 00:25:58.940 --> 00:26:05.180 bringing us into fellowship with the God of love, giving us peace with God, 00:26:05.180 --> 00:26:14.380 giving us restoring love, as the gospel is the power that breaks down the walls of division, 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:21.279 and instead creating communities of genuine love. It's the more that we walk in the light, 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:30.100 that we will have the light to practice this life of love, speaking and acting with love towards our 00:26:30.099 --> 00:26:37.119 fellow believers, willing to sacrifice, willing to go the extra mile, because we've learned how to see 00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:46.740 one another, to recognize that we are blood-bought children of God, making Christ seem beautiful and 00:26:46.740 --> 00:26:56.139 good and true and vital to one another and to the watching world as we pursue real fellowship, 00:26:56.140 --> 00:27:04.280 as we seek to build gospel community, as we seek to practice the one another's, and as we pray that God 00:27:04.280 --> 00:27:11.680 would once again, through the church, through the love of the church, turn this world upside down. 00:27:12.560 --> 00:27:21.820 Let's pray towards that end. Our Father in heaven, we once again give you thanks for the perfect love 00:27:21.819 --> 00:27:23.299 of the love of the Lord Jesus.