23andWE: A NEW COMMAND

So is everybody good today? Cool. Six people are doing all right. You're right.

That is better than none. We just need to figure out how we help the rest of these people feel a little better and get excited for Sunday. I do get it though. When I say I understand, I understand.

But we got time today, right? Is anybody on time schedule? I know. It ain't like the Steelers are playing, so we ain't got to rush them.

I'm sorry. Sorry for you, Steelers fans. So I got a question. It's been a minute since I get to talk to you guys.

And we're about two weeks into a new year. So who's still holding up their new year's resolution? Diet. You're going to start changing it up this year doing new things?

Anybody? Did anyone do them this year? There we go. You didn't have one?

Then you're holding up good then. That might be the way to do it. Just not make them no more. Try not to lie to yourself.

That's pretty good. That's a different one. So I started one, and you guys are going to laugh. And I'm super far into it.

I started reading more. So I got to tell you a funny story. So my wife, as we're getting to know each other, my beautiful wife, sitting up here, we're trying to figure out everything about one another. And she's like, what do you like to do?

I'm like, what do you like to do? She's like, I love to read. I'm like, me too. I was like, but the classic I like long walks on the beach.

I like, but I'm like, I love to read. And she's a guy who's your favorite author? I'm like, there's like 40 different ones. I mean, I did a lot to.

I read the Bible, right? There's a bunch of different authors in there. But no, so I started to be more intentional this year about reading. My whole family reads.

They set their phones down. They read for a while. Yes, I did. Got me a card.

You can try. I've got some books, but I am 14 pages into this book. I am proud of myself. You know why?

Because that's further now. I've ever been in any other book outside the Bible. So I'm still doing good, right? No, it's going to be a good day.

I'm excited to be here with you guys. So we're back into the series, 23 and We. Thank you, Big Cat. My man's learning up there.

He's helping us out. Give him a hand. He's doing good. But we're back in the series.

And today we're going to talk about a new command. I always try to share a little bit about what's going on in my life to try to make it real with you guys. So go to the next slide, Big Cat. So this is a tree house, y'all.

And it may not look like it. Well, maybe it does. I don't know what kind of tree houses you built when you were kids. But this was a tree house.

So me and my wife have been making time to get away to spend with one another. And yeah, we get there and she's, and I did not dress for the occasion. I have white shoes on. I'm like, this guy's like showing us all this stuff.

I'm like trying to walk down this dirt road to get to this cabin that she is afraid of heights. So I don't know why she even picked this. But uh, but yeah. So it was super cool.

It was, uh, it was new. It was different. But what I, what it made me think of to talk about this was we were getting ready to leave the house. So I don't know about you guys or if you know much about us, but we have a big family, right?

I feel like I bought a zoo. We have 17 dogs. We got 30 kids. We got it.

It's just crazy. It's all over the place. But no, we're, so we're going to take this time to, we're going to go away and spend the night. So, you know, the kids are, it's go time, right?

So we're getting ready to leave. And you know, when mama bear kicks in and she's like, listen, we're going to do something new. We're going to start, I'm going to lay down a new role, which it really isn't new. She's been teaching and saying this forever and we do this all the time, but it's, it's more serious now because we are going away and we're not going to be there.

So it's time for you to kick in all this stuff that we've been teaching and learning. So, you know, don't obviously with, with our kids. It's like do not touch the oven. We're trying.

We're getting there, but it's microwave dinners. It's, we're still working on it. But no, it's your, it's your average. Don't do this.

Don't do that. And most of all, what's the one thing that if you got kids and you're not going to be around, what's the one thing you tell them? What? Oh, yeah, don't answer the door for no one.

That's a, that's a given, but be nice to each other, right? Oh, and you can tell and siblings that you got a dog that I swear we picked up from hell itself. It's a puppy. Yeah, it's just a little crazy, but, but you do, right?

You're like, this is important. You older, you need to take care of the younger and fighting is never good, especially when there's not a parent around or any of those things. So, it made me think of that because the seriousness to what we're going to talk about today is that we as believers, as the church, we need to start taking these things that we're learning and elevating them, going to the next level with this. And you guys have heard this, a new command.

I do want to, I want to bring some context a little bit just about what's going on in the chapter, but my main two verses that we're going to talk about today is going to be John chapter 13. So if you have your Bibles or your phones, go ahead. I'll give you a second to get there. If you don't have your Bibles, don't worry.

Something will be up on the screen that you can follow along with. But John chapter 13, 34 and 35 is going to be our main verses, but we're going to get there because I want to kind of lay this out and give a new look to what's going on. There is so much packed in to what we're going to talk about guys, but I'm strictly focused on today the commandment that's given. And to really, really focus in on that, you can go back and study the rest of John chapter 13 and probably stay there for months.

It's super good. But go ahead to the next slide. So what's happening starting off in this chapter is Jesus is washing his disciples feet. We'll just read a couple verses here, starting verse 3.

Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. It sounds like my wife. When she like we're leaving the house, she's like we're not staying long. I came from my bed and I'm returning back to my bed.

So he got off from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples feet, drying them with a towel he had around him. So again, I'm not going to spend too much time on what's going on here, but there's so much in this, just a couple of key things that, you know, back then at this time, your feet were the dirtiest things because the streets were mud, there was animal, feces everywhere, there was trash, all kinds of stuff. And then when you went into someone's place of residence or wherever to sit down for a meal, you're at a lower level.

So where you're sitting, your feet are exposed. So you don't want nothing funky on your feet. You want to make sure your toenails aren't curling up over. You know what I mean?

You took care of your feet. This was important. Don't look at me, though. But this was important.

Again, and there's so much significance to the Washington of the feet and I really encourage you to study this more. I'm just trying to tell you what's leading up to some of the things that are about to happen. Go to the next slide, please. So in this, Jesus is displaying humility and is servanthood.

Guys, I believe in this new year for us as a church to go further and to be able to reach more and to really show the love of Christ. We as individuals need to work on our humility. So guys laying on my heart because that is a big part of us being able to really express and we'll get more into all of it. But humility is a thing that we need to work on.

This is what Jesus is examining. He's examining humility. He's shown his servanthood. Like I was just explaining.

This was the lowest of things that you could do as a servant is wash somebody else's feet. What else I want to do real quick to keep a perspective here? You got to think we are reading this thousands of years later. At this time, this is super real to them.

They're unsure what's going on. We can read it now with a little more understanding, but they have no idea at this point really what's about to happen. So there's so much into this to take away from this when we study this, but Jesus was in their feet. They should have been washing his feet in reality.

I mean, he's their master. But there wasn't a servant around. It wouldn't have even dawned on them to wash his feet. There's so much into this.

I don't want to stay there. I can stay there for a while. I'm reading this from the message translation today. I hope that doesn't bother you.

If it does, I'll pray for you. And you're always tough crowd today. New year, new attitude, right? Did we forget that one?

So it says, this is what the Son of Man has done. He came to serve, not be served, and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage. The humility expressed by the act with the Tao and Bassen foreshadows his ultimate act of humility and love on the cross. Guys, there's so much, again, there's so much into this.

And I'd like to spend more time, but we got to keep moving. We're the next side of peace. So what we're talking about in this new series is about our DNA as believers, as a church, 23 and we, the body. You know, we're to emulate him.

Serve you one another and loneliness and heart and mind seeking to build one another up in humility and love. So John 13, 12 through 17 is going to touch on this a little bit. Starting verse 12, then he said, do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as teacher and master, and rightly so.

That is what I am. If I, the master and teacher, watch your feet, you must now watch each other's feet. I've laid down a pattern for you. What I've done, you do.

I'm only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master, an employee doesn't give orders to the employer. If you understand what I'm telling you, act like it and live a blessed life. I mean, that's so good, right?

It's simply just saying, if you're understanding this, do it. Like he, Jesus coined Nike, just do it. Like he, you know what I mean? If we grasp these things and we understand what we're reading, what we're doing as believers, then why is there a disconnect in loving others and doing what he called us to do?

And that's what, and that's what this is kind of touching on. It's not meant to step on people's toes. It's meant to, I'd love, express to say, listen, if you're grasping the things that I'm doing and why I'm doing them, you would want to partake in these things as well. Let's go to the next slide.

So then the famous betrayed by Judas, 18 through 20, I'm not including all of you in this. Do you know why he's not including all of them in it? He doesn't have to be trail of Judas, the attitude of his heart. He's leaving out what is not meant to be.

So I know precisely whom I've selected so as not to interfere with the fulfillment of the scripture. The one who ate bread at my table will stab me in the back. I'm telling you all this ahead of time so that when it happens, you will believe that I am who I say that I am. Make sure you get this right.

Receiving someone I send is the same as receiving me. Just as receiving me is the same as receiving the one who sent me. So I don't know if you guys are picking up a pattern here or what's going on, but it's a constant. It's a constant passing down and passing out, passing down and passing out.

It's trying to lead us up to what we're about to talk about. So keep going. And this is just in context of what's going on in chapter 13 leading up to where we're going to be at. So next slide.

The next part of this is where we're going to spend most of our time today. A new commandment. So this new commandment, 34 and 35, let me give you a new command. Love one another in the same way I loved you.

You love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples when they see the love you have for each other. This is what I love about this message translation. It's so simple.

It's so simple to understand. Like Fred was saying the other week, if you're struggling to read the word to retain it, to understand it, do whatever you have to do. He will meet you and he will start to open your eyes up. But this makes it so simple for me to just be like, oh, wow, this is how easy it is.

So let's go. We're talking about in this series new, we're going to the word new, which is. Canoss. If I said that wrong, I have some back checkers here.

Phil's on his phone right now. I see his little fingers going. If I don't know if you guys can see it, but it respects form. Freshly made, fresh, recent, unused, unworn, as respect, substance of a new kind.

Unpresident, uncommon, unheard of. And then the other one that I want to focus on is love. And I'm not going to try to say this. I was listed like 30 times with that person.

Go ahead. Did y'all hear that? Agapaho. Yeah, I don't see it.

It's a no-go for me. But a person's to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly of things, to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing. So in that new, the word new, a new commandment, how many of us know that that's not so new? This isn't something that we've never heard before or we haven't seen before.

This is what I like to call it. It's a refresher, right? Like there needs to be a new look to this. What I believe in for our church in 2023, and as we're doing this, is that we're going to understand love in a new way that's going to go to next level, loving, right?

And that's what we're hoping for. Because if you go to the next slide, the most important command, Matthew, I chose to use Matthew here, Matthew 22, 37 through 40, it says, Jesus said, love the Lord, because they asked, what's the most important commandment? And he says, love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence. This is the most important, the first of any list, but there is a second to send alongside of it.

Love others as well as you love yourself. These two commands are pegs, everything in God's law and the prophets hang from them. So this isn't new, guys. This is not completely new to us.

What he's saying here is, I want to refresh this in your minds that this new command that I'm letting you know of, because something big is about to happen, right? What's taking place right now? Do we know? He's about to get arrested.

He's about to get beaten. He's about to be complete. The game is about to change completely. That they knew and the physical was about to completely change and they were going to be left to carry this thing out with hopefully the heart and understanding of everything that they have been taught or had been learning this whole time.

So it's really about to change. Again, when we think about where they're at in this situation, we sit here and read it now. We know the beginning and the end, so we look at it different, but when we look at this, we miss the urgency of understanding how important these things really are. So this is not, again, this is not, go to the next slide please.

This is not the first time that we're doing this. So he says, I'm going to break this down for you. Let me give you a new command, love one another. And these are just coming up with some of my notes.

Don't get upset. We say, but I don't know if I can say that up here, but yeah, I did. But this is not a suggestion. This is an order.

This is a command. Like this isn't saying, well, if you want to, just start to love each other, all right? And we're going to go into the next slide. We might hurt some feelings or two down, but we'll go into it.

I'm taking some things out of vocabulary this year. That's still working on me in that area. Listen, when things are given to us in the Bible, which is truth, which we understand that and we're to apply it to our lives, because when we apply it, then it helps transform us. And as we're transforming and we're growing as people, like if you don't want to grow, you're going to stay stuck in the excuses of, well, God's still working on me in this area.

I'm like, you're saying what you're telling me is the one that created you to begin with is struggling how to change you into the person he created you to be. He knew how he wanted you to be. He's not struggling. You are.

You are choosing to not allow him to do the work in you that's going to transform you. But then he can use you to the fullest so you can reach other people out here. We have to get out of this mindset of, yeah, excuses. I'm not going to say it.

I've already said enough up here, but we know it. Everybody has them. We know the old saying, but you have to be the one to stop resting that, hanging your hat on that and staying stuck where you're at, because there is people out here that love you. There's people out here that want to help you.

Most of all, you've got everything you need in front of you that's going to help you get through the things that you're struggling with and dealing with. Why people are supporting you? So the last point that I put down there for that one is it requires a result, guys. When he's saying this, like, like I said, it's not a suggestion.

You must do this and it must produce results. I'm leaving. I love when Evie gets into it with the girls. She's like, listen, I don't know what else to do to help you.

Like, what if something happens to me in your stuff? She's laughing. I'm sorry, but it's not me. It's the Holy Spirit.

It's just popping things up into it. I'm just kidding. But the seriousness of this is that I'm not going to be here to hold your hand. Yes, I'm sending you an advocate.

I'm not talking about none of that, but I'm saying you still have to be the one willing to grab a hold and start putting one foot in front of the other and step in and walking through this because guess what? You don't grow by doing this. I don't know. I'm not ready yet.

You don't do that by how you get there. It's another like, and I don't even care if, listen, because this state is, it's, it's, it's weekend. I don't know if I fall through. No, but you put one foot in front of another.

You keep going and that's how you get strengthened to grow to get through to build up. So the first part of this is that. Let me give you a new command. Let me tell you, give you a refresher of what this should look like going forward and how things should be.

So number two, standard. Because I feel like I get this a lot too, as we're going through this, it's like, well, how, how are we supposed to do that? We have been given a standard, y'all. In the same way I loved you.

That's the standard. We love others the way that he loved us. It's not that hard to figure out when you think about it. We're searching.

That's what's happening. We're searching for what matches and meets our agenda and what makes us comfortable. That's the problem. We're trying to follow our standard.

And guess what? Our standard didn't save anybody. I love all y'all. Please don't be upset with me, but it was his blood.

It was his way. He's the only way to get to the father. Ain't, ain't, ain't, ain't through none of us and ain't through anything that we can do. It's what he already did.

So we have a standard. So first John 3 16, I love this verse, says, this is how we've come to understand and experience love. Christ sacrifices life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers.

Can y'all read that? Is that big enough up there? And not just be out for ourselves. Ooh, wee.

I know, right? It's getting like a, you know, like getting a little spiritual workout or something up in here. That's tough. But listen guys, what I'm trying to really get across is we have to start looking at this.

Stop confusing ourselves with how do I do this? What does this look like? Where do I start? And start reading the scripture that has been set out in design to walk you through how to do what he's called you to.

It ain't that hard. Now, the other end of that is we don't need that easy either. People were tough, but I guarantee you you were tough to other people as well. We don't have any excuses.

When I read this and guys, this is me, this is my notes. When I read this, that's what I read. I've started to remove things out of my life and not make them options. When that's not an option, then I don't waste no time, energy, anything on that.

And I leave it out. And then that way it has nothing to do with me. I don't spend no time on it. Okay, no mind to it.

And I can move forward and push forward to the things that I need to. When you leave something as an option, I promise you, eventually you're going to take that option. I don't know what it is, but eventually somewhere at some point in time, if you leave that as an option, you will pick that up and take it. So we have to stop making excuses and leave options that aren't going to improve.

Our situation, go to the kingdom, any of that. Go to the next slide, please. Action. Ooh, action, Jackson.

We love, or you love one another. What does that say to you? He tells us, we have a fresh command. Once you want you to focus on this, I've showed you the standard.

So there's no excuses of why you should or shouldn't or can't or whatever. You now have an action to do with this. That means an action is I have to take a step in and I have to start doing these things. What this isn't saying, this does not say you do you, by the way, love other people if it fits in your agenda.

It benefits you if they do something for you. If they are doing everything they are supposed to be doing, I'll say that one again. If they are doing everything they are supposed to be doing, if they stop being negative, if they stop lying all the time, my wife, God had to really work on me with that one. All these white lies about what's in the fridge or what do we have?

If they stop starting drama and if they start to help themselves, guys, every single one of us in here at some point has said these things have used this mindset, this heart that doesn't align up with what our God and what the Word and what he tells us to do. I get that it's challenging. I'm not taking away that things aren't challenging. I hope you don't hear that.

What I am saying is that if you're standing here and you want to grow, if you want to receive the Word and you want to obey and walk it out and see growth and maturity happen in your life and in our church as a body, then these things aren't an option to just do whenever you feel like it because you can't do some of them and not the others. It doesn't say that either. It doesn't say pick and choose what you want to do. It says you love and why we love is because he loved us.

I don't care what happens or who you meet or what some individual does to you every time you see them. If you are changing your relationship and how you treat that individual based off of what they do, you are missing it and you know what you're doing. You're only hurting yourself. You're only putting a wall.

You're only surrounding yourself up. You are doing nothing for yourself or the kingdom or the people around you if you are just loving them at whatever love they give back to you. Guys, listen, I know the world right now is so big on doing you and telling you that I don't pay no mind to them or whatever. But if something is on your heart and God's leading you to do something and if we could just get to a place that whether I stand right here and he has no hair which is head is super shiny right now or he has a bunch of hair, if we if we can look down these lines and just see beating hearts, not look at what clothes they have on what shoes they have on, none of that stuff and we can just look and say he died for them too.

Like that's when our heart and when we're going to see the growth and maturity in our church to want to help serve and love one another because that's what this is about. This isn't about anything else but this. This is and this is why this is so important. He's he's leaving.

He saves us for last because I want you guys to remember to understand this. This is it. You have to do it now. If you don't do it now, well they say if you don't do it in your own home, you ain't doing it out there.

If we don't start loving in our own church, we ain't going to love on the streets. Everybody wants to save the streets and wants to do all this stuff and but we got to start loving right here where we're at if we want to make an impact anywhere but there's people in our church right now that are hurting. There's people that need love. There's people that just need an ear to listen.

Some of y'all like to talk. I'm one of them. I love to talk. But sometimes people just need to listen.

They don't want to hear about you and what's going on in your life all the time. They want you to sit down, just sit there and be like, I understand, I get it. And that does so much more than us always going around trying to tell them we got to get to tell your shoes and you got to change your pants and stuff and you got to if you stopped on that and we can start doing this. Now that's not what I read in my word and how we're supposed to love other people.

And then you wonder why there's a distorted view in your life of how to receive love because it's how you're giving it and how you're taking it in. So go well. Yeah, this one's good. There's a reason right?

Because I know everyone's out there like, I know people, I am too. There's things that I do that I'm like, I got there has to be an ex like, just let me know why I'm doing this and I'm good. I don't care what it is but I have to know why I'm doing it. Because people I think we just we have to.

But 35, this is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples when they see the love you have for each other. To read that again. 35, this is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples when they see the love you have for each other. This is the big picture here.

This is spreading the good news. When we love one another, that's how all of this that's how he gets seen on our earth. Let's be real in today's church and just online in this world in general, whatever, it looks crazy. And I hate to tell y'all, but we're the reasons that it looks crazy.

Because we are just we are sending out a distorted message that's confusing that doesn't line up with our Bible of the word of truth of what it speaks. And that's why we are not making any ground on getting helping people get set free and walking in freedom and touching other lives because we are confused on what we are to do. And that is to love each other. We have to receive.

We have to receive. Can you bring that up here? I don't know why I thought about this, but I know some people are like visual learners. I'm a visual learner and I'm sorry if I make a mess.

I won't do it near your stuff. So I was just thinking about this. So a part of our struggle is we need to start taking the time for ourselves to take the time for ourselves to start reading our word, understanding more about what our call is and what everything is meant to do. Because in our confusions where it leads to mass confusion, I have to first receive the love.

I have to first understand what was done for me. And I love people. I know a lot of other people love people. I can tell you honestly for a time in my life I tried to love enough to feel loved back.

You can't that doesn't work. If you don't if you don't start to learn to receive love and what was done for you, you're given what? Nothing. You're not doing anything to really help.

When you can start to receive love and be filled up and it changes you to where you now are able to go and love somebody else and they can start to receive it, you can carry that. Do we understand that if we don't receive ourselves, we can't give. We can't give nothing. We have to grasp what he did for us.

We have to grasp the teachings that he was telling us. This really kicks into a teaching of what's going on. It's getting in there and it's getting really good and it's important. But if we don't start understanding church, that love is what's going on.

It's going to play that song, what's love got to do with it. It has everything to do with it. It's the only thing that matters in my opinion of what I'm understanding. Yes, there's a lot of other things.

If I miss love, I'm not living. We're not really living, walking around free if we're missing the love and understanding what was done for us. Go to the next slide. Oh, there is one.

Go to the next slide, please. First John 419, the message translation. We though are going to love. I love how this book says.

Love and be love. First, we were love. Now we love. He loved us first.

Guys, it's time for our church to start loving on a new level. It's time for us to get whatever definition of love you have, whatever it is. This time we start opening up because the command that was giving then is the same one that we have now. We have to start loving at an elevated level.

We got to start loving differently. People are hurting. People need love. People don't need to.

We need to see it and receive it. That's how we're going to know to go and give it. I want to end with a little story that this is how God works. It's so cool.

I got a call that was directed towards me yesterday and I'm not going to mention any names. It was super powerful and a gentleman reached out and he said, I am sitting with a man. He's struggling. He's on his way to end everything.

He's got questions now though. I'm like, what can I talk to him? This man gets on the phone. I'm lost.

He's like, I don't understand it. I'm lost. He's like, I have a job. I make good money.

He's like, I go to work. All this stuff. But for some reason, last night, all this stuff hit me. My parents passed in.

I'm just overwhelmed and emotional and I can't control it. I went and got drunk and I'm walking up the street and now I'm sitting this man's car. This older gentleman, just a nice man that said he used to have a Christian coffee shop and all this. He was driving by and saw this man laying on the ground and stopped to help him.

What's so wild about all this is this guy is completely like, he's on his way to end everything. I was sitting in this car with this man and the question that he had, he's like, I have questions. I did this man, leave me or pick me up and I had $900 blown around on the street and he didn't care about a dollar, but he picked me up and put me in his car and said, what can I do to help you? Guys, that gives me chills that this man is sitting here.

He's lost. He's reaching out for help. And thank God, I told him, you know what's awesome about all of this? That sir, there is people in this world that just care, that want to love.

He didn't want your money. He just wanted to make sure you were okay. Now this man is wanting to meet. He's got questions.

There's things all because a genuine act of love, like he kept expressing to me over and over and over again. I don't understand why, I don't understand why he picked me up to help me. Why I'm talking with you. Why?

And you don't want nothing like he didn't care about the money or nothing. And it's so perfect for what we're talking about because what God's trying to get us to see is that this love that needs to start coming out of us and being released from the people that are believing and understanding that what he did for us, we want to now share and love others because that's the command that he's given us. There's no shortage of people hurting. Guess what?

There's a shortage of people understanding the true message of what this is to walk this thing out to love other people where they're at. That's what we're missing. And man, I just sit there and I'm like, God help me love like this gentleman loved. My schedule gets super busy.

I know I'm not the only one in here that's like, it's been a long day. I've got to do this, I've got to go do this, I've got to do this, I don't have time to do this. But when we're not open to walking around, understanding our first mission here, which is no matter what we do, no matter what you do as a job, no matter where you go on a daily basis, that if you're not opened up for him to work through you and to speak to you, you're missing your full time job. I don't know how else to put that.

Maybe that's not the right way to say it, but if you're not completely open and seen, the hurt isn't hard to notice people. And you guys know that. I know I'm not the only one up here that can look or get feelings and see something and feel some type of way. I know I'm not.

It's whether or not you're really going to focus on understanding what's been done for you and what you can do to send that out for others. Wait, if you want to come up, sorry about my water and stuff. So what I want to do guys is I love when we huddled up and I ain't going to make you all do that because I want anyone to get uncomfortable. I mean, we got to run and strip now.

You can run and take off if you want to. I really want us to start getting to a place. So you can go ahead. I want us to start getting to a place where we can we can really open up.

Listen, you don't you don't get anywhere by closing off and then thinking that something's just going to come in and completely radically change your life if you're not going to be open to. That is the one thing that we have the ability to do is to close and shut down people anything, keep them away. But when we start to be open, because I promise you when you start to humble yourself, you want to talk about seeing God in a new way, people reveal himself to you in such a way that it'll blow your mind. That we have to start getting to this place to love other people.

I don't know how else to say, but we can't go to the next if we don't understand how to love others right now because that's what he told us we are to do. If you learn to want to do that when you receive everything that's been done for you. And I know people are struggling. I'm not trying to make this a healing thing.

I'm not trying to make anybody uncomfortable. We're all in need. What if we just were honest about needing to understand and renew and refresh our minds on what it is to really love? Like I said, we have the answers.

We can play the what ifs and we can continue to do that or we can start reading, coming together, learning how to serve one another. That's what he did. The highest of highs came to serve at the lowest of places. Yeah, it's funny because they were in all this.

They were struggling. Which one of us is the greatest? Everybody? Yeah, what is that?

I'm missing it guys. Without being great, he's the one that's great. If it wasn't for him, none of us will be standing there sitting here today. Thank God for his grace and his mercy and his love and what he did for us.

We didn't pay for none of that. It's not our job to hold that. It's our job to receive it and release it. Tell somebody about it.

If you know something, take five minutes out of your day to talk somebody. The people around you, listen, if you can't talk to someone that's sitting in here, I know you ain't going out there. What would happen if you would start taking a few minutes and doing something new in this new year and opening yourself up to where you're going to allow God to start using you that's going to grow you and help you get to a place of walking each day closer to being the way that you were created to be. But it starts with you.

I love you enough to tell you I'm here. I know Phil's here. My wife, Autumn. There's a, I can't name, there's a bunch of people in here.

I can name everybody off that's here. We have so many people that serve in our church and that love other people and do other things behind the scenes. But, guys, listen, all that means nothing. If we don't start to love one another.

If you don't start to do it right now. So, I just want to challenge you guys that if you just want, let's go ahead and bow our heads. If you want a fresh understanding of love, what he's calling you to do, what he's laying on your heart, if you want a fresh touch of what that feels like or say I want more, just slip your hand up. I want to pray for you.

I see your hands. I see your hands. Guys, this is a place that we can come in and we can be real with one another. Pray for one another.

We're doing the things that the word tells us to do because there is a reason. Set it to end it. That's how they will know. Guys, we're going somewhere.

We're going somewhere that's so much better than here. But why we're here, we can start to show that love and help others get to that place together. So, Father, I just thank you right now. Father, I thank you for the opportunity for us to join together to share your word.

I thank you that you're unlocking hearts right now, Father, to take that love to a new level. To start seeing the world and seeing these people like you do, Father. We receive what you've done for us. If there's anyone who hears Father that doesn't know you, as a church I would ask right now that we would just say this together, make it short and sweet, that we thank you for what you did, we understand you sent your son to die for us, and that so we could have life and be made new in you.

And we're so grateful and thankful for that. And we just want to thank you, Father, for what you're going to do in this new year, to what you're going right now. If anyone needs a healing attitude, touch and restore their body right now, Father. And just open our eyes, our ears, our hearts to love on a new level.

It's a level up this year. We thank you, we honor you, we love you, Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.