As a pastor, being a ministry for many years, I'm convinced of one thing, it's this. As a people, most of us know what to do, what the right thing is to do. It's in the doing it where we struggle. We've been around the church all growing up.
Many of you know Bible stories, Bible verses, and we put Bible verses everywhere. Raise your hand. This is a participatory today. Raise your hand.
If you have a Bible verse on a painting, on a wall hanging, or on a pillow somewhere in your house. Raise your hand. See, we're really good at that. We love to put Bible verses on things.
It's just in the actual, many of us could explain the application of the Bible verse. It's in the applying the Bible verse that sometimes things fall a little apart on us. We love the scripture. We put it anywhere.
We put it everywhere. That came to mind this week when I, in a new way, it was reminded of it this week. I was away at District Convention. So we are a Christian missionary line.
It's church that is our denomination. We are part of the Metropolitan District. And there are about 120 churches in the Metropolitan District. And so we had the big CMA, Metropolitan District Church Pastures Convention this week.
Yeah, exactly, right. That's, you know, there was not a lot of chandelier hanging and hats going on. I was not at the convention. But I did meet a guy that is a funny guy.
His name is David Butler. And David Butler is a church planter and David Butler and his wife and Joan and I, when are you going to love this? Or do you remember? Joan and I went away together to church planting school, I don't know, 10, 11 years ago in Arizona.
And we were in Arizona doing what pastors do, right? Being good. And we decided we were going to go out to eat. Now remember, this was some time ago, and we were looking for something kind of casual, casual food to eat.
And there was a strip mall there. And we thought we saw what just appeared to be a Scottish pub. And we said, well, that'll be good. It'll be casual going there.
It turned out it was a restaurant called the Tilt of Kilt. Anybody familiar with the Tilt of Kilt? If you're not, don't look it up because you'll get fired from work. Maybe if you pulled the Tilt of Kilt up because the Tilt of Kilt is kind of hooters on steroids.
It's, you know, next level. I mean, it's, it's, you know, so we went in and we're sitting around going, wow, you know. Anybody finds out we're in here, we're probably going to get fired. But, you know, we got to live.
And so we didn't know, right? And we're sitting there. And so anyway, I long search for many of you know that we're in this series called Love Does. And so kind of the verse that we're camping out on to try to work through what Love does is how Paul described it in 1 Corinthians 13.
And so when I met David Butler, we hadn't seen each other a couple of years and he's cracking up and he's going, and I know you remember how he went until the Kilt, he goes, do you remember the girl that was our waitress? You had 1 Corinthians 13 tattooed on her inner thigh, which I forgot about until he mentioned. We'll put scriptures anywhere, right? It's just in the actual doing of the scriptures where we struggle a little bit.
I'd seen the pictures of bumper stickers. That was a new one for me. We are, we're deep in this series now and in the last couple of weeks I've been trying to go through what Paul says in that verse, which essentially is teaching us how to be better lovers. Now, I want to back up to go forward.
Jesus, he's why we're here. Jesus comes into this world, our world, to fulfill what we refer to now as an old covenant, an old relational pattern, an older promise from God that was made to the nation of Israel. And he institutes, Jesus comes and he goes, I'm fulfilling that. And now I'm going to start something brand new, different, not the same, don't mix them.
This one is done. This is how we're going to go forward. It is a new covenant, a new promise between God, not in a nation, but between God and every human being that would ever live. Now, you're familiar with the old covenant.
The promise, most of the time, as Christians, we take a little bit of the new and we apply it to the old because we were growing up mostly, we were taught old covenant theology. And so we try to apply Jesus to it and we get very confused. The old covenant, which underlies the Old Testament in your Bible, was this. It was a promise between God and a nation he was creating called Israel.
And the covenant, the promise was Israel, if you follow my commands, which began with the first 10 commandments, but then over time became 600 plus of them, if you'll follow these, you're going to be blessed as a people and you'll prosper. But if you don't, you're going, you're going to be cursed. And the way to make yourself right before God, to cover the transgressions that you would make of these laws was this complex system of ceremonial sacrifice, mostly involving animal sacrifice and had to be done in the temple in Jerusalem because that's where God's presence was most manifest. Now Jesus arrives on the scene and he says, this is, this is, nobody teaches this a lot.
He says that's done with. Don't relate to God that way anymore. I have fulfilled that covenant. I am going, I am starting something brand new.
Jesus would teach, I am the final sacrifice. You don't need to sacrifice for God anymore. He is not asking that of you. Jesus has fulfilled it.
He is the final sacrifice for all human transgression. And he's created a new way for you to be right before God. You do not get right before God by following rules. You get right before God by having faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
And Jesus would claim that supernaturally, okay, we cannot be afraid to say that our faith is a supernatural faith, supernaturally through that faith in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. You will be reconnected to the power and life source of God. He will begin to dwell no longer in a temple, but with you and in you and when that happens, you will be empowered to live in abundance and peace like was never available. And this is an amazing promise.
Jesus goes, don't worry about the 600 commandments. This new covenant carries with it one. Here's what he said, a new command that I give you. Love one another.
One. Now how do you do that? This is the key. As I've loved you, how do we love one another?
The way he loves us. I've loved you so you must love one another. The way that we treat each other is the way that Jesus treats us. Our love should look like his love.
Now if it does, now imagine a place, right? There's close to 500 people here every Sunday morning. Imagine 500 people dropped into Morris County that started to love one another the way Jesus loves us. He says, by this, everyone will know you're my disciple.
Not by how much money you give, not by the bumper sticker on your car, not by the tattoo on your thigh. There's another way. Love one another. Now remember, the old covenant had and still has a lot of fans.
Sometimes we think it's easier, just tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do. Love. No, no, no, that's not. What do you mean really what do you want me to do?
So the old covenant has lots of fans now and have lots of fans back in Jesus' day. You better remember there was a religious institution bent on keeping the old covenant temple model in place, sacred man in sacred places. They find this concept of God leaving the building threatening. I mean, God is out of the temple in these with people.
If the commands go from 600 plus to just one and if they're not written in a sacred scroll in a building with the written on people's hearts, if sacrifices are no longer needed, well what does that mean for the entire priesthood, the entire temple, all of the things that have been built up? And so that's why they kept trying to trick them. The rulers of the day would come, the religious leaders would come and say, well, Jesus, let me ask you a question because they would love to co-mingle some of the old covenant with his new. One came one day and said, teacher, what's the greatest commandment in the law?
And Jesus replied, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself, love, love God, love others, and then he says something crazy. All of the stuff that has come before, all of the religious systems, the temple, the laws, all of the laws and prophets hang on these two things, which was really one.
Love. In fact, the Apostle Paul, Paul himself was a, you might know him as saying Paul if you're from a different religious background, he himself was a big wig in the temple system, a big religious leader, he was a sacred man, and he was bent on keeping the temple model in place. So bent on it that he was actually part of the first murder, the first murder of a Christian, because he was going to snuff this moment out, it was dangerous. God out of the building.
But then he ran into God out of the building. He ran into Jesus on a road one day and Jesus helped Paul understand how radical this new promise was. And Paul began to get, all of the good works I've done, Paul by his own accord, he writes it out in one of his letters. He would tell you, I'm home noticed, nobody more righteous than me.
I'm not checking all the laws. Nobody's better at it than I am. And after he lists all the things that he's done, you know what he goes? You know what they're all worthless.
They're filthy rags. In fact, the language that he uses for all of his good works is so graphic. I can't say it in church. And that's what he's saying.
This is dung. And here's how he would conclude. And the new covenant, he goes, the only thing that counts, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, the only thing that counts. And so therefore he says, follow God's example.
How do you love? You love like he did. As dearly loved children, walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. The only thing that counts is love.
And now go in love like he did. Now back to 1 Corinthians 13. This command to love is not the love that you and I are comfortable with or familiar with or sing about or watch movies about. This love is a verb.
It is not a noun. The Greeks had a lot of words for love. We have one. This love, this command, it's much more specific.
Jesus's command for this new covenant was not about an emotion. It was not something you fall in or out of. It's not something that dims over time. It's not something that fades or grows.
We just grew apart. No, no, no, Jesus says it's different. Love, the Greek word that was here for love was a word agape. Christ loved it.
He commands. It was not something you feel but it's something you do. It's something you choose. It was an action.
This kind of love is self-sacrificing, benevolent, charitable and not dependent on being returned. Paul writes to a church in a town called Corinth. It was a very famous city near Greece. And this was a city that was really good at bumper stickers and tattoos.
They had all of it down but you know what they were missing. Love. They're fighting with each other as we learned last week. People in Corinth are actually believers or taking each other to court.
So outside of the church, taking people to court with the Gentile, the non-believers and having the non-believers settle their arguments. How are people going to have even, we're talking about what the church should be. How are we supposed to love one another? Paul is going, you think they're going to know your believers?
They have to settle your fights for you. After this builds up for a while, he finally comes to this point where he goes, if I speak in the tongues of men or angels, but I don't have love, I'm only resenting gong or clanging symbol. This is written for church folks like you to examine people like me. I talk all the time so you get kind of good at it.
Not very good at it, but you get better at it. If you want to know spiritually where I am, don't look at how good I preach. I mean, go ask people that know me and say, does that guy, does he love you and you feel safe by him with him? Paul goes, look, I have the gift of prophecy and I can find them.
All the mysteries of the world, if I had all the knowledge that you could have, if I have a faith that moves mountains, what do I have, I have nothing? Then he says to the religious guys, look, you gave everything that you had to the poor. If you gave your body over a hardship, maybe that you would be tortured for the causal crisis, you could boast about that, but if you don't have love, you have nothing, it's worthless. So he goes, let me tell you what it is.
What I'm telling you, the command that I have for you is this, you need to be patient and kind. Don't envy, don't boast, don't be proud. Love, agape, it doesn't dishonor others, it's not self-seeking, it's not easily angered, and as we learned last week, it keeps no record of wrongs. Now, two weeks ago, we've got, now we moved into this, what does it mean to love?
I understand it's the new covenant and the new command. What does it mean to love? Well, two weeks ago, and my first class on how to be a better lover, Dr. Weizmann told you about the radical concepts.
I'm actually not a doctor, just in case you were beginning an email about that. We talked about this radical concept that underlies this kind of love, and it was mutual submission. Mutual submission. I'm going to submit to you whatever it is you want.
No, no, I'm going to submit to you whatever it is you want. No, whatever you want. No, whatever you want. I mean, this should be so rich in a community like for us and this should make it hard to get out the door after the service.
No, after you, no, after you, no, after you. No, after you. No, after you. No, after you.
I can't get out of here because these people just keep submitting to one another. Right? I'm more profoundly a professor. It's like I'm going to lay down my life, my hopes, but this is the way Jesus loves, my hopes, my plans, my dreams, my future, so you might live.
Then last week we looked at another concept that love keeps no record of wrongs, and you also learned that I do. And maybe you do too. I hope you do. I hope you don't.
In the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant, when the prophets foretold of what this new covenant would be like, here's what God said. He said, I'm going to forgive their wickedness. He's going to forgive their wickedness. and then he goes on and he says, and I'm gonna remember their sins no more.
Jesus' example of love wasn't merely that he was gonna sacrifice for our sins that they be forgiven. That would be enough. That would be awesome. Somebody totally innocent, paying the price I do.
That would be incredible. But it gets even better because God says, not only am I gonna forgive them of their sins, I'm going to forget them. And it was forgetting of the sins. Listen to me now.
It was the forgetting of the sins that makes the relationship with God possible, renewed, restored, revived. Now this is not, you're commanded to do this. This is not natural. To forget transgressions.
It doesn't just flow. It doesn't always feel right or good or just. Love is patient, love is kind. You know what flow is being impatient and unkind.
I'm good at that. Envy, no problem. Both, I could do it with the best of them. Paul's commanding us to do something that really is only possible as you connect to this life giving source of Jesus through faith.
But when I don't, you know what I have? This may be right here. It's my record of wrongs. You know, I've got them all.
I went through with you last week, right? Cabinet 101, Fodra 1, that's reserved for the person closest to me. Nice, Bous. Now this is empty.
I learned after last week that this needs to be empty. This one is for my kids. All the things I know you would do with them, right? All right, I did this last week.
We pulled Fodra 1 out of here. This is my kids. And this was, as we said last week. I hate you.
I wish I was never born. I can't believe you're saying it. You're not letting me do this. All the other kids' parents let them go.
You know, we have all of those. But this is where I keep all of my records of wrongs. The words, the actions, the slides, the perceived disrespect. They're all just tucked away.
I can pull them out whenever I need. Right? Do you want me to do something? Bothers me?
Do you remember that strong? Remember that strong? Remember what you said? Remember what you did?
I've got it right here. Remember what I told you last week? I've got these files. These are for you guys.
I needed two for it. This is where I keep all the slides that I've felt from. I'm not joking. I'm joking.
You guys. But from others. Right? Now let me show you what happens here.
Over time, over time files of past wrongs do something. Files of past wrongs create filters of past wrongs. Files of wrongs create filters of wrongs. Start up talking.
This is my file of Joan asking me to do something. Now over the years, Joan has asked me to do a lot of things. Nothing relative to what she does for me, mind you. But she'll say, after cooking a full dinner, would you mind putting the dishes away?
After doing my laundry, would you mind folding it? I could go on and on. And I give her the same response every time. I'm going to do that as soon as I get done with this.
Now, if I have a file in my mind that Joan is always pestering me for something, and she simply asks me to pick up after myself, when it runs itself through my filter, what do I come back with? That woman never stops nagging me. Right? Now that's not what's happening.
But that's what I feel. Kid comes home late from curfew. File, all of the things they said, all of the times they haven't, all the ones they've missed, all the things. And all of a sudden, you know what?
It's not that they didn't come home for curfew. It's like this kid doesn't respect me. Has no respect for authority. None.
Does it all the time. I could give you a list on it. These get complex, OK? I mean, you don't know how good we are at this, right?
Go down here. Ladies, how about a relationship, right? And so you meet somebody new. What do you run the new guy through?
The filter of the old guy. So why should I trust you? You're just going to hurt me. I'm just going to look and pick and find what's wrong with you.
Because why would I ever just believe? You don't understand what my past experience is. We have thousands of these things in our lives. And when we have records of wrongs, why we might have forgiven these records, what they keep us from doing is truly loving somebody.
I'm going to remind you of this. Because if we keep records of wrongs, we're never going to be able to do what Paul says. This is the reason I'm going over this. If we keep records of wrongs, which is natural, we will never be able to do the next step in loving.
Something that Paul says love always, always, always, always does. Here's how he put it. Paul continues right after he said, love keeps no record of wrongs. He says love doesn't delight.
Evil. It rejoices with truth. It always protects. It always trusts.
It always hopes. It always perseveres. He takes these four little Greek words, one or one Greek word, uses it four times and puts four words after the one word. And he says that this is what love does, not occasionally, not sometimes, not maybe.
Love is command that we're supposed to do under this new covenant. This is what it always does. It always protects. It always trusts.
It always hopes. It always perseveres. This is not natural. What have I told you?
You are always to trust. Is that smart? Is that dangerous? It always hopes.
Despite circumstance, despite it always hopes. But let me explain what he's getting at, because he's giving a non-negotiable. He says this has to happen in order to be loved. You are going to have to trust.
Always. Another translation says, love always believes. Love always believes. Always hopes.
Now do you know what keeps you from always believing, always trusting and always hoping? Do you know what keeps you from doing it? There's a baby right here. Trust.
All this woman does is nag me. All these kids do is disobey me. And all these people do is saying nasty things about me. How am I possibly going to love and trust and believe you?
Crazy? History tells me something different. I've been burned before. I'm not going to be burned again.
So you know what files and filters do over time? They build a little callus around your heart. Where you start to go, yeah, I can forgive, but I can't. I can't let that go, because I let it go again.
What happens? I mean, if I believe, I mean, you want me to believe again? I'm just going to look. Now look, some of these things are small.
Let me tell you what I mean by that. I am the king of forgetting things. Ladies, with as much love for your husband as possible, why you do this? Raise your hand if your husband occasionally forgets to do what you've asked him to do.
Can I see your hand? Here's what I'm here to tell you. He is so much better than I am. I literally forget almost everything my wife asks me to do.
Literally, almost every single thing. Like 100%. Do you want me to put something away? I tell her, yes.
You don't realize there's a right in this. Almost my normal answer is always, as soon as I get up, which occurred to me, I'm down a lot, because literally, I think, right? I'm not even joking. It's literally that.
As soon as I get up. And then I trip over at the next morning, because I forgot. Now, if John were a normal human being, it was keeping records of wrongs, and they build up over time in the creative filter for her, the filter could be as simple as, you know what, my husband's forgetful. I don't know why I even asked him to do anything.
He's so forgetful. But over time, he could get a little more clogged, and the filter could begin to become, you know what, he's lazy. Where my husband doesn't listen to me. And as the record of wrongs piles up, and piles up, piles up, the filter can get pre-clogged up with records of wrongs to the point where I forget to take the recycling out, and you know what it says to my wife?
He doesn't love me at all. And the question becomes for John. In that moment, when I forgot for the 10,000th time, what is she going to choose to believe about me? Because here's the truth.
I really just forgot. I swear. Like I swear. There was no malice involved in it.
I wasn't trying. There was no intention. I just forgot. The Cowboys scored a touchdown.
You know? That rarely happens. But somebody from church texted me. I got involved with something with the kids.
I just forgot. But what happens is once you get a filter, it doesn't matter how clean the water goes in. Once it gets clogged, dirty water flows into the relationship. And sometimes, depending on how clogged a filter is in a relationship, sewage pours forth into the relationship.
And so for John, in that moment, the question is, what will John choose to believe? Will John choose to trust and believe and hope? Or will John go, I knew it. I knew it.
I don't even know why I ask. He has a choice. When my kids come home late from curfew, right? What is my choice?
You know, I have got a choice in that moment. Oh. These kids, my father, would have, you know what? He would have done to me if I had done this.
They know. My perspective, they don't respect me. I know. What do my pres, oh, by the way, when your kid comes home, what do you presume he's out doing?
Handing out tracks on the corner somewhere. There's such as you move towards this presumption. You don't believe all things. I hope all things.
Your boss at work. Review time. Who loves a review? Right?
I mean, even if you're good, right? The boss is supposed to give some critical feedback, some areas of improvement. How many of you walk out, even after the areas of improvement thing and go, Batman loves me. He loved me enough to tell me the things I'm bad at.
But that could be true. Right? It depends because you have this file coming. You're running.
You've never forgotten these passwords. So you run everything through them. The question is, what does love say you trust? What does love say you believe?
It says you believe and hope and trust all things. These records of wrongs go deep. Remember last week I pulled one out. It was covered in dust.
I blew that off for several of several. It's almost choked. So I'm not doing that. I want them again this week.
But I had one in there that I still, I had this file. There's a girl that laughed at me when I was a senior in high school jogging by him. I heard her friend chuckle, and I went by. Man, I can apply that filter everywhere.
Maybe you were told you were ugly or slow, or you weren't smart, or you know, maybe you grew up. I mean, there's so many filters that get clogged up. Maybe you grew up and you were the middle child. And there was a lot of attention paid to everybody else.
And so you're always trying to feel loved. And so you're looking for it. I mean, all these longs, they're just, I know I'm treading on some sense of stuff here. Some of you have really tough stories.
I know I'm pushing some buttons. I know a woman after the first service said, you don't know what's been done to me. I mean, I know. This principle does not mean that you remember, love does not say you're getting it back.
Jesus did all of these things, and you know what happened to him. But this is what love looks like. Look, love sometimes has to look differently. I get that.
I'm not talking about abusive relationships or addictive behaviors. That's going to look different. But here's what the scripture teaches is, if you forget the pass wrongs, remove the filters, and begin to believe in all circumstances, and trust, in all circumstances, you'll see what has been discovered as the greatest secret behind every great relationship. Now, once again, I love this.
God revealed it to Paul 2000 years ago. The world is catching up. There's got any Marcus Buckingham. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him.
We've seen him a couple times when we've done a leadership thanks here at the church. He wrote a book called, I want to give you the title of it, The One Thing You Need to Know. He wrote a book, The One Thing You Need to Know. And his premise was that in every successful thing in the world, there's one thing you can reduce every success down to one core thing.
And if you get the core thing right, you're likely to be good. And so he examines in his team, they examine all kinds of endeavors under the sun and look for the one thing. And then, they examine marriage. It's a relationship, right?
What is the one thing that would make a marriage successful? So they set out and they studied successful long-term relationships to find it. They interviewed thousands of happily married couples over the course of many different studies. And what they would do in these studies is they would hand each couple a checklist of essentially first Corinthians 13 items.
Is your first you would rate yourself then you would rate your spouse on things like, are you or your spouse kind of affection and open and disclosing tolerant and accepting patient, warm, sociable. And so you would rate yourself and then you would rate your spouse. Now, these couples are not like loved blind teenagers. They have been on together an average of 11 years.
Now, what they expected to find was results of past studies of bad marriages. They used to study bad marriages and the thought process was they could study a bad marriage, a broken marriage, you could figure out what went wrong and not do it. And so they had studied bad marriages and what they had found in bad marriages were that the couples didn't know each other at all. They really had no concept of what each other's strengths and weaknesses were.
And as a result, the marriage is just un-lowned. That's what they thought they would find. They thought so if these are successful, what we're going to find is in a successful relationship, couples have a deep understanding and a realistic view of each other. They expected to find that couples that were still together made allowances for the imperfections of the other glanced over them.
But that's not what they found. This is absolutely fascinating. It applies to every relationship. It is the secret to love.
What they found was 100% different. When they looked at the results, these couples raided the other hire in every single category every time. The husband thought the wife was better than she raided herself. And the wife thought the husband was better than himself every single time on every category.
The guy sits down. He gives a realistic response about himself, which was probably even better than he was. He was raiding himself. Yeah, in these relationships, the wife raided them higher.
Same thing with the wife. The husband always raided her hire than she raided herself. Here was their conclusion. This is so good, you guys.
The conclusion from the test was that love really is what? Right? They did not have a realistic view of their partner. They had a completely unrealistic view of their partner.
Here's what their conclusion was. So over time, positive illusions create an upward spiral of love. Remember when you first fell in love? He couldn't do anything wrong.
She couldn't be more beautiful. Positive illusions create an upward spiral of love. My illusion gives me a conviction. My conviction leads to security.
My security fosters intimacy. And my intimacy reinforces love. Here is the summation. Putting these conclusions together, this is the controlling insight conserved is the one thing you need to know about a happy marriage.
This is the one thing to have a happy marriage and it applies across every relationship. Find the most generous explanation for each other's behavior and believe it. Don't presume the worst. Don't believe the worst.
Don't go back through all the things. He always does this. He does this every time. Oh, she's always like these kids.
No, no, no. Hope ball things. Trust ball things. Believe ball things.
Find the most generous explanation for it. Run the incident through that filter. You actually gave examples. The research tells us, when you notice a flaw, recast it in your mind as a strength.
This is an action. Love does, OK? Stick with me now. When you notice a flaw, recast it as an aspect of strength.
Thus, she's not impatient. She's intense. It's actually right from the study, OK? Or he's not narrow minded.
He's focused. Now initially, they acknowledge this may feel like you're playing mind games with yourself, but you're actually doing something quite clever. Here's what I would tell you. Yeah, you know what you're doing?
You're loving. Because love trusts all things, believes all things, hopes all things. This is what love does. It doesn't feel love does it.
It chooses to trust. It chooses. It always chooses trust. It always chooses to believe.
It always finds the most generous explanation. I mean, love always protects. It protects the relationship. It doesn't look to poison it.
We're going to impute bad motive. We're going to run every incident through the filters. It always trusts. It looks for a generous explanation to maintain the trust.
It always hopes. It doesn't let everything that's happened in the past. Cross your faith in the future. And it always perseveres.
Even in the deepest, darkest times in relationships. It looks for the good. This is new covenant love. New covenant love moves from laws to love.
New covenant love moves from being law driven to love driven. Let me explain what I mean by that. John, for example, I mean not doing what she asked. Here's the truth.
I intentionally did not want to hurt her. I have no desire to hurt my wife. I love her. She's amazing.
She does such great stuff for me. Does anything I intent? Well, maybe you do think. But I'll tell you.
I did not intentionally forget to do what she told me to do. But in those moments where I do it day after day after day, join us a choice. Run it through all of the record of pass wrongs and hurts and comes to one conclusion. This guy is lazy.
Well, he does his watch TV. If he really loved me, he would have done this. Or find the most generous explanation. He works really hard.
He's really busy. He's getting a little down time. He's probably wound up thinking about something with the kids. See, conclusion one is the law.
You didn't do what you were supposed to do. And these are the consequences. But conclusion two is love. I really love John.
And I'm thankful for what he does. It's not a big deal. Which of those conclusions help a relationship persevere? Which of those conclusions is going to draw me towards John and go, I can't.
She's so good and so loving. I just want to put stuff away. I'm not even going to make her wait anymore. I'm going to go do it.
And which of those are going to make me back away from her? See, when John loves me with new covenant love and not law, I am drawn towards her. The law and punishment, it might make me take the laundry up. But you know why I'm taking the laundry up to get her off my back?
That does not draw me towards her. We're supposed to love like Jesus. Now watch this. Paul's explaining the old covenant in the new covenant.
Here's what he said. He goes, don't you know brothers and sisters? I'm speaking to those of you who know the law. That the law has authority over someone, but only as long as that person lives.
For example, a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law that binds her to him. So that if she has sexual relations with another man, while her husband is still alive, she's called an adulterous. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law.
And he's not an adulterous if she marries another man. And so brothers and sisters, you died to the law through the body of Christ that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead. In order we might bear fruit for God. By dying to abound us, we've been released from the law.
You no longer serve God under the law. He's no longer looking at you through the law. That is dead. You've been released from it, why?
So that you can serve in the new way of the spirit. And not in the old way of the written code. We read this and we're like, well, what are the rules for marriage? And she can't she have sex if her husband dies?
And Paul's, what are you kidding? It wasn't the point where I'm trying to tell you. I'm trying to tell you if there's a new way for you to live. There's a new power available for you.
We serve God in the way of the spirit released from the law. We love him because he first loved us. Now you might hear this and say, John, I hope all things and believe all things about my wife, my husband, my kids, my boss. They're just going to keep doing the same thing.
I need a reminder of all of his shortcomings. I need to make sure he understands how he disappointed me. If I keep telling my kids, if I don't bring it up, if I don't tell them, I mean, they're just, you know what's going to happen? If I just keep letting this go and believe in the best things, he's still not going to pick up after himself.
They're still going to come home late. And my wife's not going to stop spending. I've got it. I can't live that way.
You know, people said the same thing about the new covenant. They said the exact same thing. Here's how Paul addressed them. He said, well, what shall we say then?
Shall we go on sinning? Because God doesn't relate to us that way anymore by the law. So the grace may increase. Paul goes, by no means.
We've died to sin. How can we live in any wonder? Don't you know we were all baptized into Jesus' death. We were buried with him through baptism into his death.
Just as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, we may live a new life. But thanks be to God, though you used to be slaves to sin, here comes, you've come to obey from your heart, the pattern of teaching that has claimed your allegiance. You've come to obey from your heart, not from the law, not from religious duty, not trying to keep God off your back or on your side. In fact, Paul summed it up this way.
There were a bunch of religious folks in Rome and they were judging people like crazy. Paul said, when you, if you're human being, pass judgment on them and you do the same things, you think you're going to escape God's judgment? Or are you showing contempt for the riches of his kindness, his forbearance, and his patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? You want to change around the relationships in your life?
Start loving people the way God loves you. His kindness draws you to him, your ability to hope all things, believe all things, trust in all things, will draw people to you. Ben, come up. God's love for you guys.
Through Christ, he believes all things. He hopes all things. He protects his love perseveres. This ends Dr.
Eismann's week three of L'Ovology. How to be a better lover? There is now something you must do. Listen to me now, you must do this.
Always, always, always, always. Forget the file of wrongs. Love covers a multitude of sins. Clean out the filters so that it's a choice every day, in every moment, in every incident, every disappointing text, every frustrated phone call, I will choose to trust, to hope, to believe.
God does this over you. Now go and do likewise. See you today.