Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 12. We're reading starting from verse 9 all the way to verse 16. But our focus today is going to be on 15 and 16. Romans chapter 12 verse 9 through 16. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil.

Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Let's pray. Yes Father, we thank you for this morning.

We thank you for your living word, your very breath that causes us to see, to be convicted, as a light onto our path, to know you, to know your voice. I pray Father God that from this pulpit that only the voice of Christ may go. That your children may hear his voice and follow him and him only.

We pray for your grace this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, so as you guys know, just as a quick review, we're on chapter 12 where Paul has made a transition from the indicatives to the imperatives where he was talking about the doctrine of justification and then the ramification of that in the life of a Christian.

And so in the previous weeks we've been talking about the imperatives, the about 20 some imperatives that we see starting from verse 9 all the way to verse 21. And in these imperatives we can wrap up the whole imperatives in love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

So remember we talked about how the scripture says that all of the law can be summarized by this, by love. It is the greatest attraction to Christ. When we talk about the gospel there is a temptation for us to skim over the judgment of God and get to the love of Christ because it is attractive.

Christians and non-Christians, if you take a step back and look at the totality of the message of the gospel, it's about the God of the universe who created us, who emptied himself and became nothing to save sinners who are hostile toward him. We can imagine a story like that.

We can come up with a story and say, "Well, that's a beautiful story." There is nothing that comes close to the gospel message and the love that we celebrate, we sing about, memorize, we study. And so we know that the greatest attraction to the church, the greatest attraction to the gospel message is this agape love that Paul has been talking about.

It is central to the gospel message, it is central to the attraction, it is central to practice. When we talk about discipleship, oftentimes we talk about being disciplined. You know, somebody who didn't do quiet time before to do quiet time, if you don't pray to pray, if you haven't witnessed to go witnessing, to do missions, and all of these things are commanded in scripture.

But the scripture also says you can do all of that and yet not have love, and it means absolutely nothing. You can be disciplined, you can be a spiritual giant, at least on the surface, and at the end, all we are without love is whitewashed tombs. We look great on the outside, but inside we're just as sinful, just as selfish, just as self-focused than we were before we were converted.

So at the core of discipleship is to become like Christ in His love, and that's exactly what Jesus says, that the world will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another as I have loved you. Now, He's not talking about just any kind of love.

He's not talking about the kind of love that the world practices, which every non-Christian, other religion, everybody else practices. They practice love with their brothers and sisters, with their friends, and sometimes with strangers, but the love that Jesus is speaking about is in Romans 5 way in that why we were yet sinners.

He gave His only begotten son's life for sinners who are hostile toward Him. That is not a love that we see, that is not a love that is taught, and that is not a love maybe even valued in our culture because it is so out of the ordinary, it is not practiced.

So what distinguishes us from the world is not simply that we are nice people who love our children and good to our friends and neighbors, but it is this kind of love that the world would not understand. Why would you make yourself vulnerable to strangers and even enemies? Our natural instinct is to protect ourselves.

Our natural instinct is self-preservation. But to practice this agape love is to abandon ourselves, and that is exactly what it is. It is a call to abandon ourselves, to make ourselves vulnerable. It goes directly against our natural instinct, and yet the scripture says that that is at the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

So all the imperatives that we have been looking at in verse 9 through 21, it may not use the word love, but at the end of the day it is a means to the goal of becoming a person who practices love. So we went through all these different principles.

Today's sermon number 6, we are looking at number 13 and 14 in verses 15 and 16. So the first principle, or at least that we are covering today, A. Biblical love rejoices with those who rejoices and weeps with those who weeps. It rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep.

This is the picture of a Christian community where Christ is the head and we are all different body parts of the church, and this is the picture of Christianity. This is the picture of God-centered, Christ-centered Christianity. Of self-centered, self-focused individual will not practice this, cannot practice this. To be able to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, it requires self-abandonment.

Remember we talked about how at the core of human rebellion is self-preservation, self-gratification, and self-glorification. So this call to love, it challenges every part of that. And when he says to rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, someone who is self-centered can superficially say, "You know what, I feel your pain.

I feel the sorrow." Or "I rejoice with you superficially." Kind of like on Facebook, thumbs up, thumbs down. You know what I mean? "Oh, I rejoice with you." "Oh, that's pretty sad." When was the last time you've really wept for someone else that wasn't linked to your family member or wasn't you?

It wasn't your dad, it wasn't your mom, but somebody that you don't really know that well, that you really were on your knees praying because you agonized over their suffering? When was the last time you really rejoiced over something good that happened to somebody that didn't directly affect you?

When something good happens to somebody close to you, that's great, maybe they'll buy me dinner. Maybe, maybe I'm going to benefit somehow, but genuinely rejoiced over something good happen to somebody else without feeling a sense of jealousy. See what he's asking us to practice, what he's commanding us to practice, ultimately is not something that you can practice in your flesh.

You don't just turn that on and off. Jesus obviously is the perfect example that we see in Hebrews chapter 4, 14 through 16, or 15 through 16, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." The word for sympathy is "sum pathēo." It basically means to have the same feeling. And the reason why he can have the same feeling, meaning that he rejoices with us and he weeps with us, is because he says in every respect he has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

And that's the gospel message, that God emptied himself and he walked in our shoes, and he suffered as we suffered. You ever wonder why Jesus waited until he was 30 years old before he started his ministry? Why did he do it when he was 13? Would his sacrifice have been any less?

If he was 15 or 18? You know in the Jewish community at 13 they have Bar Mitzvah and that's when they officially become an adult, but he waited until he was 30 years old. It doesn't say, it doesn't explicitly say that that's the reason, but in the Old Testament a priest was considered an intern until he turned the age of 30.

Because he was at the age of 30 where they considered that an individual lived a full life, full human life, that you weren't just an adult, but that you experienced what a human being would experience. So at 30 they would stop being interns and able to serve at the temple independently, because that's the age where they considered them to be able to have experienced life.

It doesn't explicitly say that, but my guess is that's probably why, that at the age of 30 that Jesus experienced all that he was able to experience. And he walked in our shoes, in John chapter 1, verse 14 it says, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, glory as the only son of the Father, full of grace and truth." You know the interesting word here for dwelt in Greek literally means to pitch a tent.

That he didn't just walk among us, he pitched a tent just like the Israelites who were constantly living in these tents. He said that he came and he actually pitched his tent among us, he lived with us. He didn't just have compassion from a distance, he actually came and walked.

You ever wonder why after Jesus is baptized he goes to the wilderness and he's tempted? And Satan comes and he tempts him. Think about the ridiculousness of this temptation. Because Satan himself probably knows, not probably, I'm almost certain he knows who Jesus is. Jesus is his creator. His disciples, Satan's disciples, the demons, remember what they did when they saw Jesus?

They fell down on their knees in terror. "Son of God, why have you come before your time to torture us?" They knew that the judgment was going to come through his son, Jesus. So they knew exactly who he was. So why did Satan think that he was going to come and tempt Jesus by saying, "If you bow down to me, I'm going to give you this, like this.

Give me your Lamborghini and I'll give you a Snickers." To me, that proposition in and of itself makes no sense. Because he knew that Jesus was the creator. But there was something about his incarnation. There was something about him emptying himself of the glory and taking on human form that he probably would have never seen in his existence if the whole purpose or whole rebellion of Satan is to usurp his glory.

And there was absolutely no chance ever in human history or in his life that he probably ever looked at God and said, "You know what? One of these days I'm going to just overthrow this God." But for the first time in his existence, he saw Jesus in his humanity and thought, "Maybe he has a chance." There was something about his humility, something about his human form that made him weaker than he's ever seen.

Before his humanity, remember, Satan, even just to be in the presence of God, he needed to get permission to enter his presence. Even if he wants to hurt people, he needed to get permission. Remember, Jesus says that in Luke 22? Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat.

He needed to get permission to even act. Yet he was in the presence of this incarnated Christ, and he actually is trying to tempt him. There was something in his humanity, the fact that he walked among us and he's tempted in every way and yet without sin, that made him seem weaker than he's ever been.

And he pitched a tent where we were at. A person who lives a self-centered life will never really be able to pray, never really be able to weep with those who weep. You know, I think the struggle that we have with prayer is that we're not passionate about the things that we're praying for.

I think all Christians pray if it matters, if it really matters. If you're in a situation where you're in dire need of something and you can't stop thinking about it, you end up praying. You may not be on your knees and you may not have time devoted to prayer, but you end up praying.

If you can't make your ends meet, you wake up praying. You wake up in the middle of the night, "Lord, help me." You end up praying. When someone is sick and they're in dire need, you have no other way to turn, you pray. You may not have formal prayer, you wake up in prayer.

There's some college students here who did not study this whole quarter and finals are coming up, and I know your prayer requests. You woke up in the morning and said, "Lord, I do not ask for justice, I ask for mercy." If it's important enough, we will pray. It's because we are detached, because our natural instinct in our flesh is self-preservation, self-gratification, self-glorification, so when it doesn't come into that circle, we're distant.

So even when people come to Christ, even though the scripture says that heavens are celebrating, it's hard to rejoice with them. We just watch from a distance, it's like, "Oh, that's great." Thumbs up. Somebody's in dire need and they're suffering, it's like, "Oh, thumbs down, I don't like that." But to really weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

This is the community, this is the kingdom that God has called us to participate in. If we're in a constant state of self-preservation, eventually you will find yourself isolated. Isolated from your friends, who are friends at one point, isolated from co-workers at some point, and at times even isolated from your wife, from your husband, and eventually even with your own kids.

To rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, God calls us to empty ourselves. The second thing that we want to look at this morning, and we're going to spend more time in, biblical love lives in harmony with one another. Biblical love lives in harmony with one another.

I want you to look at the NASB version of this text, because I feel like the ESV, you kind of miss it. The NASB is a bit more clear, more literal to the text. In the NASB it says, "Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.

Do not be wise in your own estimation." Do you notice the theme that is running across this verse? You don't see in the ESV? What do you see? What do you see? The morning crowd got it immediately. You guys must be tired. Mind. The focus is on the mind.

He said, "Be of the same mind." In the ESV it says, "Live in harmony with one another." The literal translation is, "Be the same mind. Do not be haughty in mind, associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation." So all of it, the theme that runs across this text, is to live in harmony, is to be of the same mind, in the same type of thinking.

And over and over again in the scripture, we are commanded to do that very thing. First Corinthians 110, "I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind." Same judgment.

Philippians 127, "I want to let your manner of life worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you may be standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel." Philippians 2.2, "Complete my joy by being of the same mind." Having the same love, being in full accord with one mind.

1 Peter 3.8, "Finally all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind." Over and over and over again, the scripture commands us to be of the same mind. How do we do that? Do we just decide, like, let's just think the same thing, everybody.

Close your eyes and focus on this. We're going to be on the same mind. How do we come to the same mind? I think it's pretty clear, right? The scripture says in Romans 12.2, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by what? By the renewing of our mind." Every single one of us, before we became a Christian, has all kinds of opinions.

We all have opinions about how to raise our kids, about what is right and what is wrong. So politically, we're divided. We're divided by finance. We're divided by where we live. Because we all have different opinions about what should be and should not be. And if we're not careful, we bring that into the church, and we have people who are Democrats and Republicans outside of the church who hate each other, and then you're trying to superficially unite.

But we have all kinds of different opinions. And what he's saying is to be of the same mind, first and foremost, our minds have to be transformed by his word. What we consider to be right and wrong has to be influenced and being transformed by his word. What we consider to bring joy to our lives, our values, our pursuit, what should be, should not be, has to be from his word.

How do you get people from all walks of life who is not being transformed in mind to be of one in the church? It's impossible. You ever try to have five or six different friends who have strong opinions to decide what to eat? It's frustrating. I used to have a group of friends like that in college.

We would get together, and we could never go anywhere together because you don't need everybody. You have 11 people, but you have two guys who are absolutely convinced that where and what they want to do has to be. And so everybody just is waiting, you know, but these two guys just will not let go.

No, we have to eat McDonald's. No, we have to go eat, you know, Chinese food. And these both of them just will not give. And we would sit there and let them argue it out, but no one loses. So in the end, we don't eat. As I used to joke around when people would ask me, "Hey, Peter, where are you going?" I said, "I'm going to go hang out with my friends and discuss about what we're going to do, and then I'll be back." You can't even get people to eat together when you have people who are strong opinions and they won't give in.

Can you imagine building a community, striving after God, making important decisions with a church filled with people who are filled with their own opinion who is not being governed by the Word of God? So first and foremost, he says we have to be of the same mind. That's why we need to be committed to the Word of God.

We need to continually be transformed by the Word of God. You know, a general principle about all of this is if you're not regularly being transformed by the Word of God, it is safe for you and for me to stay quiet. Because the more we express our opinion and the more you run into other people's opinion, the more the church gets divided.

So as a general rule, we need to be saturated with God's Word, the Word of God, and doctrine that we need to work toward a unifying understanding of who God is and what he desires. But this call to unity of mind isn't just talking about doctrine. Because you can have unity of doctrine, unity of thought in what the Word of God says and still be divided.

He's talking about more than that. In Philippians chapter 2, 5-7, it says, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but it paid himself nothing. Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." So he said, "Have this mind among yourselves." The mind he's talking about here is not simply talking about right view of Jesus.

He's talking about being humble, of emptying himself, considering others better than themselves. Having the right mind isn't just simply having right doctrine. But the right doctrine calls us to no longer be self-centered and self-seeking and self-glorified. Let me ask you a question. Was Jesus an introvert or an extrovert?

Don't answer. I just want you to think about it for a minute. Was he an introvert or an extrovert? I think he was an extrovert because he spent a lot of time in public. He preached a lot and was constantly surrounded by people, so he must be an extrovert.

And then some of you guys who may remember, he would always pull away from the crowd to be alone. That sounds like an introvert. Is he an introvert or an extrovert? You ever take that test with ENTJ, INSF, ENOW, whatever that is? So you have all these personality tests.

Which one was he? And you might try to apply different things to him. Which one was he? Was he an introvert or was he an extrovert? He was none and he was everything. Because the scripture says that he emptied himself. He emptied himself. His core was servanthood. Isn't that exactly what Paul says?

I became all things to all people by all means that I can save some. So who he was before he met Christ was no longer relevant. You know, we talk about how when I was younger, there was a book that came out, it was so popular, "Women are from Mars and Men are from Venus." And all this psychologists are trying to connect.

How does men from Mars and women from Venus communicate with each other? And that's kind of like how a lot of the psychological books and marriage counseling, all this stuff came from this idea of we're two completely different people. How do you communicate? But the premise that is wrong about all of that is that God didn't create us to be on Mars and Venus to begin with.

He created us on Earth. And then men drifted to Mars and then women drifted to Venus. And the problem is to come back to Earth. That's the problem. That's the solution. But we're trying to figure out, like, okay, you have two people who've decided that this is who they are and they're not going to budge.

So how do you get these two people, who are self-seeking, self-glorifying, and self-preserving, to get along? And that's the wisdom of this world. But what Christ does, he comes and he says, "No, you have been crucified with Christ. He is no longer you who lives, so wherever you are at, it no longer is relevant." I remember when I was younger, I used to wrestle so much with my own identity because we moved around so much.

I naturally enjoy being with people, but I also enjoy being by myself. I don't know what I am. Some people say, "Oh, you're a hidden introvert," or "You're an extrovert who doesn't know." I've been psychoanalyzed by the church, and I don't know who I am. But I remember when I was younger, I used to really wrestle with that because every year I'm at a new place.

And so I had to be a new guy, and of course I don't have any friends, so I have to adjust. And so by the time I became 14, 15, I completely, I had no idea who I was. So early on in college, I was wrestling with that because with some people, I'm very outgoing.

And then there's some people, I say nothing. And depending on which friends they were, they probably thought, "Oh, Peter, he never says anything." In fact, I had a group of friends that when I first became a Christian, that they were all fobs. They only spoke Korean. And so I only spoke Korean to them, and one time I was at a birthday party, and I was trying to share the gospel in English, and they turned around and said, "Oh my gosh, you speak English." And then I remember turning around, I was like, "What?

I've known these guys for two years." But the whole time, because that's who they were. And I remember really wrestling with that. And the end of all of that, my conclusion was, "So what?" I remember a speaker a long time ago gave a message saying, "Everybody's trying so hard to find who they are, and they're looking inward." And then he said, "What if at the end of the day, you spend all your life trying to find who you are, and you find out that you're an onion?" There's nothing at the core.

All it is is skin. And the point was, stop looking inward. We have been crucified with Christ. Our old life is dead. Our new life and new identity is found in Christ. And the reason why we are divided is because of our self-preservation. This is who I am, and I am looking for people who are going to adjust to me.

And that is the root of division. That is the root of argument. That is the root of marriage problems. That is the root of conflict. This is who I am, and I want you to adjust to me. We are divided by age, by race, by socioeconomic backgrounds, style of worship, how we do discipleship, the preaching style, how we dress, what Bible translation, what theological persuasion that are not core issues, what school a pastor graduated seminary, how we raise our children, what kind of social justices are important to us.

I mean, it takes so little to divide us when we start with the core of ourselves. He says, do not be high-minded. Do not raise yourself. A high-minded person will never associate with the lowly, physically, economically, socially, and even spiritually, because he is looking for somebody who is equal or better.

And he says, do not be haughty. Do not see yourself that way. He says, but associate with the lowly and do not be conceited. You know, in India, they have this caste system. I think many of you know that. Officially, it's illegal. But obviously, it's practiced because a lot of the caste system is inside their heart.

So they have about seven different caste systems, but on the top of that are the Lingayats. The Lingayats are the priests, the Hindu priests. If you are a Lingayat, you pretty much made it. If you are born into the Lingayat family, you can pretty much marry whoever you want to marry because everybody wants their daughter or son to marry a Lingayat.

But rarely will they intermarry outside of the Lingayats because to them, it means to sacrifice something. And then the lowest of the totem pole, they actually call themselves the Untouchables. And I thought they were kidding when they first said, oh, we're Untouchables. But that's the actual name for that group, Untouchables.

So you can imagine which group are more receptive to the gospel. It's pretty obvious. It's the Untouchables. It's the Untouchables that first come to Christ. So superficially, you may look at that and say, oh, maybe because they're uneducated. They got nothing to lose. And you can socially explain all of that, but the Bible has a better explanation.

It says it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven because the rich man is filled with himself. He's got too much to lose to associate with the lowly. If you're a slave owner and you go there and you're hanging out with slaves, former slaves, he's got much to lose.

And so the Lingayats are very reluctant to come to Christ because they're unwilling to give up what it is they think they have. The Untouchables, on the other hand, meeting Christ means everything. And that is not different because whether you are rich or poor, every single one of us, that's why the law came to show the utter sinfulness of mankind.

That whether you are rich or an aristocrat or whether you are a Roman citizen, whatever you were, whether you were the lowly of the human beings, at least according to this world, the law came to make sin utterly sinful in order to humble all of us. Wherever, whatever standing, no matter how good-looking you are, no matter how much money you make, the starting point of the gospel is to bring us down and humble us, to empty us.

And until we are empty, until we recognize who we are, until we lose confidence in our own judgment, our personalities, our looks, our money, until we lose absolute confidence in all of that and come before that in repentance, in humility, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The beginning point of salvation is to be empty.

See that when he says not to think of yourself haughty, he's not talking about fake humility. He's not talking about walking around saying, "I'm the humblest." Because the moment you say that, you're not. I'm the humblest in the world, right? That's an oxymoron. That's a contradiction. Tim Keller says in his short book, "The Gift of Forgetfulness," true gospel humility means to stop connecting every experience, every conversation with myself.

In fact, I stopped thinking about myself. The freedom of self-forgetfulness, the blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings. He also says superiority complex and inferiority complex are basically the same. Whether you think you're superior to other people, whether you're constantly telling yourself you're inferior, the starting point is the same.

That there is too much attention on yourself. Too much concern for yourself. Self-preservation, self-gratification, self-glorification is at the root of superiority complex or inferiority complex. He also says the way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to others all the time.

He quotes C.S. Lewis from "Mere Christianity," and he says this. This is C.S. Lewis' quote. "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next person. We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good-looking, but they are not.

They are proud of being richer or cleverer or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich or clever or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about." See, at the core of human sin is self-focus. And it is our self-focused life that causes us to keep people who are difficult to love at bay.

See, at the root of agape love is the gospel message. At the root of it. He says to never be conceited. Proverbs 26, 12. "Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him." Isaiah 5, 21. "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight." Again in 1 Corinthians 3, 18-23.

You know about this church. They are fighting over preferences. This church was divided because a group of them was saying, "No, no, no. Peter is the guy that we need to be loyal to." You can understand their logic behind that because Peter was a leader among the apostles. And so Peter is our man.

He's the one we need to listen to. And then some were saying, "You know what? Apollo seems to know the Old Testament better than anybody else. He was expositing and he was pointing to Christ before he ever even met Christ. So Apollo clearly knows the Bible and we need to be loyal to him." And then some people were saying, "Apostle Paul was the one who's risking his life being beaten.

He's the one who brought the gospel to Corinth." And some were above all of that. No, we're about Jesus. And so every one of them were fighting for their opinion of who they should be loyal to. And this division in the church has caused all kinds of problems in the church.

They allowed all kinds of immorality. It caused the communion table to be divided. People who had spiritual gifts were speaking out of turn and they just would not let go. And it caused all kinds of problems. As a result of that, Paul writes this nasty letter to them, "Shall I come to you with a whip?" And because they didn't want to hear what Paul had to say, they started questioning, "Okay, see, Paul is not an apostle." That's why he's saying, "Oh, if he really was an apostle, he would recognize that we are right." And then he has to write a second letter defending his apostleship because they didn't want to listen.

And it's in that context he's writing this letter and he says, "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their craftiness.' And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise.

They are futile. Let no one boast in men." You notice how he says, "He catches the wise in their craftiness." Basically, what he's saying is people who are wise in their own eyes or wise in the eyes of the world, they use their wisdom for craftiness. For what purpose?

For self-gain. For self-gain. They use their wisdom, they use their wealth, they use their influence to further their cause, to further their rebellion, self-centeredness, self-gratification, self-glorification. And what Paul is saying is, "Do you not know that God called you because you were weak?" The first group of people that he called into the church and established the church is because you had nothing.

It's because you were not wise. You were the untouchables. You were not the Lingayats. The first group of people that came was to demonstrate the power of the cross and not you. And that's exactly what Paul says. "I wasn't chosen because I wasn't… I was a good apostle material." He said, "I was the worst of sinners." In order that your faith will not rest on man's wisdom but on God's power.

So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future. All are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God. He says, "The root cause of division and hatred in the church is the same thing, the same principles that we lived by before we became a Christian and we're just applying it in the church." You can do godly things.

You can even preach on the pulpit. You can lead small groups. But at the core of our motivation is self-glorification, self-preservation, and self-gratification. In Jeremiah 45, 5, it says, "And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. For behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord, but I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go." This agape love is at the core.

It is a rebellion against rebellion. Let me say that again. This agape love that he commands us to practice, that identifies us as Christians, is a rebellion against our rebellion. It fights against selfishness. It challenges us against our pride. It calls us out of our worldliness. It is the only healing power of brokenness.

It heals even the bad memories of our past. The only remedy to a broken relationship is not justice. You have two people who are declaring justice. You have done this, and I have done this. But one person's idea of fair is not the same as the other person's idea of fair.

Two people who are having difficulties, who have conflict, cannot be reconciled by justice. We can't even agree what is right and what is wrong. We can't agree on what is fair. The only way that the world can be reconciled is by agape love. The only way husbands and wives can be reconciled is by agape love.

The only way that relationships can be reconciled is by agape love. When we talk about Christ and what He has done, a typical question that people come up with is, "I can't believe that your God destroyed the world in this flood." They have a hard time understanding that. When you see it from a biblical perspective, from a real perspective, everybody should be able to understand that.

Everybody. Because we all practice justice. The world practices justice. If somebody commits a crime and they don't get punished, you see people out on the streets with picket signs. "Unjust! Unjust!" No justice, no peace. You see people marching, demanding justice. If you see a crime taking place, do we understand what happened?

Because if you see it from God's perspective, we can understand why He did that. He created these human beings to worship and they're rebelling against Him. Why wouldn't He crush them? Who are they? When was the last time you had a bunch of ants coming into your home and out of annoyance you crushed them and then you couldn't sleep at night because you were worried about the ants' family and their children, their genealogy.

It's like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe what I did. I should have shown mercy." It's even comical to even think about that. We didn't create these ants. I don't have sovereignty over these ants. I just did it because I could. Because this is my house. So the distance between us and God is far greater than the distance between me and these ants.

But I never think twice about crushing them. And the only sin that they've committed was they annoyed me. I don't want them near my food. We never think about it. So if you think from God's perspective, the flood should make a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense.

But it's hard to understand. And what does not exist in this world is the cross. Why would a holy God empty himself and take on human form all to save rebellious sinners? That we do not see in this world. There's nothing that we can relate to to say, "Ah, that's what God's love is like." It is completely foreign.

There is no example. In fact, it is not even valued. What he did on the cross is at the core of redemption. It fights against our natural instinct for self-preservation. Because your works is not included. It fights against self-gratification because we die to ourselves. It fights against self-glorification because the gospel humbles us at the core.

God-paid love is at the core of redemption. Not just for justification, but for sanctification. The only hope to reverse the curse of mankind is the love that he gave us, unconditional, and for us to practice that as well. Let's pray. Again, as our worship team comes, let's take some time to reflect and ask the Lord to judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart with the word of God that you've heard.

To really come to the Lord in prayer. That if you have grudges in your heart, divisions, hurtful things, maybe even within your own home, to ask the Lord to search your heart. See if there's any hurtful ways in us that the aroma of Christ may be rich in our lives.

Let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us.