Learning to Love Like Jesus Part 7 - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

0:53It's an interesting situation that parallels very closely with the passage in 1 John that we've been working our way through. But just in chapter 12, verse 1. Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the mute idols, however, you were led. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, you remember this context that we looked at this morning in 1 John. You remember, 1 John was the message all about testing the Spirit. By this, you know, 1 John 4:2, the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. So, there, as in here, there's a very similar vein of thought, and both involve testing, both involve identifying the work of the Holy Spirit. And in chapter 12, 13 and 14 of Corinthians, it's all about he's giving them some instruction about spiritual gifts. And these spiritual gifts are avenues. He was his concern: these spiritual gifts are avenues for deception. Remember, the whole geography of Corinth was right in the heart of town, a temple to Apollos.

2:42And the whole Pythia cult, where the woman would take in the gases, speak all these utterances, an exegete would write them down and then interpret them. You'd have these oracles. Oracles were very big. I'm right there in the center of town. And so he is giving them some instruction on spiritual gifts. And the one thing about spiritual gifts that he's driving home is that they were all given for the purpose of building one another up. Love. Love, the test. The test that he's applying when you get to 13 is love.

3:30Use your gifts in a way that builds one another up, whatever those gifts may be. And you can be sure that if a gift is really given to you by God and you are operating that gift, you're exercising that gift as he designs, it will manifest in building one another up. Love. The very opposite was happening in Corinth: is that their love for themselves was being promoted as they set themselves forward, pushed themselves, pushed themselves to the front, wanting to be seen. And it was all happening in this exercising of gifts. And throughout the whole book of 1 Corinthians, Paul's message is that you are spiritually immature. That's why there are divisions. That's why there are factions. That's why there are problems. You are spiritually immature.

4:30You need to grow up. You need to love one another. You need to love. You need to test yourself. As what, as we go in 1 John next week, the very love of someone who's, or the very test of someone who's in the right relationship with God is loving one another. Same thought pervades 1 John, same thought pervades 1 Corinthians. If you've really been born of God, there will be expressions of love and growing expressions of love. So this chapter, when we come to 1 Corinthians 13, is about Paul is defining what love is so that you can know what love is, so that you can be testing yourself, so that you can honestly see inside.

5:25And if you're lacking in love, what are you supposed to do? Not get offended, right? Not be depressed, but do what? Confess it and ask God to give you love, to teach you how to love. That's where this whole passage is going: he's exposing what love is. He's telling us what love is so that we can test ourselves, so that we can grow in this kind of love for one another. So, love is patient. Love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, it is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it's not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Now, we've made our way down through verse 6, and we'll be looking at verse 7 today. But just by way of review, love is patient. Remember, these are all verbs. Love is waiting, love is waiting, people. Love is kind, love is helping, it's helping, it's active, helping. Love is not jealous, that is, it is not coveting what somebody else has or is. Love does not brag, that is, it's not going around bragging. Love is not arrogant, it's not bowing up, it's not inflating itself over somebody else, but seeking to posture itself below someone else. Love does not act unbecomingly, that is, that it is not degrading somebody or degrading God by unseemingly acts, but it is dignifying people in the way it behaves.

7:27Love does not seek its own, that is, it's not. Seeking self-benefit. It's the opposite of love. That's self-love. Love is not provoked. That is, it is not being easily offended. It is not like people don't have to walk on eggshells around you. You love. And so love is not being easily offended. Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. That is, it's not over keeping record of wrongs. Love is not keeping record of wrongs. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. That is, love is not rejoicing in things that are not right.

8:07Love rejoices with the truth. Love is rejoicing in the right things. So now, verse 7. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I'd hoped to just rush through this tonight. And then as I got to going a little bit deeper into it, I realized Paul's doing something. He is growing to a high point. And it gets deeper and richer as he goes and builds. And so we'll take the next two tonight: bears all things and believes all things. But in the Greek, this is what it says. There's only one word, all things isn't there. It's all. So love is.

9:01Bearing all, love is believing all, love is hoping all, love is enduring all. Now, it isn't very descriptive, what all that is, and so we will jump into that. But love bears all things. The verb bears all things. The idea, again, it's an active verb. Love is presently doing something, it is active, it is presently supporting. The idea of bearing is the idea of supporting. It's actually the word that's used to describe passing over in silence.

9:49To bear is to pass over something in silence. To cover, the verb is used a lot to speak of covering. So he gets this idea: what is love doing? It stands to protect, it stands to pass over, it stands to support someone else by covering or through a covering. It's all linked together. This idea of bearing, it's not just, it's not breaking easily. On the contrary, love is something that. Can bear all things. It's rugged. It's resilient.

10:371 Peter 4:8. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. Love covers over. Proverbs 10:12, hatred stirs up strife. But love covers all transgressions. If strife is being amped up, hatred is present. But love covers all transgressions. That's what love is doing. Love bears all things. So it is bearing. It is passing over. It is covering all things. Now, what is all things? The noun, one word, all things.

11:35Obviously, love is not in any way upholding sin. He's already made that clear, in any way upholding any kind of sin. Love, he's already said, rejects jealousy, rejects bragging, rejects acting unbecomingly, and it rejects lies, it rejects unrighteousness, it doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, rejoices in the truth. So obviously, it's not. Not what we're talking about. What exactly is he talking about? He's talking about all things that are displeasing in someone else, offenses. Love is bearing. Love is covering all things that would be displeasing in someone else. If you love someone, you're not looking for those things that are displeasing. You're not trying to make them the big issue. You're covering over all things displeasing. And I think that's what he's talking about here. Love bears all things. It's covering over all offenses. Love is covering all offenses. All that which would be odious or displeasing. Love hovers over it. You know, I hope I don't offend anybody by saying this, but I think bulldogs get really ugly when they get older, right? A bulldog can be one of the ugliest things, but when it's little, it's really cute, right? And then all puppies are cute, and then something happens to some of them.

13:24But you think about if you really love your dog, or whatever you just, you look right Past that, right? And well, that may be a poor example, but you get the idea that if someone you love is being in a compromised position, or if somebody starts coming in and talking about your child and starts putting them in the worst light, what do you do? You defend them, right? You want to cover, you want to cover things. That's what love does. It covers. If you love someone, you cover. The very opposite of love. You remember this scene in Genesis? You remember after Noah got out of the ark, made a batch of grape juice that got a little heavy in the fermenting process and got drunk and was naked in his tent. And what did Ham do? Ham went in and saw it. And it's clear that he didn't seek to cover it. He came to talk about it. He came out in the open. Let's, hey, check out Pop's in here, you know. And what do his older, what do the other brothers do? They take a blanket, right, and they walk in backwards and they cover.

15:00That's Ham dishonored, exposed, went out to tell his brothers. You see, what our depravity does is it causes us to rejoice in the weaknesses and depravity of others. That's the fallen condition. We can rejoice in the weaknesses of others, the exposures, the failings, and the depravity of others. And sometimes we do this self-righteously, like, aha, see, I'm not like that. Other times, we can do that vicariously by, yeah, did you hear that? Did you hear that? You kind of get into glorifying sin.

15:42We can sin vicariously, or we can rejoice in the weakness of others' depravity by feeling smug about it. But all that is a depraved response, a loveless response to the failures and sins of others. Our love for a person can be measured by how quick we are to cover their faults. You want to know how well you love people? It's measured by how quick you are to cover their faults. And if you're one of these individuals that tenaciously holds on, you are lacking in love, severely lacking in love.

16:30Luke 19:10. Think about Jesus. Think about this individual who was bearing all things, covering all things. For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost. His whole paradigm is seeking and saving the lost. He's aggressively moving in the direction of relationship, isn't he? He's like, listen, I've come down here to find out those people who messed up planet Earth and take care of them. Not at all. In his searching for us, in his aggressive chase after us, it's an expression of his love for us.

17:23Remember in John 3:17, Jesus said, For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. That's how the Father loves, he pursues. God sent his Son to pursue us. You see that in Jesus? Pursuing, not exposing, not trying to look. He's like, man, the world's already condemned. I didn't come here to condemn the world. You've already offended me. You've offended God. You've done everything vile and corrupt.

18:01But I'm making a way for your sin to be completely covered so that I don't, when I look at you, I'm not thinking about these things. And in steps, Jesus, you know, just as an example of this, let me just go to Mark 10. You see this throughout. Remember in Mark chapter 10, remember the rich young ruler in verse 17. As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him and asked him, Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? You know the parable, the story, not the story, not the parable, it's count, historic narrative. And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. So you see this guy come bopping up, probably pretty excited. And good teacher. He says, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Well, you know the commandments: do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.

19:14What does he say? The young man, he says, teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up. You are looking at someone good. You say there's no one good, but man, I am good. Here I am. I've kept all these things. He can almost see the energy. That's why they say he was a young ruler. An older guy probably wouldn't be that optimistic about his own righteousness. The older you get, the more you realize how much we need God.

19:54But what does Jesus say? He doesn't say, Look, young man, you are so far off the mark. Let me go through the lists of your offenses to God. Let me show you how you have broken all of these commandments with an exclamation point. He doesn't take him down that road. Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said, One thing you lack, go and sell all you possess, give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. You know, very few people got this invitation. Come be part of my band.

20:38Come on. He didn't. But don't miss Christ's love for him. As he came seeking to save the lost, this is what it looked like. He was driven by a love, a love that declared truth. Remember, love loves the truth, right? Rejoices in the truth. See another expression of this in Luke. I mean, there's so many of them. Probably already looked at this one in Luke chapter 7. Now, one of the Pharisees was requesting him to dine with him, and he entered the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner. And when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume. And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and keep wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing his feet and anointing them with the perfume. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.

22:07And so here you've got this woman. Obviously, her sin is notorious, well known, comes into the presence of Christ at great risk and great expense, comes in to the perfect place to be absolutely publicly humiliated on a major scale. She knew something about Christ, didn't she? But she came and is met with lovelessness by the Pharisee, right? Let's expose this guy, he would see this and be offended and have nothing to do with her. And what Jesus says, he said, Simon, I have something to say to you. He said, Say it, teacher. The money lender had two debtors, one owned 500 denarii, the other 50. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And he said to him, You have judged correctly. Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet. But she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason, I say to her, I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. Then he said to her, Your sins have been forgiven.

23:57And then those at the table. Began to say to themselves, Who is this man who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. The covering. Forgiving. He is forgiving sins. Instead of publicly shaming her, what does he do? He publicly covers her. He publicly forgives her at great cost to himself, right? So let's talk about this for just a moment. If love is seeking, or if love is covering all offenses, what happens to a person when he or she comes to the cross? What's happening there?

25:00What happens at the cross? Covering, right? What is that? I mean, what's happening? It's like it's at the cross. That's where God takes his mantle, if you will. He throws his great mantle of love over sin. So when a person comes, it's there in the cross that a person's sins are forever covered. You see, by nature, love is redemptive. That's what it is. It's redemptive. It's redemptive in nature, seeking. Now, think about this: if love is redemptive in nature, what is the person who loves after?

25:50What's the person who loves after? What's God after when he seeks to cover offenses? Reconciliation, redemption, the relationship, right? Reconciliation. He wants the relationship. God's love for humanity is redemptive. And if we're going to love at all like him, our love for one another is going to be redemptive. God's love is about mending, healing, building, strengthening, oneness. It's redemptive. The person who loves is after relationship. And so God wanted relationship. Love buys back. That's what love does.

27:00It doesn't condemn. Love wants to save. Love wants to salvage. That's the nature of love. How should this characterize our interaction with people at home, school, work, church? Any thoughts? Start with the home. Let's get it right in the home first, right? Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives. How should this characterize? How should this characterize our interactions? Assume good intentions. Yes, assume good intentions. Great. What else? Seek to strengthen and rebuild. Yes. Cover offenses. Yeah, not being pleased to make a big deal out of people's offenses, shortcomings. Yeah, I recognize that sometimes you have to work through some things. Sure.

28:19But do it with an intent of covering the sins. Let's move on beyond them, not let's express our Indignation in how you have offended me or how you've sinned against me. That's not love. That's not how it operates. School, same thing. Work. We should be wanting to buy back relationships, right? That's what love does. It's not some silly emotion, but the devotion of a well-regulated mind trying to bring about the well-being in another person to the glory of God and for the well-being of a relationship. That's what love does.

29:21And if we lack love, what should we do? Seek the love giver, right? I mean, look at the cross. I mean, seek the love giver. You know, if you understand that you are loved like this, you can begin to love like this. When you begin to realize, sorry, don't let the fly distract you, even if it. Distracts me. But what was I saying? Lovegiver. Lovegiver. Yeah, focus on the love giver. If you can focus on the lovegiver, if you can realize to the degree that you are loved like this, that at the cross, God threw his great mantle of love over you and said, I am not going to look at you with the intent to find your faults, to bring them out, but I am looking at you through the righteousness of Christ that I have given to you so that I may delight in you and have a relationship with you.

30:35That's how God, and when you see that you have been forgiven much, your capacity to love much goes up exponentially. So in all this teaching, Paul recognizes the church, they need to grow up in love. All of us do. I don't think this is something that, okay, like there, you don't love or you're seeing things. It's not to be destroyed, but to be examining yourself or to destroy others. It's to be examining yourself and asking God, God, help me love like this. The bottom line is, I'm starting. To see some areas I do not love like I thought I love. I do not love like Christ loves. I'm starting to see that, and hopefully, by now in this study, you are seeing some real love deficiencies in your own heart. Welcome to the human race. Guess where he's taking us? He's transforming us, he's making us into individuals who can love like Christ. That's what he's doing. And he wants us, he exposes our lack of love so that we can ask for the one who delights to give you. You want a prayer that I can assure you, God will answer. Say, God, help me love more like Christ.

32:14Pray it right now. And I guarantee you, that's one he runs to answer. Well, let's move on. Love bears all things, believes all things. Interesting, believes all things. Love believes all things. There's the verb. Again, active. It is believing. It is, and this is the word for faith. It's having faith. Love is having faith in all things. Love is believing all things. It speaks of love as confident, trusting, expressing faith in all things. So the noun again, all.

33:00What's all? Well, I can assure you, Paul is not saying love is gullible, that it's easy to fool. Love is just lives on a outside the realm of reality and likes to delude itself. No, love loves the truth, right? Love is about truth. And so it's not gullible. Love is very discerning. It's not easy to fool. It's not that it's believing every wind of doctrine or a story, a person's. That's not what he's saying. Paul's not saying that at all. Love believes every wind of doctrine that comes along. No, that's that's not what he's saying is love is not faithless, it's not cynical, but opts for the most favorable possibility. It is optimistic based on the truth of God.

34:05Hate is ready to believe the worst, be cynical, but love has a degree of faith. Faith. And I would submit to you that it's faith that's at issue here. Faith, there's involves an element of faith, not faith in the person. Maybe he's already covered that. You know, do not be easily. Offended. This isn't so much driven at, okay, well, I'm going to just put all my trust and confidence in this individual. No, because over and over again, that's the misscripture affirms. That's the wrong place to put your trust, right? Love believes all things.

34:51It's faith. You see what love does in all circumstances. Love trusts God. In all circumstances. Love believes all things. It's trusting God that He is good and that He is working out His sovereign plan. That's fundamentally what love is. Love believes when you love like this, when you're called to love like this, which we all are if you are in Christ, we understand we trust God that He is good and that He is working out all things according to His sovereign plan. And so we can act according to genuine love. And it also carries the idea of entrusting others to God. And so I try to phrase it like this: Love is trusting God with all people in all circumstances. Next time around, I'll pull out the with all people and just say, Love is trusting God in all circumstances. But tonight I wanted to highlight the all put it all together. It's love is trusting God with all people.

36:00In all circumstances, it's waiting, it's giving, it's helping, it's going down the road of love, the expressions of love, believing that God is working all this out, no matter how painful it may be, no matter what may take. But love fundamentally has a divine element of trust and in all circumstances and with all people, being able to entrust others to God's cares, to God's care. So, when you think about the opposite of love, faithlessness, you can think about, remember in Luke 5:21, the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? You remember the paralytic? Jesus comes down through the roof, and Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven. They're like, Who is this?

37:09Well, they already had condemned him, right? This guy is blaspheming. Wait a second, wait a second. Hold on. That comes out of a heart of faithlessness. These Pharisees had no trust in God and no trust in what was happening. In Christ and what he was doing in there, pick up your mat and walk. They should have been able to dial in, right? But instead, Christ just did something that only God can do in the context of forgiving sins. He did the miracle so that they could understand that he makes a covering for sin, that God Himself is actively pursuing relationship with people. That's the good news.

37:59But as it relates to His own life, Jesus trusted God. It's an interesting dynamic. You can see this play out in a couple of places. But remember in John 8:28, Jesus said, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me. And He who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. It's an expression of faith.

38:40You really see this. Oh, I had another. I'm sorry, I uploaded that. It's okay. Let me read to you. You see this even more maybe in Luke chapter. 23. You remember Jesus upon the cross? This is a fascinating passage, Luke's account. Remember what happens? He's on the cross. Darkness has settled over the land for three hours. And you remember he's saying, remember what he said on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You remember that? That's not the last thing he said. What's interesting about that crying out is that darkness coming on the land. And for a period of three hours, there is a separation between son and father.

39:41In all the other prayers that Jesus offers, he always starts out with the word father, father, father. And then here at the cross, he's, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then, but that's not where he ends. After a period of three hours of darkness, and that's just an outside indication, an outside picture of what's happening, a covering is being made. The sacrifice is being offered. He is pouring himself out for the sins of humanity.

40:22And then, but that's not the last thing he says. The last thing he says, and Jesus crying out with a loud voice. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last. So there's Jesus on the cross. You want a picture of somebody who committed himself into the hands of his Father? That's what love does: love for God and love for man. It's operating in truth, operating in love, and then commending ourselves over to God's hands.

41:05What a scene. But he also was able to entrust others to God. I think sometimes we have a hard time. You know, sometimes it's easier to entrust yourself to God and a little more difficult to entrust those you love into God's hand. But here's Jesus. You remember in Luke 22, verse 31, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. Boy, I hope that, I hope he never asks that about me. Wow. I mean, this is intense.

41:48Behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. Jesus says, but I have prayed for you that your faith. Faith may not fail. And you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. So Jesus had faith to be able to entrust Peter's future to God. I have prayed for you. I have put your faith in the hands of Almighty God, that your faith would not fail, and that when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Do you remember what Peter says right after that?

42:40Lord, I'd die with you, you know. Jesus says, you'll deny me. But it's in this context that Jesus is like able to look through and see, yeah, he can put in God's hands. He can entrust people into God's hand and trust that the sovereign creator will do right in all circumstances. So he calls upon us to love. And it's a death process, isn't it? By now, you're seeing that this is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, if you're going to follow me, you're going to have to take up your cross and follow me daily. Following Christ really boils down to loving others, which involves a million crosses.

43:30Dying to yourself for the well-being of somebody else. And so God entrusts others. Jesus can entrust others. Anybody want to add to that? I want to James. I heard a story of a guy who was taken out of context, and someone tried to correct him. The person that took him out of context said, Color me skeptical. The guy who was taken out of context said, Why not color me hopeful? You know, this idea that if you would immediately think of the worst person, it was potentially the best. Yeah, well, and very next thing, love hopes all things. That's where we're going next. But yeah, very. Just in the context of believing what you say. Yes. Well, very good.

44:27Love believes all things. And I translate that to communicate the thought that I think he's getting at here: love is trusting God with all people in all circumstances. So let's boil this down. Why is faith in God crucial to loving others? Can you love somebody without having faith in God? Why? Praise and say that, John, that you are going to say that we cannot love God, we cannot love our brother if we cannot love God, because God is the giver of love.

45:20We can know love unless we have God in us. Very good. And you're right. I did say it, and I'm going to say it again. So you're right on both accounts because John said it, and he's saying it again. Very important. We know love. We have no concept of what love really is except by understanding God's love. So, yeah, so faith in God is crucial just for understanding what love is. Any other thoughts on that? There's a scripture that says we love because we love yes, we love because, yes, faith in God, if you don't understand how you are loved, listen, all of this is an exercise in understanding how God loves you. And then we love like this because we have been loved like this. And so, if you don't have a faith in God, if you don't understand the degree to which God loves you, the degree to which the offenses he overcame, To have a relationship with you. If you don't understand that, you will never be able to advance in a Christ-like love at all. Oh, you may have some warm feelings for somebody. You may have a contractual type relationship. And I'll tell you what, that's what most relationships are, even marriages. They're more contractual. Okay, we go through life on a contractual basis. I'll be your friend if you will be my friend. I will. And much of our relationships with people are just mere contractual. And when you irritate me, I'll irritate you. We're done. We go and sit.

47:09But love doesn't operate like that. Love is not contractual, it's covenantal in nature. And so knowing that you're loved like this gives you an understanding of what God, we've been loved, so we love like this. So thank you. Other thoughts? Yes, ma'am. And I believe that your faith in God, so that you don't or two vote for error because they don't know you're expecting someone that you love someone, so you have this expectation or this high standard.

48:00We're not perfect. You may answer in them in a way that they may not even explain. But the God will be spring and holding the same strength to be approved. Okay, now we're not going to tie it. Okay, maybe we can talk about error, both in ourselves and in other people, right? Good. For example, love what are my feelings? Yes. Yes. Love within. Oh, okay, well, great. Then we can, like you said, move on. Let's go on. We don't have to stay there. Yeah, love, love, believes the best.

48:56The most, yeah, very good. Trusting. Believing. Good. How might a lack of love or a lack of faith in God manifest itself in our actions to one another? Well, maybe we're about out of any thoughts on that one real quickly or about out of time. Yes. Just a word context. You know, sometimes I struggle with this part is that if I receive like something that I just receive a patient from this group of uh doctor, nurse, transition, oh, it's not. So-and-so, and this is nurse so-and-so.

49:31In my head, I be a good group of nurses and they'll go, oh, great, I know this patient is good. You know, like, they're gonna be patient dirty, or they're not gonna ID's not gonna work. And you have this like cynical mentality, like, great, because if they're, I know this guy, he's he's gonna be good for nothing when I work with them, he always makes my job harder. And it's like, it's it's rather than saying, Okay, maybe it was the bid, it was busy, maybe trying to trying to be spurious, or like maybe they just they forgot to do this, maybe they forgot to do that, hoping that like it wasn't purposeful, like that patient went to the bed, let's just let the that nurse look after. Um, sometimes it's tough, because you after repetition, after repetition, you get patients like that, you're like, bro, like, come on, man, like, help a brother out, you know, I'm just saying, like, it's tough, it has those moments, but like, that's that's that mindset, like, hey, you know what, maybe this last one really tried, and they didn't have Chucks in the room, you know what I mean? Then he's like, hey, dude, I'm sorry. And you're like, all right, all right, cool, well, do you not feel against me? But sometimes it's tough in the context of other nurses that are sinful. For sure, for sure. When you're sinned against it, it hurts. And sometimes we perceive sin that's being sinned against is not there. And regardless if it's intentional or not, we are to be seeking redemptive.

51:00Work, right? So, even if, okay, yeah, you didn't intend that, and you think you didn't intend it, but deep down, you really did intend it, and I know you intended it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And regardless of how you parse all that, you end up at the same place, you love, you move on and go. Because we don't have an English word for faith, faith in faith doesn't faith in error. Yes, but that's that statement, replace it with paint. Love paints all things. What does that mean? You apply paint to everything. Well, love faiths all things. You apply your faith in God to everything. Right. And you're so you're living, you live out your faith.

51:46And even in those difficult circumstances, it's like, okay, I know I'm called to love. I want to display love here. And Lord, help me love. So you and help me display love. And even then, it may not be received, right? But what love does, it's like, okay, God, you've called me to this road. And I'm trusting that you are going to work out in your sovereign designs everything you want to, whether it's a hardening, whether it's a softening, whatever it is, whether it's for my sanctification or for their sanctification. I don't have to sort through all that. I can just trust in all things with all. All people in all circumstances that God has called me to this, and I can try. I can commit my spirit into his hands. And that's exactly what Christ. Yes, sir. I think another way of saying this is lack of faith in God's church, because we are in the business of restoring people.

53:10And in order to restore another person, we have to love like he's a dead. Yes. Love the person where he or she is in the condition that he or she is facing. That is no easy place to be. Yes. Very good. I would like to restate what you said, but I'm afraid I would mess it up. No, no. Very profound. We're in the business of reconciliation, right? And that reconciliation demands that we love like God in that reconciliation. Yes, Russell, you're yeah, I hope that it's kind of depending on what I was thinking about. This question, how about I like a faith? In God manifests itself in our actions of others.

54:03I was thinking the degree in which I forgive others is indicative of my faith in God. If I'm struggling with forgiving others, that's the need of faith, or I have to go faith. And if I'm able to forgive others, but even though we need to be offended, that indicates that I believe my faith is strong. Yes. There's a relationship. Yes, very good. Well, let's go. Very good thoughts. Let's go out and try to put this into practice now, right? Heavenly Father, we do come before you, recognizing this teaching is given for the edification and building up of your body. And, Father, we recognize, if we're honest with ourselves, that we have a long way to go in loving and loving like Christ, but we're also reminded of His great love for us. And so we're encouraged to love like this. And we ask you to bring that about, even this teaching at this time in our church's history, that you, according to your sovereign designs and good plans, have wanted us to go through this. So, Father, we do desire to love like your Son as a testimony of gratitude for your love for us. So, thank you. And be with us this week as we go. In Jesus' name, amen.