Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through 1 Corinthians 13, focusing on what love is not, specifically addressing arrogance and rudeness. He emphasizes that love is about humility and putting others first, contrasting this with the self-centeredness of arrogance. The practical application encourages the congregation to reflect on their attitudes and behaviors, asking themselves how they can better serve and respect others in their daily lives.
Welcome and Announcements
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Thank you, Clara, for singing.
Thank you for worshiping and being with us. If you have a child who wants to be dismissed at the Children's Church, we've got that available for you, and it's a great way. If you have your Bibles, we'll be in 1 Corinthians 13,
and we'll be speaking on just two specific things, but I want to read the first four and a half, five verses to get us started this morning.
As you're making your way to 1 Corinthians 13, just to recap, if you haven't been here over the last couple of weeks, we've been talking through what is love, and so we spent the first couple of weeks talking
about the great command that Jesus gives to love as Christ's love, as Christ showed his disciples love.
We should, in that same way, show love. And then we began looking at chapter 13, the prominence of love. Without love, we're nothing.
We're like a sounding gong or a tingling cymbal that just gets on our nerves without love.
And then we looked at how love is patient and love is kind. And last week and over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be looking at what love is not. Love is not envious and not boastful.
Last week and today we'll be looking at love is not arrogant or rude. And so if you have your Bibles, turn to your place. We'll stand out of honoring God's word and we'll read the first couple of verses here. Begin in verse one again to recap.
It says, If I speak human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a noising gong or a clinging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that I can move mountains, but I do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions and if I give over my body in order to boast, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. It's not boastful. It's not arrogant. And verse five is not rude.
Father, we love you. We thank you for your blessings. God, we thank you for what you've done for us. Again, be with the reading of your scripture. Help me this morning as I preach as faithfully as I can to your word. In your name we pray. Amen. You can be seated.
We, church, have been given so much of what we don't earn or what we didn't earn or don't deserve.
A lot of what we have is God's blessing and favor upon us. First Corinthians chapter four, just a couple of pages back, verse seven, it says this, For who makes you superior? What did you have that you didn't receive?
In fact, you did not receive it. And why do you boast as if you hadn't received it? As we think through this, oftentimes in our life as humanity, as God has created us, but also in our spiritual life, we have been given so much.
One of the things that I love about going on mission trips and going to other parts of the world is seeing the first and second generation Christians, seeing people who are experiencing Christ for the first time. Maybe there have had no one in their family.
One of the blessings to go into some of these third worlds in Nicaragua and Panama, and a couple of years ago, I went to India,
was seeing people for the very first time whose family was in Buddhism and Hinduism and in other religions experience Christ for the first time, truly give their light and heart to Christ. And for the very first time, they see Christianity and their life has changed.
It's nothing they did. It's nothing they did to earn it. But we as some third, fourth, fifth generation Christians in this room, maybe even more than that, we were brought to church.
We were set under good preaching and good songs, and we made a profession of faith at a young age as I did at five years old. And oftentimes, we take for granted what God has given us out of just a simple overflowing of someone else's obedience.
And oftentimes, we get puffed up, as the Bible says, and we get arrogant, as we're going to look at today. But the Christian life is about humility and putting others first.
It's about this mindset and this concept of, I am nothing.
As one pastor friend of mine used to say, I'm a zero with the rim rubbed out. I'm nothing. I'm nobody. I have nothing to say to myself. I am just simply here because of Christ's goodness and Christ's greatness to me. I use this story, this illustration often.
I worked at Chick-fil-A for many years, for a couple years in college and a couple years in high school, when I was in between church ministries.
And the founder of Chick-fil-A, who, of course, as you're an employee, you're going through all the training, you're going through everything, and have the opportunity to go down to the headquarters of Chick-fil-A.
And one of the things that I read as I was reading after the founder of Chick-fil-A, Truett Cathy, he said this,
My business grew on my understanding that customers are always looking for somebody who is dependable and polite and will take care of them.
And so as Truett began to build his business model, he began to create a purpose statement in front of everyone that ever comes in contact with Chick-fil-A.
And so as all the managers and leadership people, they began to get a store, the very first thing that they do is they go through a training course, and they go down to the very bottom with the entrance
of the headquarters, and there is a giant life-size statue of Jesus on his hands and knees washing Peter's feet.
And the owners at the time, Truett at the time, would gather them around and say, This is the model that we want you to have.
You are just a steward of what God has given you, and we want you to emulate that as well. And so he gives each and every operator a statue of that, a small statue they keep in their office.
This purpose that they have, and they put to memory, and any operator you can ask says this, This is the purpose of Chick-fil-A is to glorify God and be a faithful steward of all that has been trusted to them, to have a positive impact on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.
I personally have been in countless meetings as management there, and I will continue to hear this statement while I was there. We have committed to take care of people who take care of our communities. Dan Cathy, the current CEO and the son of Truett Cathy, said this in an interview.
He said, At Chick-fil-A, we are convinced that Jesus had it right. In Matthew 20, 26, when he says,
Those who want to become great leaders must be willing to become servants. We build our leadership competency model around the word serve, because we believe that great leaders ultimately serve.
They see the future. They engage and develop others. They reinvent continuously. They value results in relationships, and they embody the values.
Now, I said all that about Chick-fil-A to say this. How often do we have that same mindset and vision of our life, that we are just going to be here and to exist to serve other people? Or are we like the church at Corinth? The church at Corinth were Christ's followers.
They were going to church, and they followed Jesus, but yet Paul had to write to them and say, Love is not arrogant, and love is not rude.
Love puts other people first, as we're going to look at later in the message. And if we as a church are going to be followers of Christ, we must ask ourselves this question. Are we willing to humble ourselves, roll up our sleeves as Jesus did, and serve one another?
Arrogance vs. Humility
Or are we going to be the opposite, which is what we're talking about today, of being arrogant? Because ultimately, the first one today is love is arrogant. Love is putting ourself first.
Arrogant spirits lead to lots of problems. You've met the person that was arrogant and thought they knew it all. Arrogant is contrary to love because it focuses on self rather than love. A great writer, Amy Carmichael, said it like this, Those who think too much of themselves don't think enough.
Think about that. Those who think too much of themselves don't think enough.
Because too often, we are so self-consumed. And it's natural in humanity to be this way. The root of this word that is used here is the word puffed up or inflated. Another way to put this, and I really like this definition, is love doesn't cherish inflated ideas of your own self-importance.
You know, this is a huge teaching point of Jesus and his disciples. Jesus was constantly telling his disciples, Stay humble. Go out, serve people.
Go out two by two and love the people that are around you. Go out and help them that are hurting.
Go out and do these things. And I often have to remind myself, Why did Jesus constantly have to say this to them? It would have been really easy for those disciples to say, Who was your teacher again? Oh yeah, mine was Jesus. Mine was the Savior of the world. It was God's son.
I mean, you can imagine someone, I mean, this happens today. Who was your professor in college? Oh, I had, so I went to Harvard University. Look at my degrees. Look at how great I am. Look at who taught me to be who I am. And we are naturally like that as people.
And so I believe Jesus had to constantly tell his disciples,
You are nobody. The only person that is anybody is Jesus Christ, God's son. And he is the reason that we're here. Matthew 23, 11 through 14.
I forgot to put this in my notes. I think I put it on the screen, guys. Will you put that up there? Matthew 23 says it like this. The greatest among you will be your servants. In verse 12, it says, Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, And whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Is there verse 13? Yes. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom that is in people's faces. For you do not go in, And you do not allow those to enter to go in. In verse 14 says, I don't have 14 up there. It's okay.
Humility in mind is not arrogance.
Consequences of Arrogance
When we are arrogant, the devil wins. And we are acting like him. Think about it for a moment. What did the devil do when he came into the garden? The devil said to Eve in that moment, Did God really say? Did God really give you everything that you were going to have?
And the devil comes in and he says that, You know, all these things that are put out in front of our eyes That we can hopefully grasp onto, The devil pulls out there for us and says, God is holding these things back from you.
If you follow me, I'm going to give you a greater, better life. This is what arrogance does. It's a good reminder for me. It's a good reminder for us to say this often. You may want to write this in your notes. Everything good we have came from the Lord.
Everything good that we have has come from the Lord. There is no reason for us, church, to be arrogant. William Carey, the father of modern missions, I've mentioned him over the last couple of weeks as well. He translated the parts of the Bible into at least 34 different languages.
How many of you in here know two languages? Raise your hand.
Okay. I don't know but one. Okay. And it's really fun when I go to other countries because I try to figure out these other languages and talk with them. But when I begin to think about this, 34 different languages.
He was able to take scripture, translate them, portions of scripture, and give it to other countries so they could have a piece of language in their, a piece of the scripture in their language. This was the background of William Carey. You ready? He was raised in a simple home in England.
The early days of work, he was what we called clobbers. Anybody know what a clobber is?
Guess. Want to think what a clobber is? Someone that punches somebody. That's a good guess. No.
Picks up. Nope. A clobber is a shoe repair guy. We don't have this anymore, right? What happens, ladies, when our shoes get a little hole in them? We throw them away and we go buy a new pair. Right? Cobbler, cobbler, cobbler.
My bad. It's food here. I can't even read my own language. That's why we didn't know. Yeah. They repaired shoes.
They took shoes that were hurt and worn and they would put new bottoms on them. They would take care of them.
And while he was in India, if you know anything about Indian culture, India has a caste system. You are valued on what you do in life. If you work for the king, then you're going to be higher.
If you have a farm, you're going to be higher. But if you're a servant or a slave, you're the bottom of the totem pole. One day he was in India at a meeting at a party of an influential person. And he was ridiculed and becoming to be ridiculed for his low status.
And the person that was at the table said, Mr. Carey, I hear you once worked as a shoemaker.
Trying to insult him. And this was the response of William Carey. He quickly replied, oh no, you're mistaken. I was never a shoemaker. I was only a shoe repairman. Because he understood the value of, I'm not going to elevate myself in this moment.
I am going to be lowered and to be a servant. And even when this guy is trying to make fun of me, I'm going to lift up other people. You see, the opposite of arrogance is love is humble and modest.
Love Is Humble and Modest
Romans 12, 16. Humble and modest is your blanks there. Love is humble and modest. Romans 12, 16. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud. Instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation.
See, unity and harmony are normally associated with our attitudes toward one another and about ourselves. They should be normally associated.
You know the person that you work with or you go to school with that always makes everything about themselves.
You can remember, you're probably thinking of a specific individual that maybe you went to school with or you eat lunch with on a daily basis that every time you say something, this is the story's turning back to them. Arrogance and boastful go hand in hand from last week. Okay?
But humility is the mindset of a servant. A servant cannot put himself above the master. A servant must humble himself to the point of getting everything that the master needs.
And Jesus said, if we are going to be, in Matthew,
the leaders of the world and the teachers of the world, we must have a servant's heart. Some of the greatest teachers of the world could easily have puffed themselves up. I think often of some of these writers that I read after. I'm a reader.
I like to read after many different varieties of books. And I often think, even in theology, some of these authors that could have made a great name for themselves. But yet they continue to stay humble and lowly in their life.
One of the greatest authors that I read after, John MacArthur, Grace to You Ministry.
I know me and Stephen talk about him often. Every month I receive a free book from John MacArthur's ministries. They never charge me a penny. They don't ask me for any money. They send it to me just because I signed up.
But John MacArthur could have easily made millions and millions of dollars off of selling. And he does sell his books. But he's willing to give those to other people just to help other people out.
One author that I like to read after and look after, I mentioned him last week as well, is C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis, a prolific writer.
He sold millions and millions of copies of books in his day. And after his death, he's probably sold more copies of his books after he has died than when he was alive. He translated his books into multiple languages.
He was a professor at Oxford and Cambridge at the exact same time. Two well-established colleges that if you said those two names in England, you would have been among the top. And despite his success,
he knew that he had to stay humble. He was known to personally write a response to every person that wrote him.
If someone wrote him about a book that he had written a statement and said, Mr. Lewis, I don't really agree with you in this statement or I have a question about this. And they sent that in to him. He would personally write every single person back.
Because he knew that he wanted to have this intimate connection with them. As I began studying Lewis's life over the last couple of weeks, I've heard this and I read this by one person who wrote it. It said, Lewis attended a small local Anglican church. There in England, a diverse group of people,
many of whom, this was one of the most amazing parts, who were illiterate.
They couldn't read. They did not know that he was a prolific writer. They did not know that he had success in writing. And once he was asked about this and he simply replied,
Heaven will be made up of all sorts of people and this is my little slice of heaven. I don't have to be lifted up.
I don't have to be made known to who I am and my stature in life. I just want to come in and worship and love God and love people that are around me.
And I often think, is that the type of mentality that we have when we come to worship the Lord? Do we come in saying, I don't care what status I have in life. I don't care what position I have in life. I just want to come in.
I just want to worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord. As we sing in our song, I just want to glorify the name of Jesus.
I just want to lift up his name and lift it up so high that if someone were to say anything to me, the only outflow of what's going to come out of me is Christ.
You see, one person said it like this. It is through pride that the devil becomes the devil. Pride leads to every other vice and it is completely anti-God state of mind.
That is what pride does. Pride comes in and it lifts us up. It brings us to a state of being where we think we are something. Arrogance is this. One writer said it like this. I really liked it. Arrogance is big-headed and love is big-hearted. Arrogance is big-headed, but love is big-hearted.
You see, it's easy to puff ourselves up. It's easy for people to come and you may come to me and I may ask you in the course of being your pastor, hey, tell me something that you got out of the message today. And I appreciate positive comments, but I'll oftentimes reflect that and say, what's something I could do better?
My wife hates it because every Sunday afternoon on our way home or sitting down for dinner, my kids know this now, I'll say, hey, what's something you got out of the message and what's something that you didn't understand?
It's really interesting to ask a child that because they'll say, dad, I don't really even understand what you were talking about at all today. Okay, I need to work on that my whole message because they're not understanding it, right? And so arrogance is thinking that you're somebody and you have arrived.
But when we begin to live in love, it is having a big heart and it is that overflowing of our heart. But not only is love arrogant, love is not arrogant, love is also not rude.
One of the first things that we try to do if you are a good parent and most of us in here are parents at some point or we have been children at some point is to teach our children good manners.
We try to teach our children to say, please and thank you. When they get something, they say thank you in return.
When they're trying to get something and you're in the way, we want them to say, excuse me, can I get to where you're at?
When someone has done something or you did something that you shouldn't have done, we want them to say, I'm sorry. I was in error. I did wrong in that situation.
And then we have done wrong to someone, you have to go to them and you have to say, will you forgive me? As parents, we want our children to exemplify these things.
We want our kids to come in to say these things because we are trying to teach them not to be rude. We're trying to teach them that it is right to prefer other people and to put yourself in a humbler state and put yourself in a lowly state. But when we are rude,
it is not, oftentimes we think, well,
rudeness is not as big as pride or it's not big like boasting. It's somewhat smaller, but it all comes from the same root, which is lovelessness.
When we're rude to someone, it's because we don't love them. We don't prefer them over us.
We think we're better than them because we are acting rude toward them. Because we think we have arrived and they haven't. But when we're filled with the love of Christ, Christ comes in and it influences every single aspect of our life.
You see, rude is not only the way we act or conduct ourselves. It can be like this. Rudeness can be in our speech. Rudeness can be in our behavior. Rudeness can be in our apparel or dress. And it can even be a disgrace of someone else's time.
When you begin to abuse someone's time, when you begin to dress in a way, when you begin to act in a way that is inappropriate, you are being rude.
You've been to the doctor's office before, right? And they say, be here at 630.
And if you're not here at 630, you've broken your appointment and we're going to charge you for a broken appointment. And so you show up at 615, 620 like you would if you're me, and they make you sit in the waiting room until 7 o'clock, right? They're being rude of your time.
They don't value your time. Where if you yourself would have value, you would take care of those things. And you would make sure that you're not breaking someone's time. You see, the unfortunate thing is that rudeness here didn't die out with the church at Corinth.
Unfortunately, it still exists today in churches all across the country. See, wealthy members in this day would not want to have dinner with someone of a lower class. They didn't even want to go as far as if you read back in chapter 12,
they would not even take the Lord's Supper together. Because they said, hey, let's have a time for the affluent class to come and have the Lord's Supper. And then we'll have the time where the poorest people would come and they can take the Lord's Supper. And Paul said, no, no, no, no, no. You guys have been rude.
You're preferring yourselves. You're thinking you're someone. He said, you need to come together and partake together. And oftentimes, and I've been in church my entire life, 36 years, 35 years.
It'll be 36 years in December. I was born on a Thursday, and on Sunday I was in church. And I haven't missed many Sundays since then.
As you may have heard before, I was drugged. I had a drug disease. I was drugged to church every time the doors were open. We, every time the doors were open.
Saturdays when we had bus visitation, I was there. There's a picture of me in a car seat. My mom's driving the bus, and my dad is picking up kids on the bus. And I was in church. I was there.
I was all over the place. I went to Bible college. I was in churches there. I went to Idaho, I've been in churches there. And oftentimes, this still exists today that we love ourselves more than we would love other people. One translation says it like this, love dishonors others.
It takes this point of preferring your own self over someone else.
It's putting yourself down in order for you to succeed. And oftentimes, when we begin to think of this, we really begin to get a hard examination of what love is and what rude things are in our life. We begin to examine where we're at.
We begin to ask ourselves, and really, as we think through these thoughts is, Lord, reveal to the moments in my heart where I'm arrogant and I'm rude. As I go through these points, as we go through this sermon over the next couple weeks, ask yourself, Lord, reveal these areas of my life.
Show them to me on Monday when I'm at work. Show them to me on Tuesday when I'm having a hard time. Help me to understand when I am this way. You see, Jesus gives an awesome illustration in Luke. In Luke chapter 7,
Jesus is given a parable. And in this moment, he's at a guy named Simon's house.
And Simon is there, and he's opened his house. And when Jesus sat down and began teaching and giving this parable, a woman who was a prostitute came in and began to break a vial of ointment,
Jesus' Example of Love
began to bathe Jesus' feet, began to wash his feet with his hair, began to kiss Jesus' feet, began to love on Jesus. And Jesus in this moment gives a parable of the moneylender. And he says that there is a moneylender that had two different guys who had two different debts. One guy owed $500,
and the other guy owed $50. And the moneylender forgave both of their debts. And he looks at Simon, and he says, Simon, which is more grateful? And Simon, just like we would, would say, well, the one that forgave more, right?
And Jesus, in his response, showed this love and compassion to both of them. And in Luke chapter 7, verse 44, he turns to the woman, and he said to Simon, I often, Jesus does this often. I want you to think about this type of teaching. He did this to Peter.
He did this to Simon. He turns to the woman, but he's talking to Simon that's behind him. He turns to the woman. He's talking to Simon, and he says this, Do you see this woman?
I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet. But she, with her tears, has began to wash my feet and wipe them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she hasn't stopped kissing my feet since I came in.
You didn't anoint my head with olive oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. Therefore, I tell you,
her many sins have been forgiven, and that is why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, lives little, loves little. Then he said unto her, Your sins are forgiven.
Jesus gives this awesome parable, this amazing story, this amazing situation that happened, where he says, You think you're elevated, and you think you deserve these things, when you aren't showing love at all.
Because ultimately, in your next point, love promotes proper dignity. Jesus' response to this woman is remarkable.
It is a remarkable way of viewing love and of showing love toward one another, to both the woman and to Simon. You see, Jesus didn't just rebuke Simon.
He loved him in this response. He just didn't love the woman, but he showed this in an illustration, where he showed them a sense of awareness of how our actions affect the ones that are around us.
Oftentimes, church, it is the little things that we do. It is the little actions that we do that make the biggest difference in this world.
When we are walking around, and we always do our trunk or treat, and every church we've been at, we've always done it on the 31st. 31st, and so we have the opportunity, like now when churches do it on Saturday, and other days of the week, we go and we hang out.
We dress the kids up. They get to experience trunk or treat, and trick or treating. And it's the greatest experience of my life. As Hudson, he's three years old, and he walks around. He walks up and he goes, Please, can I have candy?
And they're like, You can have two pieces. And then he goes that, and they're like, Handful.
All right? The older kids, they come up, and they can be as sweet and as nice as possible. And they're like, Two pieces of candy. And then Hudson is his little. He's polite.
He's nice. It's the little things. They're like, I'll give you a little extra. And oftentimes, this is love shown because we are showing others dignity and respect. One author said this, Love doesn't behave gracelessly.
Love is gracious. Love is so kind. Love is so compassionate that he is showing grace in ways the world doesn't understand.
Jesus, as I often think of Jesus. I don't know how you can go through your Christian life and not think about Jesus. But I think about how Jesus, on the way to the cross,
and those soldiers blindfolded him and put a bag over his head and began to hit him and said, Who is the one that did this? And Jesus responded with grace and compassion and didn't say a word.
If I would have known who it would have been, I would have lashed out. I would have shown anger.
But Jesus, in that moment of compassion, which ultimately led him to the cross, and while he was on the cross, the soldiers that were crucifying him, this was their statement, Truly this is the Son of God.
They didn't say that because of Jesus' response to them in anger. They didn't say that because Jesus cast down a thousand angels and smote everybody.
Gentleness and Strength
They didn't say that because he came off the cross and miraculously forgave everyone. They said that because of how he preferred other people, and he showed that compassion toward others. Our attitude, church, will affect the witness of Christ, whether it's good or bad.
It has been sensitive to those around us. It has been sensitive to the needs of those that are around us and say, How am I living my life? As I give some closing words of conclusion, Terry can come and play.
If people do not see the gentleness of Christ in our lives, clearly in us, they're less likely to clearly hear the gospel in us.
The third beatitude that Jesus gives in Matthew 5, verse 6 is this, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. One of the other translations says it like this, God blesses those who are gentle.
The whole earth will belong to them. It's very important that we give both of these translations because oftentimes when we hear meek, we think of weakness. We think of someone who is meek and feeble and can't care for themselves, but when we hear another translation that says, Blessed are those who are gentle,
it begins to give us a different translation. It gives us a different word picture. Think about it with me if you would for a moment. Rain, for instance.
Hard rain destroys life, as Claude talked about a minute ago, but a gentle rain gives life. Violent rain does harm, not good. The farmer, when there is a drought,
he doesn't pray for weak rain, and he doesn't pray for no rain, but instead he prays for gentle rain. A light misting of rain that is going to come in and deliver the most important need that they have at that moment, which is water, the power of life, but delivered gently, not destructively.
Gentleness doesn't mean feeble, but it means appropriately giving, not taking life away from someone. You could also say in Proverbs 15, where it says, A gentle tongue is the tree of life. Gentleness doesn't mean weakness, but it means fittingly strong, with a life-giving restraint.
Consider a sailor. He's out on the ocean, and he's just sitting there, and nothing's happening, and he says, God, I need some wind. He's not saying, Give me a violent wind. He's saying, Give me a gentle, blowing wind that's going to push me along.
But yet, if the sailor would have got a violent wind, it would be trouble. The virtue of gentleness is best seen when God is at his best.
When we begin to wield his strength that he has for us to tend to his flock, as a shepherd lovingly picks up the lamb, and takes care of that lamb, and lovingly takes care of those around him,
violence comes in and destroys with strength. But gentleness is life-giving.
And it is tough for us, especially for me as a father, to be gentle and not rude. It is hard for me to prefer others above myself, because we are naturally tended to care for ourselves. And simply put like this, as I close, love is always courteous.
It simply doesn't cut in line, but in fact, to let others go before us.
And so as I conclude, I want to give you two questions just to ponder. Maybe to question there in your seat, or even come forward and say, God, help me in this area. The first is this, how are we in our arrogance in our life? And how are we treating others?
If we treat others with the proper dignity as Jesus did in that moment that I gave in that story where Jesus preferred this lady and rebuked Simon, but with love,
he wasn't being arrogant, he wasn't being rude, he was just simply loving and helping.
And then ultimately, the second one is this, do you take time for others? Do you take time to care for others well?
Caring for others is what Jesus did. He's called us to care for others. He's called us to love others. And if we don't have the proper view of love, from the biblical mindset of love, it will be frayed from this world. And Jesus says,
love is not arrogant and love is not rude. Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done for us. God, you are holy.
You are great. And oftentimes, we think too highly of ourselves when you are the one who sent your son to come and die for us. Lord, you gave it to us freely. Nothing expected in return.
And oftentimes, we've taken this gift of salvation and we've abused it and we've ridiculed it.
Closing Prayer and Reflection
And I pray, God, that you would help us this morning
as we go through this biblical view of love that you would help reignite in our lives the true love that you gave us and the love that we can have toward others.
Lord, help us this morning as we evaluate our own lives, as we evaluate what you've done, Lord, that you would get the honor and glory. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.
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