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In Western society, we've created a type of kindness or a way of kindness that's centered on agreement.
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And it points to a deeper cultural problem.
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We've connected love with affirmation.
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The idea is if you disagree with me, then you're being unkind or unloving.
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And maybe you've heard some of these statements in your life in social circles.
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If you loved me, you'd accept me for who I am.
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If you really cared about me, you wouldn't judge me.
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A real friend would be happy for me and celebrate my choice.
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Now this is a Western ideal, a Western problem.
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It's very, very prevalent in Canada, where I live, where we're at.
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And I just wonder, are we allowed to disagree?
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Are we allowed in society and culture to challenge ideas and values?
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And if we do, is there an assumption by the opposing party or discussing party, the party we're in conversation to, that is there an understanding by them that we're being unloving and that we're not showing love by asking deeper questions, by challenging the ideas or the statements, uh, the values that they're putting forward?
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And if that's true, what does love really mean?
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What's it really all about?
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We are in week four of our questions and answers series.
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We're striving to find truth in God's Word.
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Today's topic is the topic of love, as you may have guessed.
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And uh we're testing the biblical understanding of love and specifically love shown in speech and conversation, and we're challenging culture's view, and we're putting them together and saying, is what culture is saying about love and about conversation that it needs to always be affirming and that affirmation is demanded, is that really love?
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Or maybe there's this idea of truth and honesty and challenging ideals and sometimes having hard conversations, and maybe, just maybe, that that's the more loving response.
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And so we're looking at all of this within a biblical text by the Apostle Paul, his first letter to the Corinthian church.
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We are in 1 Corinthians 13.
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Now, this is usually a passage that's chosen to be read during weddings, but it doesn't really match with the context of the letter.
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Paul wrote this into a bunch of Christians, a church in the city of Corinth, that were in a fight.
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There were arguments over spiritual maturity and the level of faithfulness.
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And by the time we get into the passage, Paul starts talking about love.
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He's describing love, but then he starts moving into how love acts or some of the action and word attributes of love.
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And today I want to focus on two verses in particular, verses five and six of 1 Corinthians 13.
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Let's read it here.
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He says, it, or speaking about love from the previous context, it, love, does not insist on its own way.
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It is not irritable or resentful.
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It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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Now, the temptation of all human beings in our fallen state is the complete opposite of this.
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And I've had times like that, I'm sure you have too.
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And before I knew Jesus, I was definitely like that.
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And I slip back into my old ways all the time when I'm not staying focused.
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And maybe you're the same, but he here's the opposite.
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You know, the opposite is to always insist on our way, then our way is primary.
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It's to be irritable, uh, it's to be resentful, and it's to rejoice in wrongdoing or wrong things.
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And lastly, it's to neglect or ignore the truth.
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And really, this is a bit of a throwback to week one, the truth, and what is authoritative truth?
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And the authoritative truth found in Scripture, we rejoice in it, we embrace it.
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And when we don't embrace the authority of Scripture and the truth of Scripture, we go in the opposite direction.
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But let's let's pick this apart a little bit more.
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So let's look at the first part of verse five here first.
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It says, love does not insist on its own way.
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The deeper meaning of this in the original language is to seek or to plot, uh, to be about or desire, endeavor, inquire for, require, seek after for, or by means of.
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So the whole concept of this is to demand or seek out our own way over other people.
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If we're talking about the conversation piece, we always want the conversation or the center of the conversation to be about us.
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And we want to navigate it our way.
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We want everything that's spoken to us and about us to be self-focused.
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And moving on, if we look to the second part of verse 5, it says, love is not irritable or resentful.
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And if we
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look at the deeper meaning, to be irritable is to arouse anger or provoke or irritate, easily provoke or stir up.
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The resentful is a very interesting term in the original language.
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It actually means to take inventory.
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It's an accounting term in the Greco-Roman world, and it's a keeping a ledger of wrongs.
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And so love, love's not irritable, that's pretty straightforward and uh irritable or easily offended.
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Uh, the word of the day would be triggered.
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Uh, someone who's showing love in conversation, you know, has self-control and they're not triggered by what's being said.
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And uh the other thing is they don't hold grudges.
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You have conversations and you're challenged about things, or someone might question something you're saying or disagreeing, but you're not immediately writing them off and kind of putting them on a list of, oh, I don't listen to these people, or nothing they have to say is of value.
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It's a short record.
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You're not keeping a ledger of that.
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And so moving on to verse six now, let's unpack that a bit more.
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Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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Super interesting here.
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In the original Greek, we see here in English it says rejoice twice, but there's there's actually two different Greek verbs.
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So the first one is the personal rejoicing, which is uh to rejoice or to be glad internally, personally.
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But the second, uh Paul uses a form of communal rejoicing, which is to rejoice with.
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It's corporate, uh, to corporately congratulate or to corporately celebrate.
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And so if we unpack that in regards to conversations and discussions and showing love and listening and uh and affirming is the big term right now, we refuse to gloat over wrongdoing, either wrong thoughts or behaviors, and we don't uh we don't celebrate those because they're very self-focused.
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They're self-focused pleasures and pursuits, which we talked a bit about last week with the identity message, pursuing personal pleasure and pursuits and passions.
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But we cling instead, we cling to what's true, that truth is a key part of life and of loving, that a loving person clings to truth, and a loving person is willing to give truth and honesty to someone, and that is community focused because the truth of scripture and the truth overall, being honest, that helps society overall.
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Alright, now let's widen the perspective back out to our cultural
moment right now, into society and the conversations we have, and this idea of showing love through affirmation.
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Is it really best?
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And based on the scriptural truth that Paul's talking about, how we interact with love, do they match?
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And what do they look like?
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And I want you to think about it in two ways.
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So the first way is like a doorway, and it's a doorway of affirmation and celebration of certain beliefs, values, and ideologies, and it's demanded upon entry.
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It's like gatekeeping.
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If you come to that door, there's um suspicion, and they're taking cues on uh what you agree with and don't agree with, what you affirm.
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And if you hit all the markers, you get into the room.
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And this is problematic in like both ends of the spectrum.
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The extreme left does this and the extreme right does this.
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This isn't a a it is a politically polarizing thing, but the gatekeeping happens in all avenues of culture.
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And the other idea that I want you to think about, instead of like a doorway, I would say Paul's describing a table.
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And and at a table, everyone's welcome.
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You have to get through the doorway, the entryway, you have to get through the living room, and you have to actually sit down at the table.
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A lot of times there's a meal there, and there's discussion, and there's challenges, and there's disagreements.
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There might even be debate over dinner.
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And there's an understanding at the table that there's still love there, there's still acceptance, but acceptance and love isn't dependent on agreement.
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And that's what's very, very different about the Christian ideal of love versus what the world is and the Western world is pitching right now.
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And simply stated, and what the data is going to show us is that love is found at a table conversation, not a doorway affirmation.
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Love is found at a table conversation, not at a doorway affirmation.
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And this is the idea I want you to keep in mind as we walk through some of the data and what we're seeing in our culture.
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All right?
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Because Paul connects love and truth.
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Remember, love rejoices in truth.
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They can't be separated.
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And we dealt with a couple weeks ago this idea of everyone's truth, right?
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That was the first week.
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And you can all have your own truth, but eventually there's going to be disagreement.
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There has to be one authority of truth, which is scripture, and love is interconnected with it.
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Okay, so but in our culture, if love and truth are together in the United, we have a problem or culture has a problem.
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Now let's look at how this works in conversation.
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So, uh, first, a major self-esteem research review commissioned by the Association of Psychological Science found some interesting results.
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Psychologist Roy Baumeister, along with colleagues from several universities, found that boosting self-esteem through constant praise, regardless of actual performance, does not reliably produce better outcomes.
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The same research found that narcissism, not self-esteem itself, was what predicted aggression, specifically when someone's self-image was directly challenged.
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What this means is constant affirmation or the demand for affirmation, regardless of life choices, it doesn't deliver what it promises.
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And you're just backing up a self-image that eventually gets dangerous.
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Let's keep looking at some data here.
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So a field experiment out of the University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellum put honesty to the test.
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Researchers assigned people to be completely honest in every conversation.
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That would be crazy in Canadian culture, by the way.
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So with every person in their life, every person in their life, for three straight days.
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Before starting, participants predicted it would be unpleasant and it would damage their relationships.
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And, you know, for a Canadian, that that would be a nervous thing for us.
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We don't readily speak our minds all the time, especially if we came across someone who we didn't really deeply trust.
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Either way, it didn't work out the way they thought it would.
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Being honest turned out to be more enjoyable, more socially connecting, and less relationally harmful than they expected.
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In a follow-up experiment, people gave honest negative feedback to someone close to them.
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And the same pattern held.
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The researchers' conclusion was that we consistently overestimate how badly others will react to our honesty.
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Which is crazy when we think about Paul's instruction and attaching love with truth.
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And all through Scripture, honesty, no matter what, honesty
given with grace, of course, we have to be kind, but telling the truth, not lying, not being deceptive, uh, not just being agreeable to be agreeable, not just affirming for the sake of it, but being honest, it doesn't cost as much as we fear it will.
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And there's actually some great respect, self-respect that's gained and respect with other people when you're graciously telling the truth.
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And when you're not demanded to just go with whatever is the line of the day or the line of the encampment.
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And so the takeaway of this is by constantly demanding affirmation, we're avoiding conversations that could actually help us.
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And so, again, coming back to the doorway in the table, the doorway promises safety, right?
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It promises that gatekeeping of your own people are in.
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And uh, you know, some groups would call it an ally, right?
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And so we're making sure that our allies are allowed in, and no one who's not an ally, you know, they we don't let them in.
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But it doesn't deliver authentic connection over the long haul.
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And the table feels very risky to sit at a table, to listen, to ask questions, to be challenged on ideas, to look at factual information, to look at data and research, to see what's really going on.
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It feels like it's gonna be terrible.
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It's so terrifying.
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But if you walk through it, in the end, it's a loving way to deal with people, it's a gracious way to deal with people, and it's actually a beneficial way to deal with people.
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And honesty and community are found, and honesty and community thrives.
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With all this in mind, we suddenly see how Paul's instruction on how we love, it makes a lot more sense.
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Choosing the selfless, truth-seeking way of life is better for us.
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It's better for each other, it's better for society.
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And so for us as Christians, if you have chosen to follow Jesus as I have, we need to be the front runners on this.
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We can't be Bible thumping people about it, they're not going to be convinced that way.
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But the connection we have, the joy we have, the peace we have, the self-respect and and and uh I guess inner peace that we have, it's found in Jesus because as we talked about last week, he's our identity, he's where we find that.
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And so we can speak honestly to people.
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And we can embrace hard conversations.
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Christians should be at the forefront of embracing hard conversations, and
we should be receiving, accepting of hard conversations and challenges.
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Because for us, love and truth are interconnected and they're good for us.
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And even if we think about the beginning of this series, if you remember, in in John 1, verse 14, John says this statement that Jesus is full of grace and truth, and that our pursuit of Jesus isn't just all about grace and love, and it's not all about truth and law.
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He's a fullness of grace and truth.
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Much like Paul's saying now, a fullness of love and truth.
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They go hand in hand.
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And we were talking about a table, and it's fitting that as we talked about creating these table conversations, um, it's fitting that we would end our time today with communion.
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That's what we're gonna do.
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And so at this moment, you can pause the video or audio if you would like to participate in communion together with us, wherever you're at.
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Maybe you're watching with people or listening with people, uh, grab some bread or crackers, wine or juice, and get the elements together, and uh then come back and we'll hit play again, and uh then we'll walk through the communion passage in Matthew 26, and we're gonna come to the table, which is the main thing in our theology as Christians and our whole belief system, our faith system that connects us.
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No matter where we are, no matter what denomination, country, language, all over the world, we take communion together and we share this in common.
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And so it seems fitting.
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Also because it resembles and remembers the greatest act of love that was ever done in all history when God sent his son Jesus, and Jesus willingly died on the cross to take our sin.
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And so we're gonna remember that now as we talk about what is love, what is really at the bottom of love, what's authentic true love?
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Well, it's sacrificial love.
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It's the most selfless thing that could have ever been done, and it's just it's through Jesus.
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It's him who did it.
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So gather the elements, come back, and let's remember Jesus' sacrifice together.
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Okay, welcome back.
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Hopefully you have your elements ready.
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The process for communion today is I am going to pray for the bread first.
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I'm gonna read Matthew 26, 26, outlining when Jesus and the disciples took the bread, and then we will take the bread together, and then I'll do the same process for the cup.
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So would you pray with me for
the bread that represents the body of Christ?
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Dear Father, I thank you for sending your son Jesus.
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I thank you that he took our sin upon the cross to be the ultimate sacrifice.
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Father, as we take this bread, we remember his body that was broken and beaten and nailed to the cross.
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And we take it in sorrow on one level and yet in thanksgiving on the other.
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And Jesus, we thank you for willingly going to the cross.
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And we take this bread and we remember in our mind's eye your body hung there.
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Taking the punishment, ultimately taking the wrath of God on our behalf.
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Bless this bread.
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In your name, Jesus, we pray.
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Amen.
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Matthew 26, verse 26.
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It says, now as they were eating, Jesus took bread.
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And after blessing it, he broke it and he gave it to his disciples and said, Hey, this is my blood.
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Now let's pray for the cup.
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Dear Father, we transition now to the cup, which represents the blood of your son Jesus.
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Poured out for the sins of the world.
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The atonement, the final atonement.
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The final sacrifice.
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We thank you for this cup and what it represents.
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Jesus, we thank you again for willingly shedding your blood for us.
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We thank of the wounds all over your body, your hands, your feet, the crown of thorns on your head, and eventually the wound in your side, and the blood that we shed.
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We thank you for the atonement.
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We thank you for your willingness to die for us and shed your blood.
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Bless this cup in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Verse 27.
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And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you.
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For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
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I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
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Alright, uh last but not least, let's talk about our discussion and prayer focus for this week.
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Gather around with the people that you're with right now, or you can drop a comment in the feed.
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And here is the question: How has affirmation-based love impacted your social circles?
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How has affirmation-based love impacted your social circles?
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We started with that idea of being in conversations where you have to agree with the person to be accepted or for them to love you or to show love.
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Have you faced any of that?
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Have you seen these?
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Have you been in these discussions?
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If you have, talk about it.
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What's it like?
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What's it feel like?
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And then spend some time in prayer together.
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Pray for the courage to pursue love and truth in your conversations this week.
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Hopefully longer, but pray for the courage to pursue love and truth, both of them in your conversations.
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Be loving, be gracious, and yet also that rejoice in the truth.
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Rejoice in honesty.
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And so let's do that this week or practice it this week, and may this be our life's journey that we always pursue love and truth.