Love Like Jesus

today we're John chapter 13. So, if you'll turn there in your Bibles to John chapter 13. And let me just get a running start with us so we can get up to speed where we are. And this might be helpful for those of you who are new here to our Bible study. But John chapter 13 through 17 are known as the Upper Room Discourse. These five chapters are almost entirely in red. If you have a red letter edition of the Bible, because a red letter edition of the Bible records the words of Jesus in red. And the reason that these chapters are almost entirely in red is because these chapters are almost entirely the words of Jesus in a private setting with His disciples where He shares some final words with them just before He is crucified. So, we have to have this understanding of these chapters. It's a very solemn time. He is alone. He is ministering exclusively with the 12. And it will soon be just the 11 in the room. And so, what are some of the most important things that Jesus would want to impart to His disciples just before He's crucified? That's what we're reading here. Now, last time we were together the first part of chapter 13 one of the first things that Jesus does is He demonstrates servanthood. And He washes the feet of His disciples. And then He says, back in verse 15, He says, now I want you to follow My example. I want you to do as I've done to you. And when He said that He didn't mean I want you to start to include foot-washing as a regular ordinance of the Church like water baptism or communion. And the reason we can say that is because there is no other example in the New Testament where the early Church ever practiced

foot-washing as part of a worship service. So, then what did He mean when He said, I want you to follow My example? What He meant was I want you to be servants. I want you to serve one another. I want you to love each other and be humble enough that you can honor them and serve people in the same spirit I'm serving you as He's washing their feet. Remember also, by the way, that Jesus hand-selected 12 disciples. But the word disciple just means student or follower. So, if you are here today as a follower of Jesus, if you love Jesus you also are a disciple, you are a student of Jesus. So, whatever Jesus says here in all of the scriptures, but in particular as we are looking at chapters 13-17 His parting words to His 12, by extension He's saying all this to us. And He's like washing their feet, but He's saying I want you to serve in the same spirit I serve. And let me tell you the reason why He tells us this is because when you serve other people not only are you being more like Jesus, but it will keep you from being superior or condescending towards others. So, we need to all have like a servant's heart, loving each other, humbling ourselves towards each other, deferring each other, and serving as Jesus served. After Jesus demonstrates servanthood in this way, then in the middle of chapter 13 He calls out Judas. He exposes Judas as His betrayer. Which again as I pointed out last time means that Judas was there for the foot washing part. Very challenging to think that Jesus washed the feet of the man who would betray Him. That's the kind of servant He calls us to. But in the middle of chapter 13 Jesus exposes Judas for who

He is. He calls him out as His betrayer. And Judas leaves the room. So, what we are about to read and going forward is absent Judas. Judas is gone now from the room. And I want to draw your attention to verse 33. And I'm going to read just three verses with you this morning. But these are important verses. But again now Judas is gone. So, Jesus is speaking very privately to His 11 who are here in the room. John 13 verse 33, He says to them, little children I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me and as I said to the Jews where I am going you cannot come. So, now I say to you a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another. Let's pause there and pray. Lord we are thankful for Your Word today. And we pray God as we read it that it wouldn't just bounce off our minds, but that we would take it into our hearts and that we would apply what You're saying to us today. And we thank You Lord that You love us so much that You will both challenge us and encourage us where we need it. And as we look at this topic of love today as you stretch out your hands to us. Lord we here with your disciples, we pray that we would learn much. pray that You would give us the strength to love one another We would take to heart these things so that we can love like Jesus. And we praise You together and it's in Jesus' name that we pray. And everybody said, Amen. So, again, these are the final hours that Jesus is spending with His disciples just before He is crucified. And He addresses them here, now just the 11. He addresses them here in verse 33 with a very

tender term. If you notice in your Bible, He calls them little children. Now, typically grown men do not want to be called little children. Even though, full disclosure, we admittedly like being like little children. Men do. Ladies, in case you haven't learned, there's a little boy in every man. We like adventure. We've just, you know, we're in bigger bodies now, so we just play harder, we burp louder, we drive faster. That's all. But we're still little boys at heart. Now, when Jesus calls His disciples little children, He's not insulting them. He's using a very tender term. It's a term of endearment. In fact, in the original Greek language, the original language of the New Testament, the Greek word here is technion. Technion is a word that in that day teachers would typically use in reference to their students or their disciples. Interestingly, this is the first, last, and only time that Jesus uses this term. In all of the Gospels, Jesus never refers to anyone like this, technion, except His final disciples here, the 11 in this room. He uses this term of endearment, little children, students, disciples. It's a term of affection. Why? Because Jesus loves these guys. He's grown close to these men. These men have spent the last three-and-a-half years of their lives with Jesus during the time of His public ministry. They've traveled with Jesus. They have listened with Jesus. They have tried to emulate Jesus. And they've left their livelihoods, and they've left their families to follow Him. When you live three-and-a-half years, those of you you know in the military you know when you get entrenched you know with fellow soldiers, there's a camaraderie that develops there that no doubt these men had. A camaraderie and a closeness. But Jesus knows that His time is short. He's

about ready to go to the cross, and so He's just speaking very affectionately to the men that He loves. And He calls them here technion, little children. And He shares some parting words with His disciples. He's moved on from the topic of servanthood and demonstrating that. And now He talks about love. He talks about love. Not some kind of emotional sappy feeling, but a kind of love that will mark them, and again by extension mark us, define us as belonging to Jesus. He said, this kind of love I'm talking about, if you demonstrate it, everybody else in the world is going to know that you're My disciples. He mentions the word love four times in just two verses, verses 34 and 35. He uses the word love four times. Now, love is a loaded word. I mean it means a lot of things to a lot of people, and so we're going to unpack these verses today and try to understand and answer three questions here. Why, what, and how? Here are the three questions for you note takers. Why is it a new commandment? That's what Jesus says about this topic of love. It's a new commandment. He says that in verse 34. Why is that? Number two, what is love? Because we have to get a working definition. And then number three, how are we to show it? Because that's His final directive. By this will all people, will the world know that you are My disciples if you love one another. So, we have to understand the answer to these three questions. We're going to start with the first one. Why is it a new commandment? Look again in verse 34, Jesus says, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. So, notice those two words, new, commandment. We need to understand why it's new, and why it is a commandment. So, first things

first. The reason why this is a new commandment is because, let me tell you what the old commandment was. It's Leviticus 19.18. Leviticus 19.18 says, love your neighbor as yourself. That was part of the Mosaic Law. God said to the people of Israel, I want you to love your neighbor at least as much as you love yourself. Why? Well, because we love ourselves. Everybody loves ourselves. We do. Some of you say, no, I'm in therapy for self-hating. No, you love yourself. You love yourself, and I want to prove that you love yourself. We all love ourselves. Here's how I would prove it. If I were to take out my phone right now and do a anoramic picture of the entire congregation into one big group photo and then put the group photo up on the screen. Who's the first person you'd look for? Yourself. We love ourselves. And so up until this point when Jesus says what he does here, the highest love that man knew was self-love. Yourself, love other people as much as you love yourself. Now, that means if I'm having a bad day, I don't have to love you. You know, if self is the standard, and I don't really like myself today, I don't have to like you. Well, Jesus comes along and he says, let me give you a new commandment. For almost 1,500 years now, they've been living by Leviticus 19.18, love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus comes along, he says a new commandment. Here's why it's new. No longer is self the standard for loving other people. Jesus says, I am. He says, I want you to love one another as I have loved you. Well, that kind of ratchets it up a notch or two, doesn't it? No longer am I the standard for loving other people. God's love for me, the way Jesus loves me, is the way I'm supposed to love other people. Now, think about how he loves us. Sacrificially, he died on a cross. Selflessly, he gave everything. Patiently, how patient is God's love for us? Unconditionally, you don't have to do anything to prove that you're lovable. Even in our unlovely state, God loves us as people so much so that he died for us. And his love is eternal. Jeremiah 31.3, God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have led you with cords of kindness. This is the magnitude of God's love. This is why Paul in his epistle says, I pray that you might know how wide and high and broad and deep is the love of God and to know this

love that surpasses knowledge. Because it's so incredible, it's hard to even grasp. And so this is the love of God. And Jesus says, I want you to start to love other people the way that I love you. No longer is self the standard. Jesus' love for us is the standard. Now here's why. It's a commandment. Okay? Now think about this. When God commands us to do something, it means a couple of things. One, it means that we're capable of doing it with his help. Otherwise, he wouldn't command us to do something that we were incapable of doing. So we all have the capacity to love this way with the help of God to do so. But the reason why this is a commandment also is because it means that loving people the way that Jesus loves us will not come naturally or easily. So he says, I'm going to have to command you to do this. Because he knows. There's nothing in the Bible that God commands us to do that we normally or naturally do. Commandments are to confront our own fleshly impulses and instincts. So when God says this is a command, it's because this is not going to come naturally to you, but I want you to do this. Because in doing this, this will honor me. In doing this, this will be like me. And God is always calling us to be the standard of His image and His character. But again, we can't do it in our flesh. We have to know Jesus. The only reason and way that we have the capacity to love other people the way Jesus loved us is if we know Jesus in a personal way. You cannot offer what you do not have. So we have to know Jesus and know His love in order to love people the way that Jesus loves us. That means that we have to be regularly praying against the impulses of our own flesh to not love people. Okay? And so therefore, we need to be praying prayers like Jesus, you command me to love others the way you have loved me, which means it won't come naturally and easily to me, but I want to honor you and I want to obey you, so give me the capacity beyond myself to love people the way you love me. This is a new commandment Jesus gives us. There are times when God calls us to love and it will not be convenient. It will not be felt. It will not even be deserved sometimes. And sometimes it won't even be reciprocated. But God calls us to love because that's the way He loves. Think about when Jesus went to the cross. Do you think, does anybody here think that it was convenient or comfortable for Jesus to die on a cross? No. Do you think it was costly for Jesus to die on a cross? Yes. Which means that love will never be convenient or comfortable and it will always cost us something. If we really want to love the way Jesus loved,

that's the way He demonstrated it. God demonstrated His love for us, Romans 5, 8, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't wait until we got to a place where we were lovable enough. He loved us when we were still sinners. He doesn't love the sin But he loves us in our lost broken condition enough to send his son to die for us And then he says now I want you to love this way. It won't be convenient. It won't be comfortable you won't even feel like it sometimes and It's not dependent on whether or not they reciprocated. I want you to love because I first loved you This is a new commandment. This is not easy, but he calls us to this This is why John would write in 1st John 4 7 to 11. Listen to this He says beloved Let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God He who does not love does not know God for God is love In this the love of God was manifested Toward us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him In this is love not that we loved God But that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins or to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins Beloved if God so loved us. We also ought to love one another Again, that's 1st John 4 7 to 11 the same writer of John 13 what we're reading here this morning Wrote what I just read from 1st John 4. It's one of his other epistles Why do you think John was so focused on writing about loving one another as God has loved us because he was at the dinner in John 13 When Jesus is telling them this so he captures it and he writes about it more in 1st. John Read 1st. John. It's very challenging about the level of love that we should have one for another because of the way that God has loved us So that's an important thing to answer first. Why is it a new command? But then secondly What is love What is love baby don't hurt me no more Okay. Sorry. I I had that tune going through my head the whole time. I was preparing it So now it's for you. And if you're too young

1993 Hathaway, but anyway Then then then then then done anyway, okay stop Let me tell you why answering this question is so important important that especially in our day It is especially important that we define love in our day Because love is used as an excuse for every kind of behavior Somebody please answer your phone It's true love is often used in our culture today is an excuse for every kind of behavior and if you dare object To any of that behavior, then you are labeled as unloving Love has been hijacked in our day as Blanket protection for every kind of immoral behavior So we need to have a sense of love Love is often used as an excuse for every kind of behavior and if you dare object to any of that behavior, then you are labeled as unloving So we need to have a biblical understanding of what love is so first the word love in the English language is very limited because We use the word love to describe just about anything and everything that we like We say we love this we love that and we'll put things that aren't even to be ranked in the same category We'll use it in the same sentence because we only have one word in English for love So we'll say things like, you know, I love my spouse. I love the weather. I love chunky monkey ice cream. All right, I do But you know to say you love your spouse and the same sentence that you love ice cream That doesn't really, you know, it doesn't really make much sense You know Like for example if you ladies say, you know I love shopping with my girlfriends and I love my husband Are you really saying that you love shopping more than you do your man? Okay, bad example. Let's Let me think of another one. All right, so if If like guys say, you know, I love fishing. I love the outdoors I love football and I also love my job. Is he real? Okay another bad example But anyway, you get my point

The idea is that we use the word love to describe everything we like and we lump it all in the same category So English is very limited when we talk about love now in the original language of the New Testament, which is Greek They had several words for love like seven or eight different words for love The four most common words for love in the Greek language. I'll show you are these four one store gay store gay Describes family love if you have love for your family you would use the word store gay Another word that is common in Greek is arrows. We get our English word erotic that describes romance romantic love or sexual love. The Greeks also have another word for brotherly love or friendship love, that's philia. Philadelphia is literally translated the city of brotherly love. Or as my friends from Philly like to say, the city of brotherly shove. Okay. So, but philia means brotherly or friendship love. And then you have agape. These are the four most common words for love in the Greek language. Agape is the supreme, highest form of love. And most of the time in your New Testament when you read love, it is that last word, agape. And in particular, what we're looking at today in John 13, the four times that Jesus uses the word love, every single time it's agape. So this is the kind of love he's calling us to. It is the highest, most supreme kind of love that is really found in a relationship with the Lord. Because again, if 1 John 4 says God is love, by the way, that's not just, you know, an adjective. That is his character. That is his nature. There are a few words that specifically say God is in the Bible. God is light. God is holy. God is love. And so if God is love and God personifies his love in the person of Jesus Christ, and then Jesus is, I want you to love as I love, then he's talking about this kind of highest, supreme love that we must know and show. So it's not any of these other loves. By the way, only philia and agape, those two words of love are found in the Bible. The other Greek words for love are not found in the Bible. But, and again, agape is the most prevalent one. So this is what Jesus is calling us to. I want you to love agape. I want you to love with the highest, most supreme kind of love, like the love of the Father. So that means, then, we have to understand God's love as he reveals it in the pages of the Bible to understand what we're supposed to demonstrate. And when you understand God's love, here's what we need to grasp. God's love is multifaceted. God's love is sometimes tough and tender. It is sometimes just and merciful. It is sometimes confronting and comforting. It is sometimes challenging and encouraging. You cannot understand God's love with only one side of the column.

If you only say, well, God's love is only merciful and it's only encouraging and it's only accepting, then you're skewing the love of God. On the other hand, if you only say God's love is only just and it is only confrontational and it is only tough, then you also are not understanding the love of God. The love of God as revealed in the Bible is both tough and tender, confronting and caring, challenging and encouraging. You have to understand the balance of God's love in order to properly reflect God's love. This is important for us. Why? Because despite the fact that God's love is multifaceted in the Bible, at no time, listen to me on this, at no time in the Bible is God's love equated with full-scale acceptance or tolerance of our choices or behavior. Why is that? Because most of the time our choices and behavior is contrary to the nature of a holy God and a holy God because He loves us will not allow us to remain like that. We need to grasp this. When He challenges us, when God gets a hold of our hearts and helps us to understand His standard of what is right and what is wrong, when He challenges us and confronts us for doing wrong, it is just as loving as when He encourages us and comforts us for doing right. And if we don't heed Him during those times that He does challenge us and confront us about what is inconsistent with the holy God, if we don't heed Him, then there are consequences to that. And likewise, when we do obey Him and run to Him and humble ourselves before Him and seek His face, there is mercy and grace. And we need to get this about God. Listen, if you're a parent, you should understand this, right? If you really love your kids, you just don't let them get away with anything and everything. That's not love. There are times you confront your children, you challenge your children, and you have to confront them. Help them to understand that if they don't heed what you're saying as mom or dad, there are consequences. And at the same time, if your kids humble themselves and realize they're wrong and they come to you humble about it, then there's mercy and grace to receive them and to comfort them because that's the balance of love. And the problem right now, what we're facing in our culture today and why it's so important that we get an understanding of what is love, the problem with our culture today is nobody wants to talk about consequences. And nobody wants to talk about consequences because nobody wants to be challenged about

anything anymore. And the reason nobody wants to be challenged about anything is because there's no longer a generally accepted universal truth about stuff. It's just you be you and I'll be me and we'll just tolerate everything and don't you dare confront me either because then you're unloving. This whole message of love is totally just distorted in our culture today. And it is not just limited, I'm sorry to say, to the culture. This distorted definition of love has crept into the church. It has, it's crept into the church, capital C. The church has bought this false narrative of the culture that everything goes because we're all just about love. You can see signs posted on some church lawns, no hate here. You know what that is? That is code word for you be you, we'll be us, God doesn't really care, He won't interfere, we won't either. Let me tell you, that is not love. And you know why it's not love? Because you will never help people understand truth. You're doing a disservice to them. If the message of the church is you just be you, God's okay with that because you can be you and I can be me and God's okay with however we want to be, you're doing a disservice to people because you're never helping them to understand the things that they struggle with. Like example, like same sex attraction or the whole gender confusion or people hooking up over Tinder. Like if you don't at least speak to the culture and talk about what is happening, then people will never understand the liberating good news of a transforming life through the power of Jesus Christ. We must tell them the truth. Things that the world defends Christ died for.

So we can't be defending things that God calls a sin that He sent His Son to die for, for God so loved Agape, so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Do you think Jesus came to die for a wholesome world? No. Jesus came to die for a sinful world, me, you. God loved us so much that He saw us in our lost condition, He saw us in our brokenness, He saw us in our sin and He said you're worth dying for. But if we don't tell people this, then they'll just be comforted in their sin and they'll never know the transforming work of Jesus. This is why true love is the balance of understanding God's love in the scriptures. God demonstrated His love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We're in a sinful condition, that's why Jesus died for us. We weren't okay. You know, in high school I had to read that book in psych class. I'm okay, you're okay. Like it's this feeling like we're all okay. No, we're not okay. We're broken people who need a Savior and Jesus came to save us from our sins. That's true love. That's true love. Well, then the third question is, so how are we to show it? The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. One of the best chapters about love that both defines love and helps us to understand how to demonstrate love is 1 Corinthians chapter 13. It is known as the love chapter of the Bible because of its many references to love and again it is agape. And so when you read 1 Corinthians 13, it helps us to know what love does and what love does not do. You know, there's sometimes that because you love other people, you don't do some things.

And then there are times that you do some things and we have to have the wisdom to know what to do and what not to do. So I'm going to put just up on the screen, sorry for the small font, but I'm going to add some stuff around it. This is 1 Corinthians 13, 47. I've chosen the NIV 84 edition because I think it summarizes some of the words pretty, pretty succinctly. But here's what it says. 1 Corinthians 13, 4. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. So when you look at just those verses I read, there are actually 14 statements about how we can demonstrate love because it both defines it and helps us to understand how to demonstrate it. Now, I've got five minutes left and this is going to be rapid fire, but believe it or not, I'm going to do all 14 with you and I'm going to walk to the back wall because I'm just going to take these verses apart and we're just going to look at these 14 aspects of love and here's what I want us to do. As I'm going through this, again, it'll be rapid fire but tomorrow they'll have this archived and you'll be able to go back and put me on pause and take notes. Some of you have already put me on pause. So listen, I'm putting this guy on pause. All right. But I want us to take personal inventory. When we look at the 14 and ask ourselves, how am I doing in this area? What kind of love am I demonstrating or not? Here's the first one. Love is patient. Since God is patient toward us, not wanting any to perish, 2 Peter 3.9, we show love to others when we are patient with those who annoy us or have wronged us. How are you doing? Are you failed at number one? All right, we got 13 more to go. Number two, kind. Kindness is an attribute of God. It's His kindness that leads us to repentance, Romans 2.4. When we show kindness to others, we are demonstrating the love of God. Kindness is a very wonderful attribute of God that we can show to other people. It shows that we love them. Number three, love does not envy. Envy is a destructive

sin of wanting what you do not have or resenting those who do. Love keeps its distance from envy and honors others for who they are or for what they've accomplished. When we really love other people, we want to celebrate them. We don't want to envy them. Number four, love does not boast. Love can work anonymously. It doesn't need the limelight or crave the attention. If you're doing something and you think you're doing it in a spirit of love but you want to be noticed, that's not really love because love works anonymously, is happy to go unnoticed. Number five, love is not proud. Love gives and serves without expecting the praise of others. It is not arrogant or self-promoting. Number six, love is not rude. Love shows respect for others. It is polite and not abrasive. You know, we want people to hear truth but how you present that can go a long way as to whether or not they will receive the truth or not. And so, I know that truth by itself can be offensive but man, we should work on how we present truth. Make sure it's polite and not abrasive. Number seven, love is not self-seeking. Love is not selfish. It gives preference to the needs of others. Number eight, love is not easily angered. Love shows restraint. It doesn't get easily irritated without bursts of anger. If you're easily triggered and anger is something you have to work on, you know, put it on pause and say to somebody, right now I need to step out of the room. I'll come back in just a moment. Do whatever it takes to make sure we get anger under control because real love is not easily angered. Number nine, love does not keep record of wrongs. Love doesn't revisit the past and remind others of their mistakes or failures. Hatred stirs up strife but love covers all sins. Proverbs 10, 12. I can tell you I'm going to be just very gentle in how I say this but in 35 years of ministry, can I just speak to the ladies for a moment? Sometimes ladies have a gift of being historical. Some of you guys are like, did you mean hysterical? No, I meant historical. Like you have recall about things that most guys, like we've totally forgotten. And so have you ever had a conversation like this, wife and husband, where it's just like, do you remember, do you remember in 1997 when you said this to me? I'm like, 97? I don't remember what I said at 7 a.m. this morning. Are you kidding me? Yeah, I can tell you what you were wearing. I can tell you what the weather was and who was president. I mean, really? So like try not to get historical on us but listen, in all seriousness, every single one of us needs to be mindful of this. It is really easy to go back in the past and shame people for what they've done. You know,

the Bible says that we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God so loves us that he forgives and forgets our sins as far as the East is from the West. That doesn't mean that he He's forgetful. It means he no longer holds it against us. When we bring up the past failures of other people, we're not acting in the spirit of the Lord. And so we have to be careful of this. Number 10, love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love does not tolerate or celebrate sin. True love promotes and celebrates the truth. This is probably the most difficult aspect of love right now in our culture. People think that by just embracing, tolerating, celebrating wrong, sinful behavior, as God outlines in his word, that we're showing love to people. That isn't true. What we're actually doing is delighting in evil. So we have to be careful of that. And instead, we have to speak the truth in love. We have to be people who promote truth, not delighting in evil, rejoicing with truth. Number 11, love always protects. You protect the ones you love spiritually, emotionally, physically. Number 12, love always trusts. Love believes the best of others and always gives the benefit of the doubt. Number 13, love always hopes. Love has confidence in the future and hopes for the best. When disappointed, love does not say, it will always be like this. No, love hopes in God. And number 14, the last one, love always perseveres. Love does not give up in the same way God has loved us, so we love others even when we may not be loved in return. Because here's the example. This is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. And then the last statement Jesus makes about all of this there in verse 35 of your Bibles, John 13, verse 35, Jesus says, by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. When we love like Jesus, not some modern version of tolerance that overlooks sin because we want everybody to feel good or to like us, but when we really love like Jesus, being tough at times and tender, being truthful and gentle, loving the sinner but not the sin, and even sharing our own stories of redemption, how God's redeeming love has changed us personally, then we will be loving like Jesus and everybody will know that we are his disciples. Amen? Let's pray and ask the

Lord's help. Father, we thank you for your word. And Jesus, you tell us as your followers to love like you love. And the world has redefined love and distorted the definition of love. And so we just want to have a biblical understanding of it. And we want to honor you in the way we love one another. Lord, soften our hearts where there is animosity or prejudice or any kind of hatred or dislike in our hearts, Lord. Replace it with an understanding that you love us so much. We should love others the way that you have loved us. And we sometimes lack the capacity to love others because our own flesh is stubborn. And so we need your help, Lord, to love as you love, not in some kind of syrupy, emotional way that our world might define it, but to love as you love, Lord. And that will look differently sometimes depending on the situation. But you're always so faithful, always so loving. May we learn from you and follow you and love as Jesus loves. This is our prayer. Help us, Lord, in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen and amen.