Well, just to let you know, we talked about, just a note, the David, the Ugandan pastor that I think some of you are familiar with. I think we ended up sending him a check for, I think it was a little over $500 or something. So just to let you know, it was a good blessing for him and his ministry. And so we sent that off to him. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it to us. I hope he made it back where he was driving from. And I think it was Coleman, but he didn’t make it here. But the money will get to him, and that’s a good thing. So, Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew chapter 5, verse 21 to 26. Where we’ll be.

And Jesus says this. He says, He says,

So if you’re offering your gift at the altar, and there, remember that your brother, has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you’re going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last, penny. If you watch shows or movies that kind of depict life in the early 20th century, probably up to the 60s, 70s still even, you see how cigarettes are quite common. Everybody’s got a cigarette in their hand, and people just suck them down like water, it seems, in the last century. But it’s, you know, medical research, it’s not just about cigarettes. We’ve discovered it’s actually bad for you to smoke cigarettes all day, every day. I’m reminded of that by my grandmother, who I love, and I lived with her for a short time after I graduated high school, but she’s been smoking since she was 14 years old,

and she’s in her 80s now, and she has COPD, and for her just to take a few steps, it is like, it’s like going to marathons. So I think sometimes in life, the things we think, oh, that’s not quite a big deal, it’s just one, it’s just one. Actually, it’s a big deal because it incurs a consequence you aren’t looking towards or hoping would never come. What if getting angry is a bigger deal than sometimes we think?

Maybe like smoking cigarettes in the 60s, everyone does it. What is the big deal with getting angry? In particular, we’re talking about unjustified anger. Is it just, you know, whatever, everyone does it? I don’t think so, and I don’t think Jesus is going to make that argument. In fact, the argument Jesus is going to make is that anger is, in His eyes, lawlessness.

So what in human terms we consider to be small or insignificant in the eyes of the law, in terms of Jesus’ kingdom that we’ve been talking about for so long, things are quite critical.

And if we are to submit to Jesus as our Lord, as our Savior, as our Master, we have to let Him, have to let Him take a fine tooth comb to the whole of our life, even those parts we prefer He did not. So Jesus is talking to us this morning about the lawlessness of anger.

Lawlessness of anger. And I want to recap last week before we jump in here, to talk about the law. Remember we talked about the nature of the Mosaic Law. Jesus said, hey, I’m not here to be a radical revolutionary. I’m not here to throw out the law and the whole Jewish way of life. It’s not what I’ve come to do. Jesus said He came to be the intended fulfillment of the law, if you recall. He said He came to be its completion. So Jesus is going to bring perfect clarity to that law in several points over the next few weeks of these significant things the law talks about. So He’ll clarify the law, as no other teacher can do, and of course He’ll obey it as no one else can. So He will both speak with His words and show with His life this greater righteousness He says we must attain if we are to enter into the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. So verse 21, He says, you have heard, so this is what you have heard from of old, this is what was spoken to those of old, you shall not murder. And whoever murders will be liable to judgment. So what the people had heard, what He’s referring to is what the people in Moses’ time knew. When Moses on Mount Sinai, he got the Ten Commandments. And simply what Jesus is talking about here is the Sixth Commandment. You see it in Exodus 20, verse 13. It simply says, you shall not murder. And again in Exodus 21, verse 14, but if a man willfully attacks another to kill him, by cunning, you shall take him from my altar that he may die. So murder is a big deal to God. It’s not just something else. Murder is significant to the Lord. And in response to that, I don’t think that we could find a human soul, whether they be Christian or not, who would disagree with that ancient commandment. Perhaps there are a slew of Christian teachings that the world would disagree with and hate. As we’ve talked about recently, there are things that the church, sometimes disagrees with and hates, even of what the Scriptures teach us. But murder is not one of those things, is it? Murder seems to have its own kind of self-attesting evil. The thought of it, the act of it, it’s just expressly appalling. It is a vicious behavior to most normal people. But what I want to do is ask a question that may seem morbid here. I’m not trying to be morbid. The question is, what’s the big deal with murder? Why is murder so bad? Because people do it. There are prisons full of people that convince themselves they ought to do it. So why is murder wrong? And I think if you asked a number of different people, you’d get a number of different answers, probably all of them being true. Things from like, well, it’s violent, all the way up to one person doesn’t have the right to take another person’s life. And those would be accurate reasons. But my concern for us is to have a particularly biblical reason for why it is so bad. So, I want us to have an entirely biblical reason for why we think everything we think as Christians, but certainly for murder. And God plainly tells Noah why murder is wrong. And now this is right after the flood. So Noah and his family are the only people left because previously it was so wicked, it was so violent. So pre-flood world is very much so a murderous place. Murder would be normal there. So God telling Noah, hey, this is how you live right. See what he says in Genesis chapter 9, verse 5. God says to Noah, and for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning. From every beast, I will require it. And from man, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image, so in talking to Noah, God harkens back to the creation account. And he says, hey, remember what I said about man? Man is uniquely made in the image of God. Out of all the creatures God made, people, we bear the ability to reason, to use logic. We can make decisions right or wrong. We can bear the character of God. We have the image of God on us different. So you see what God’s saying is, murder then is not one creature, killing another creature. Murder is one image bearer, choosing to ignore the image of God on another person and slaying them, so pretending to be their creator, who alone has the right to give and take life. Murder is disregarding the sacredness of human life because it bears the image of God. And it believes my life is of greater value and worth than my victims, which would lead to a greater value and worth. It would lead us onto a very biblical foundation, wouldn’t it, for arguing against the atrocity of abortion.

My life is not set above anyone else’s. We all bear the image of God. Now, hopefully the Jews of Jesus’ time would have been able to give such a lofty biblical argument for why murder is wrong. But as is often the case with us as humans, we just do things because we think we’re supposed to. We don’t think as hard as we should. Rarely do I go, though, the speed limit because I think of the real reason why the speed limit’s there. I usually don’t break the speed limit just because I don’t want a ticket. But cops don’t give out tickets for the fun of it. They give out tickets because they don’t want people accidentally killing other people. So the law has a point. It has a purpose. So for that Jew that’s just obeying the law because he should, well, it’s because I’m supposed to. It’s in the Torah. It’s just right. Jesus is going to give now that greater clarity to help us understand why. Why? As no other teacher could do. So he says in verse 22, But I say to you, this is what you have heard, Jesus saying, let me raise it. Let me clarify it here. Here’s what I say. Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So even if you refrain from murdering someone, which is pretty attainable by most people, Jesus says you’re still guilty and subject to be judged. Why? Because if you’ve ever gotten wrongfully angry with someone, if you’ve ever insulted someone, or if you’ve ever just completely written someone off and denounced them as a fool, Jesus says you’re just as liable to be thrown into hell.

Now, murder, I would hope, you know, we’re not going to do that. None of us are going to do that. I’ve never done it. I don’t plan on doing it. So I think most people can say with confidence, well, I’m not going to murder. But could most people with confidence raise their hand and say, I’ve never gotten angry in a way that I shouldn’t have. I’ve never insulted someone or condescended someone. I’ve never written someone off as a fool. I don’t think many people can say that at all. Can they? No, no one can. So you see what Jesus has done. Jesus has just taken the sixth commandment, you shall not murder, out of the hands of the people who think they have obeyed it technically, and Jesus has just shown we’re all guilty of it, actually.

And what I want to do is give you three Old Testament examples to show this undeniable link between anger and murder. In Genesis chapter 4, verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. This desire is constant. It is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. So one brother was simply angry at another brother, but where did it lead Cain? To murder.

Genesis 37, but when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and they could not speak peacefully with him. And so all of Joseph’s brothers, save Reuben, were going to murder Joseph. It was only because he last minute said, oh, let’s not do that. But they were well intent on murdering Joseph.

And then in 1 Samuel 18, 8, it says, and Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, they have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me, they have ascribed thousands. And what more can he have but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day on, and of course, if you know the story, Saul tries numerous, numerous, numerous times to murder David. So you see what Jesus is teaching? There’s guilt before God, not just for murder, but for having a heart full of anger that is akin to murder. We’re all on the spectrum.

We’re all on the spectrum. And what we have to do then as Jesus’ pupils, say, well, I’m going to submit to that even if it seems unattainable, because it’s what Jesus said is right.

So friends, the guilt of lawlessness, the guilt of lawlessness of anger is upon us because we so often have the inability to bless and desire good for others. We have the inability to bless and desire good for others, especially our enemies. Because Jesus isn’t talking about someone else. Like, this is a good sermon for someone else because I know an angry person. It’s not a good sermon for someone else. It’s a good sermon for us as humans, Jesus is talking to us. He’s talking about us. And He’s plainly saying this, we all have the seeds of murderous hate lurking within us. It’s not to say we’re all going to end up murderers, but nonetheless, we have the seeds, even the budding plant of murder and hate based on the way that we treat one another and how it comes out. So Jesus is not in approval of that person that says, hey, I made it through life and man, I didn’t kill somebody. Or sometimes I was going to kill someone, and boy, I didn’t kill it. Kill them. That’s not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, you stand condemned even if the anger that would lead you there existed in your heart at all.

So you see what Jesus is talking about? It’s the very same thing He’s been talking about since He started His ministry and since we’ve been in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus is talking about the state of the heart.

Craig Keener says, Jesus presses beyond behavior specifically punished by the law to the kind of heart that generates, such behavior. Anger that would generate murder if unimpeded is the spiritual equivalent of murder. God has never merely wanted people to obey His rules. He wants them to be holy as He is, to value what He values.

So God’s law is given to the people to direct the heart of man. But the heart of man is corrupt. It cannot love with the perfect love. For inwardly, it’s infected with sin. We all have that inclination and that desire to sin because of the fall of man. So what can a law do if there’s no possibility of us obeying it? A law can only say, hey, look how bad you are. All a law can do is reveal how short you come up to that law. So the law condemns its friends and shows us how we are poor lovers, how we are professional haters. The psalmist says, in sin did my mother conceive me. So we’re born that way. We all have to say I was born this way. But the problem is, saying I’m born this way, it’s not going to be an excuse in the face of the law. All that does being born this way, it only shows us how helpless we are that hate is literally woven into our souls from the moment we’re born.

But yet, Christ calls His followers and His disciples to love and to forgive as Christ Himself has loved and forgiven. And let us be the first ones to say that is an impossible task for us alone. Impossible.

But Jesus hanging on the cross, He did not hate us, though we put Him there. He did not condemn us. He did not condescend us. Jesus did not denounce us hanging on the cross. No, Jesus Christ on the cross, He blessed us. And He loved us perfectly. He said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Jesus shed His blood on them. His blood so that our sins against the law would be wiped away. Jesus on the cross has loved us perfectly. Jesus desired good for us. And by His life, by His death, and by His resurrection, He accomplished good for us. So it is only through knowing this Christ, receiving His forgiveness, and then living in the power of His Spirit that I could dare say, any of us could dare say, I follow this Jesus and that I refuse to hate and I’m only going to love. Amen. I’m only going to see the image of God on every human being and treat them as such regardless of whether or not they treat me that way. I’m going to consider other people’s needs greater than my own. I’m going to celebrate the successes of other people even when they do way better than me. Friends, this is the only way to obey this law and get out from under its condemnation to see it fulfilled in Jesus and then have that Jesus live within us. It’s the only way to obey that law. For Christ Himself, He Himself has loved us perfectly and Christ Himself is perfect love.

And certainly in a world rife with wickedness, as it is, there is such a thing as righteous indignation. But here’s the catch for the Christian. Do you let your righteous indignation be a spawning ground for anger and hate? Or do you remember, no, I’m in Christ, so yes, things cause me to be angry, but I’m not going to let my anger push me into sin. It’s very two different things. Righteous indignation and what is hate covered over by righteous indignation. And you say, well, that’s a lofty goal. It is a lofty goal. But again, friends, if Christ says, here’s where it is to follow Me, I can’t do anything else than say I’m going to make this sacrifice and I’m going to live and I’m going to follow Jesus.

Farmer Bosco did not, feel like a human anymore after losing all of his family in the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi minority that saw the loss of about a million lives. He and his family were hunted like animals by the Hutu ethnic majority, incited by the government and extremist propaganda spewed over the radio and through newspapers. Even religious leaders were utilized to spread the message of hate. As the only survivor from a family of 40, he lost all hope for the future. At the time, he didn’t have faith in Christ. He resorted to doing drugs and drinking alcohol to ease the pain to make him feel more human. But thankfully, a man of God shared the word with him and prayed for him and his salvation. As a result, he joined a church. It was there he learned that all humans are made in the image of God. Today,

Bosco, God’s blessed him with a wife and six kids to keep his family line going. He’s helping, he’s helping other neighbors in Rwanda transform their hearts and forgive those who have trespassed against them and their families. And I think I read a story like that and I’m like, well, that’s extreme. I’m not reading that to say, well, look at you, that’s never happened to you. It’s just to say if the power of the gospel can invade someone’s life like that, can the power of the gospel not invade our lives so that we bless and never curse as Christ? The answer must be yes. The answer must be, yes. The gospel either is working in you to make you like Christ, to free you from hate, or the gospel’s not at work within you. Here’s what we don’t get to do. We don’t get to hit the pause button. Well, that person made me really mad. They really offended me. So I’m pausing Jesus. I’m going to act the way I want to act this time. And then I’ll go back when it’s convenient. If you only act like Christ when it’s convenient, you’re not acting like Christ.

What are we as a church known for? And again, I believe there are just causes to be angry, but sometimes I think the way that as the church we talk about politics and culture, it’s really just hate disguised as anger. There’s a right way to go about saying things, and sometimes there’s infinite wisdom in keeping our mouths shut.

Do you keep short accounts with other people?

And let me say, as Martin Luther famously said, my home is my first church. Friends, are we practicing this in our home? With our spouses and with our children? Boy, does the Lord convict me time and time again when my anger moves to hate with my son and my daughter. I’m constantly convicted. Constantly convicted. Jesus, I need to grow in following You in loving and forgiving and blessing and desiring good. Right in my own home before I even step out the front door.

Verse 24 with me.

I’m sorry, 22.

No, I’m wrong again. I keep looking in the wrong spot.

23. Right there in the middle.

I had the wrong reference written down. So if you’re offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and be reconciled to your brother. And offer your gift.

So, we’ve talked about this a good bit, so you’re not in the dark on this, but just to kind of re-explain it, when Jesus is referring to the altar, He’s referring to all of temple life. So in the Old Testament for the Jews, temple worship was all important. You had to make those sacrifices, those regulations of grain and meat offerings to the Lord. And you could, and what Jesus is talking about here is a gift, you can make a free will offering. You could just of your own accord go to the altar and you could make a gift. So what Jesus is saying, if temple life is so important, what He’s saying would seem unthinkable for these Jews to hear it. Stop in the middle of making a sacrifice to the Lord and walk away if I remember that my brother has something against me. Now what’s something mean?

It just means something. I think Jesus very much so on purpose left it very, very general. There’s no deeper meaning to the word. So that literally means if I can remember that anyone, anyone anywhere has something against me, it’s on me to do something about it. What if it’s not my fault and they’re wrongly accusing me of something or they’ve gotten angry with me for something that is insignificant or it’s their fault for misthinking? Jesus says something. Certainly what if it is your fault and you wronged someone and you’ve never righted it? Jesus says something. So you see the little wiggle room Jesus gives us in terms of true obedience. He obligates us, to do something about reconciliation if there is someone out there with whom we are not reconciled. But if temple sacrifices and those regulations were so important, why couldn’t Jesus have said, hey, go right after and make reconciliation? Why would Jesus say stop and tend to the reconciliation? Well, Samuel says it clearly when he’s talking to Saul in 1 Samuel 15. Samuel said to Saul, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of ram. So Jesus is saying this. Do you know how senseless it would be for you to make an offering to the Lord all the while your life and your heart are not obeying the Lord? It makes the sacrifice void. It makes the sacrifice meaningless. God demands we be reconciled to others. And this goes back. It goes back to the whole point of the law. What was the whole point of the law? To help us love God and love people. So if we’re failing to love God and love people, and yet we’re giving these external signs, these external marks of obeying the law by making sacrifices, Jesus is saying you’ve defeated the whole purpose. What a waste of your time. God’s not actually hungry. He’s not sitting up in heaven like, man, I hope they make those sacrifices soon because I need some meat, I need some grain, and I need some wine on my altar. The law existed to help us, to help us love God and love people.

So friends, do we see the law for the purpose it gave? Or are we like the Pharisees saying, I’m going to whittle this down to exactly what I want it to mean so I can get out of the greater meaning of this law? No, not at all. Jesus said, if you’re going to be my disciples, see the whole meaning and purpose of this law.

So the guilt of the lawlessness of anger is secondly upon those who have the inability, the inability to work towards peace and unity with others. The inability to work towards peace and unity with others. And I think we could read that and think, that’s unreasonable, that I would have to go that far. But friends, we can rightly conclude we don’t love the Lord as much as we should if we find anything He tells us to do unreasonable. Because truly loving Jesus means what? It means loving all of His ways, not some of His ways. So if I have a full view, of God’s law, of what God’s asking of me, it’s a full view of this. Loving God and loving people well. That’s what matters to God. That’s what we lost in the garden. So if Jesus and God are saying, hey, I want you to do this because this is going to get you closer to loving me and loving people, we should be set to do that as God is set for us to do that so that we can actually live up to and look like Jesus. That’s why Paul says in Romans 12, live at peace with others as far as it depends on you. Live at peace with all people. As far as it depends on you. Now what stops us from that?

Pride. And what does pride do? Pride says, no, you ought to preserve yourself. Nah, it was their fault. No, you should self-preserve. You shouldn’t have to bring yourself to that kind of humility and humiliation to approach someone else. It’s not your problem. But while pride may give us the temporal pleasure of a temporal dignity, pride will incur disgrace. The disgrace of our Lord because we have set His kingdom, His life, His way aside for the sake of our own. Friends, if we’re following Jesus, the very first thing that must die is pride. It must die.

The hard proof of loving Jesus is disregard for self. I want to follow this Jesus. I want to sacrifice and give up that life, give up my life, give up my rights, give up my dignity so it can be said I have Christ’s life, not my own.

Christ made peace by His cross. Who was the offending party? We were the offending party. Yet Christ made peace for us with God. So if Christ, so innocent, would do so much to make peace with us, between us and God, why would we not say, Lord, I’m a sinner and You’ve forgiven me. Let me go and be a peacemaker as the Lord Jesus Christ was a peacemaker. Let me go and be a peacemaker.

Friends, are we peacemakers as we ought to be?

Jesus gives an example of someone who is not a peacemaker in verse 25.

He says, Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you will be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. So now whose fault? Was it that he was going to court? Was it his fault that he was going to court and he was rightly being, you know,

reviewed by the law for punishment? Maybe. Maybe not. The point is the man in pride refused to try to come to terms with the man and because in pride he refused to be a peacemaker, he very well may pay the punishment of it by being executed by the law. So you see what Jesus is saying is Jesus’ people, we are peacemakers and we’re humble. We’re humble. I’m just going to take the high road because I don’t want to deal with this. I’ve got other things to worry about. It’s not that. The heart of it has to be loving God and loving people. I want to take the high road so that I can have true unity and reconciliation with people so showing that I truly have reconciliation with God and Christ has taught me how to love. Christ has taught me what it means to live in peace with Him and with others.

Jessica and I have been married almost 10 years. 10 years in September. And one thing that we were not good at when we were first married I think was approaching the other if we were in a fight. Like we’re going to see who can go the longest without saying a word. This is probably something all married people can relate to. But I will say, and not to toot our horn, something we’ve tried to work really hard at over the last several years is let’s approach one another even if we don’t think it’s our fault. And sometimes I don’t do as well as I should. She always does it well. I’ll just say that. No. No, we’re not perfect. But humans are broken. And no, it may not have been your fault this time. But are you so great? Are you, am I so high and mighty that I can’t initiate the peacemaking process? I think there are a lot of divorced people who are right. They had their way. But they’re divorced. They’re divorced.

Who do you need peace with? Who do you need peace with this morning? I think the greatest act of worship that some of us could do this morning is pick up a telephone and call somebody. Maybe it’s a family member. Maybe a friend. And no, maybe it’s not even your fault. But maybe you can call and say, hey, you know, Jesus has forgiven me and He’s made peace with me. And so I am in the place to do the same and just say, what can we do to mend and heal this relationship? That is the greatest evangelistic witness I think the world could see when church people act like Jesus. Right? Church people act like church people should act. So the question for you is this. Do you want to be called right or do you want to be called righteous? That’s the decision we have to make. Do you want to be right or in Christ do you want to be righteous?

Because the lawlessness of anger, it bears the penalty of God’s justice. You can’t forget that. The lawlessness of anger, it bears the penalty of God’s justice. God’s justice. And friends, God’s justice, it will not go out and not return having accomplished that which it must. And that is to do what?

It is to judge sinners. And friends, if we’re honest, we have to say, we have failed to love people well. We have failed to bring unity. We have failed to apologize. We have failed to be peacemakers. We have hated. So we’re all guilty under this law. But where? We have failed. Jesus alone has succeeded.

Jesus alone has loved us. And He’s done good to us. And He’s forgiven us. And Jesus alone has brought peace between us, Paul says in Ephesians, because of the cross of Christ, Jew and Gentile people who are different, we can be one whole happy family in Jesus. And in Christ we have peace with God. Jesus alone has done that. So here’s the great decision that Jesus asks each of us to make. Do you want to take this law and make it what you want it to be? Do you want to shorten it down, flatten it out, so that you can obey it on your terms? You can do that, like the Pharisees did it, but it will get you nothing.

Or if you take the laws, Christ preached the law. No, you cannot do it. And yes, it will be hard now to abide and follow Jesus in it. But Jesus has accomplished it for you. And He’s forgiven you when you fail to live up to it, and if we persist in the power of the Spirit and obedience, the fruit of obeying that law as Christ taught us, it will be eternal peace. It will be eternal forgiveness and eternal life with Jesus. So which do you want? Do you want to be right now?

Or do you want to forsake self and be found right and holy in Jesus?

I hope someday to be at a table with Jesus, and it’s not just all my friends there, but even anyone I’ll call an enemy. And I think we could all there together look at the face of Jesus and see how Christ died for us both. And before Him, we’re on a level playing field. But under the law, Christ alone atoned for our sins and made us new and made us right.

So friends, let’s do this. Let’s lean on Jesus. He alone is good. Let’s follow Him. The way is narrow, but the end is glorious. And let’s point to that glorious end for others. Let’s pray. Lord, in Your goodness and in Your mercy,

You have forgiven us 70 times 7.

And You’ve loved us.

So Lord, I’m just praying this morning that as we see people,

people who are different, difficult to love, situations that are difficult to bear with, that we would first remember how You have loved us and You have forgiven us and You have made us new in Jesus.

Lord, that it would be said we were faithful.

We were faithful to look like. We were faithful to imitate Jesus. Not because we could, but because You made it so possible. Lord Jesus, by Your accomplishment on the cross, Your resurrection from the dead, You’ve overcome our sins. You’ve overcome our shame. And when we trust in You and we believe in You, Your Spirit comes, Lord, to form You in us.

Lord, we just want to be found faithful to obey this law as those who are in Christ Jesus. And I pray You would just give us soft hearts. Give us tender hearts to truly love as Christ loved.

To truly care for others, certainly when it’s difficult to love people, but, Lord, in our doing so, we would proclaim the Gospel and we would be found faithful servants and followers.

Jesus, we just bless Your name. We just thank You for this great grace in which we live and for this calling to which You’ve called us. And may all praise and glory go to You.

Amen.