The Greatest Of These Is Love

So this morning, we're going to be revisiting the topic of small groups. This was the sermon I was going to preach last week, but delayed. Two weeks ago, we saw the importance of continually devoting ourselves to the Word, to fellowship, to eating together in prayer. These are the four devotions found in Acts chapter 2. This week, I want to show you the benefit, the main benefit of small groups, and that is simply love. Love given and love received. Small groups are the place, not the only place, but a significant place where we work through the details of our lives with one another. We care for one another and we bear each other's burdens. But there's a temptation that arises in us that when we come to church, when we're around other Christians, that we present as though everything in our lives is put together or is at least static. It's at least stable. It's not crumbling. It wasn't a terrible week. We're not distraught. We don't know what's going on.

We take our showers and we shave and we do our hair and we dress up for church, all in an effort to come and to say, I'm doing good. I'm doing well. I was busy and I'm tired. But many times that's not the whole story, is it? Sometimes the last week was very rough, very difficult. Perhaps you're struggling this morning. We've all learned to put on a presentable face and to tell everyone we're doing well. That ought not to be the way it is. It shouldn't be that only our families in moments of particular weakness know how we really feel and what we're really dealing with. Small groups, in fact, are a place where you can let your hair down. You can talk about what's going on before you have the solutions and before it's in the rearview mirror and ask for help. Ask for prayer. Each one of us has troubles and burdens. And so when we get together, our love for Christ and for one another

ought to be evident. It ought to be a comfort to us. We ought to look forward to a time when we can be with one another and receive help. That's what small groups are supposed to be for. That is love. And so this morning our text is going to be 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the entire chapter. This is the love chapter. This is the chapter where Paul is exhorting the Corinthians and us to love one another. I want to give you a basic structure of the chapter as we work our way through it. We will not be going through verse by verse in every word, or we would be here for a good long while. The first few verses, Paul compares, makes comparisons, compares love to a number of things. And he says love is supreme. Then he goes on to define love, what it is as well as what it isn't, in the center of the chapter. And then he...

begins to talk about being a child. He says, when I was a child, I used to be like this, but then when I became an adult, a mature man, these things were done away with. And I want you to understand that when he's talking about childishness, this is connected to love and this is connected to the sins of the people that they were committing. And effectively what he's doing is there's a section where he says, your behavior is childish. You are behaving like children. Children don't know how to love well, but mature Christians ought to. And then he finishes where he began by saying that the greatest gift, the supreme aim of our life ought to be love. So we're going to work our way through this, through the sections with an eye to small groups and how these things ought to be working themselves out in our lives as we spend our time together. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from 1 Corinthians chapter 13. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love,

I have become a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But if there are gifts of prophecy, They will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So as I said, he begins this chapter with some comparisons. And in all those comparisons, he says love is supreme. Love wins out. Love is the thing that is most important. He compares it. with speaking in tongues, with prophecy, with having all knowledge and faith, with taking vows of poverty, giving all that you have to the poor, and even martyrdom. And he says all of these things are worthless, that they don't benefit us at all if we don't have love. So the first thing we ought to recognize is that our behavior is not supreme, meaning the things you do are not enough. You could do the right thing. And if you do it without love, it's of no benefit. And what a shame it would be to live your entire life doing the right things and have it be worthless because there was no love supporting it or motivating it. This is the case that Paul's making in the beginning. The things we give ourselves to, the things that are very important to us,

Love is above all of them. And even if those things are good in and of themselves, they're worthless in comparison to love because they don't glorify God. And so we have to ask ourselves, what do we think is more important than love? It may seem like a strange question, but you have to realize the things that Paul's mentioning here in this chapter may not be the things we would put at the top of the list, but they were the things that the Corinthians put at the top of the list. They gave preeminence to speaking in tongues. They aspired to the gift of prophecy. They wanted to have all faith and knowledge. Some of them had sold everything to give to the poor. And someone had died. And Paul comes and says, the things that you value and the things that you literally have done, even though they were sacrificial, many of these things, if we read this list, we go, I don't know that I would do that thing.

But they had done that thing. And Paul comes back and says, but if there was no love, profits you nothing. Some of us may look at the extraordinary nature of some of these comparisons. Giving all that I have. I said earlier that they took a vow of poverty. It doesn't say they took a vow of poverty, but it does say that all that they had, they gave away for the sake of others. They sold and gave to the poor. You remember the rich young ruler, that is what Jesus told him to do. How does the law, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? He comes and he asks the teacher and the teacher says, you've read the law, how does it read to you? And he tells him. And Jesus says, how have you done? And he says, I've kept all these things from my youth up. And Jesus says, well, there's one thing you lack. Go and sell all that you have and give to the poor and you'll have eternal life. And it seems unreasonable. The rich young ruler thought that was unreasonable. In fact, he didn't do it. He went away discouraged. He went away depressed because the scripture tells us he owned many things.

But here, in this passage, we have reference of someone actually doing it. And we have to think, who would say that was worthless? Well, here, the Holy Spirit does. It makes you think of Ananias and Sapphira, who in the early church, when everyone was selling their belongings and giving to each other as everyone had need, they said, oh, what we will do is we want to get in on this. So we're going to go and we're going to sell our land. But there were terms hidden that they had made where they kept rights to the land and were able to still profit from it. They had made a show of love. And God struck them down for it. He struck them down for it. He killed them one after the other because of their lack of love. And when I read those passages, I look at the man in the mirror and I say, would you even do the thing? Have we even?

gotten to the place where you would consider that type of work? And if you were, would you be motivated by love or would you be motivated by what the people around you, as Ananias and Sapphira were, would you be concerned about what others would think of you in doing such things? So maybe for you, it's not speaking in tongues or the gift of prophecy or having all knowledge or all faith or giving to the poor or being martyred yourself. What is it that you find? To undercut your love? That's the question. Is it financial responsibility? Is it having the right doctrinal beliefs? Is it having a large family? Is it going to college? Planning a good job? Driving a certain car? Living in a certain part of town? What is it? The list that Paul gives here, I don't think, are at the top of Americans' minds. But we do have to ask ourselves, what's at the top of our list?

We have to ask ourselves, what's at the top of my list? What does my life revolve around? What do I get upset about when it doesn't go right? What causes me to be angry or to withdraw? These are the things that are at the top of our list. And even if those things are good, the things I've mentioned as potential options aren't bad things. I didn't list any sins. It's not sinful to want to live in one part of the town versus another or drive a certain car as opposed to another. Those aren't sinful things. But if they get in the way of love, if they suppress our love, they become bad things. They become worthless things. And so the point is not to determine the rightness or the wrongness of our desires, but rather to ask ourselves, do these desires suppress love? And if they do, they have become a problem.

Because we've taken something of supreme value and traded it in for something that is worthless. And no matter how bad we want it or how hard we pursue it or how much of it we have, it doesn't gain any value. It doesn't become any more pleasing to God. You can want, pursue, and attain many good things, godly things even. But if there is not love in your heart, it is worthless. Now, why is Paul writing this to the Corinthians? Well, if you've read 1 Corinthians carefully and thought about the issues he's addressing, you would understand that they were a mess. When you look at the issues that the Corinthian church has going on within it, you might be tempted to say, that's not a church. Those aren't Christians. What was going on in the Corinthian church? Well, probably the most glaring and shameful thing was incest.

But on top of that, greed, lawsuits, they were suing each other. They were denying each other food at the Lord's Supper. Like they were coming to the Lord's Supper as they practiced it at that time. And the wealthy were getting rich and the poor were going without any food. And their observation of the Lord's Supper was likely not a small piece of bread and a dab of wine, but probably a real meal. And what they did was they brought their own food to the meal. and ate it themselves and were gluttons regarding it while there were poor people in their church who were going hungry at the same time. I think many of us would look at that and just go, that's just not how Christians behave. They must not have been Christians. What Paul does is instead of saying that, he comes to them and he says to them, this is not love. This is so far away from love as to be worthless. You all.

need to love each other. And then he defines love. He says this, longer section. And love is only mentioned a few times, but it goes before each descriptor, okay? Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous. Do you think there were jealous people in that church? Yes, I don't think that he stood up or rewrote this letter to people and was speaking in the abstract to them about sins that they weren't given to. Love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant. He's just airing all their dirty laundry. He's just picking one piece up after the other, saying this is your dirty piece and this is your dirty piece and here's how you guys are doing. Arrogance and bragging and jealousy and impatience. Love does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked. It does not take into account a wrong suffered. Did you know that churches can be filled with people who are embittered toward one another because they won't forgive each other?

does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, it hopes all things, and endures all things. All of which he is saying to them, you are not doing. All of these descriptions of love are given in the context of how Christians ought to relate to one another. This means that our love for God is expressed in the context of our life. among each other. It's easy to say that we love those who are far off. It's easy to say that we love those who have passed away. It's easy to say that we love those that we don't have to interact with. But it is very difficult to love those that we live in close proximity to. Scripture warns us in 1 John 2 that the one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness. And in the same book in chapter 4, John says, if someone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.

The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should also love his brother. And so I want to ask you, is it easier to love God or to love your brother? I didn't have brothers growing up, but I have a lot of kids. We have a lot of brothers and sisters in my house. And we find in our house, as I trust you do in your house, that love is often in short supply. But because it's in our home and the relationships are fixed, We try to work it out because we're brothers after all, right? I have to share a bedroom with you or we have to sit at the same table and eat. But our brothers are not only those who share our genes and our last name. Our brothers are also those who in God's providence have been chosen by him, who don't share our genes, who don't share our names, who don't share our priorities, whose sensibilities are...

very different, and whose giftings are opposite of ours. These two are our brothers. We are each other's brothers and sisters, and we have a lot of differences. Do you remember that section in 1 Corinthians where they're going on about spiritual gifts, and you have the one saying, well, because I'm not a hand, I don't remember which one it is, because I'm not a hand, I'm an eye, I have no need of you. And he says, no, no, no. What's going on? They're just irritated with each other. They're just frustrated that the other one is not like them. Do you ever get frustrated that people aren't like you? Do you ever feel like an outsider? Do they irritate you? Do you judiciously avoid eye contact with them because you don't want to get into a conversation with them because they aren't like you? Because they might talk longer or be...

or bothersome to you. They might presume upon you. They might tell you about their week in a way that might take a little bit of your time and energy. They might upset your lunch plans. If we have to tolerate that in our homes, so be it. But in the church, it shouldn't be that way. So we think. But if we're brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and grandparents and children, we love each other at those points. The interesting thing about churches is they all have, they're like, They're like people. They have their gifts. Each church has its gifts, its things it's good at, its things it's bad at. If you were in my position and looking out right now, you'd say, we have something about young people. We have something about marriage and something about children because that's what's filling the chairs. I'm old. I'm not the oldest, but I'm old. I'm 43 and I'm old in this church.

43. I'm not old, but here I am. And I remember Dan saying years ago, he said to me, he says, well, to the elders, I believe. He says, you know what we're good at as a church? We're good at helping young people in their marriages and raising their kids. That's what we have. That's what we're gifted at. And that's what we should lean into. Now, those weren't your exact words, but that was basically what he said. And if you look at us, you realize he wasn't wrong. It is who God has brought here. We've not had some targeted marketing campaign toward all of you. Timothy doesn't do that for us yet, right? It's who God has brought. And some of you have come already married and some of you have been married in the church and some of you came from broken homes and some of you came from intact homes and some of you grew up Christian and some of you didn't. But here we all are.

With an incredible resource of young people, of energy, of malleability, of teachableness, of children, that's something we're good at. It's something God's chosen for us. When I talk to my friends or to people outside of the church and about my church, if they're distant, you know, from, they've never been here or whatever, and they ask, well, what's our church like? And I said, well, I'm old at my church. And don't let the gray hair fool you, I'm only 43, right? And I said, it's just full of young people. And they're like, that is such a blessing. Can you imagine? Our church is full of 60 and 70-year-olds, and it's going to die soon. And we're trying to figure out how to slowly close down the ministries, but keep the old people secure. Completely different. Do you know what's true about young people as well? And I love you. And it's true of me, is that they are immature. They have very little experience in life.

And they make lots of mistakes. They also have the energy and the time and generally the will to fix the stuff. But they're not seasoned. They're not experienced. They say stupid things. They have crazy ideas about home and marriage and family and child rearing and you name it. We've got weird ideas. Ideas that haven't stood the test of time. They lack perspective. Because life has been short for them, their perspective is not deep. It's not long. It's not enduring. So do you struggle to get along with the other young people in the church? If you're older like me or older than me, do you get weary of the young people? Do you love them and get weary of them? When they come to your small group, are you like, oh, they're bad kids. They just make such a mess with all the food. And their parents don't know what to do about it. And if you young people don't know, that's something we have to fight.

It's something I have to fight. My point is that love is work. And me saying that it's work for us to love one another is only to tell you that what Paul is saying here is true and necessary. He's telling the Corinthians, you're gonna have to work at this because you're not good at it. You don't love each other naturally. We have this idea, this romanticized, idyllic idea that love is just this natural thing that just flows out of us. And it turns out it's not. It is when you're... dating and getting married, but it doesn't last that way. It matures and it deepens and it burns hotter than it used to, but not in the same way. It's like white hot poles versus like the fire you just started with all the lighter fluid on it. Both fire, both hot, completely unusable versus very productive.

And so all of Paul's admonitions about love have to do with the conflicts that arise between God's people in the context of a local church. These things are not unique to the Corinthians. They're things that we face. As we read this passage, do we consider our own impatience, our own jealousies? Do you ever get jealous of people in the church? Do you ever like humblebrag? Do you ever look down on other people because they're not as good as you? They don't know as much, they don't do as well. Do you ever get in a fight at small group? or in the car outside a small group and then come in with puffy red cheeks, acting unbecomingly? Do you ever get frustrated when people don't serve you in the church the way you think they should? Are you always ready for a fight amongst the brothers? Do you go home after church and recount all of the people or all of the circumstances where people didn't love you? Are you glad when that foolish brother of yours gets what he deserves? Do you get tired and want to give up?

Are you a cynic regarding your brothers and sisters? Do you have any hope that things will get better? And will you bear with it and endure it? Now, all I've done, I realize none of that was me quoting Scripture, but all I'm doing is reading it and saying, this is how we are. Are you any of these ways? I'm most of these ways, maybe all of these ways at various times. Not all the time, but they're living temptations in my heart. that I have to fight on a daily basis, not just with you, but with my family as they do with me. The question is, do you think that that work is appropriate and necessary and good, not just in your home and in your four walls, but in this house with these brothers? Or do you make it your aim to keep everyone far enough away that none of this ever really has to happen? I tend not to mind initially, and it depends on the argument, but I tend not to mind when Christians get in arguments or fights.

As long as they resolve them. I really get concerned when they argue and they fight and then they don't ever come back to it. They just kind of decide, we're just going to take a step away from each other and just live like that. Until some other point they come back together and they have another fight and then they take another step away from each other. That's concerning to me. Because that's divisive. That is a lack of love. The fact that we have differences of opinion and irritate each other at times is to be expected. It's unfortunate. but it's inevitable. The question is not whether that will happen, but what will we do with one another when that happens? I mean, when is it important to be patient with your brother? When do kindness and jealousy compete for our hearts? When do we need to resist being provoked? Isn't it when there's conflict and our own lovelessness begins to take hold? What's this all have to do with small groups? Well, I said at the beginning, small groups are an extension of the family. They're a family meal.

time spent together, lived in close proximity to one another. And that closeness ought to be close enough to where this sermon and these exhortations from Paul find some usefulness. We should encourage one another, our spouses or our children, toward love on the backside sometimes. A healthy small group is one that's working toward obedience. toward loving one another. It is not the mark of a healthy small group where everyone is working hard to keep everyone at arm's length. As you grow together with your small group, there will be occasions for you to take offense, to take offense at something that gets said or done, something that's left unaddressed, something you think should be changed. We're just starting our small groups again up after, you know, having done them for years.

But these things, these things have come to our ears, the elders' ears before, that there's problems in this small group. But that family, this family doesn't like that family. They just irritate me. Their kids are out of control. Dinner's not until 2.30 in the afternoon. They leave our house a mess. They don't help clean up. They stay for dinner. And it was supposed to be lunch. All of those are things we've heard. And all of those are opportunities. for us to prioritize love. When those things well up in your heart, I don't want you to be like, oh no, oh no, oh no, I can't believe it. I just want you to say, this is an opportunity for me to love my brother, my sister. And I want you to take the opportunity. Because when you do that, you're loving in the manner that God loved you. There are times when Jesus was teaching and he was preaching when he was very direct.

even aggressive. I mean, he flipped over tables and drove people out with whips at points in the temple. But there are these other times where he deals with people that would just irritate you. You remember when he was weary and he was tired and he wanted to sleep and the people just followed him? And then the disciples are like, you know, they went with him that far. They're like, okay. And so he's preaching and teaching. He went away, he retired. He wanted to pray and commune with his father, but the people followed. And so now he's preaching and now he's teaching and he's already tired. And then all of the people are hungry and the disciples are like, this is our shot. Jesus, it's getting to be late and they're hungry. Send them away into the towns so that they can go get themselves some dinner and find a place to sleep. Seems reasonable enough. And what does Jesus say to his disciples?

You feed them. And they're like, we don't have any fish and any bread. And he says, tell them to sit down. And he prays and he blesses and he cares for his people. How irritated were the disciples? He's sinless, but they're not. Would you not have been irritated at that? Frustrated at their neediness and you having to be the one to bear it. How about we be like Jesus in that moment? Don't want us to miss the opportunities. that come across our lives to love one another. Paul said, when I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. But when I became a man, I did away with childish things. These impulses, this lack of love, it's childish, right? When you have young children at a certain age, they're not even capable of thinking about their life or what's going on from outside of themselves. They cognitively, they don't have the ability to do it, young children.

We're always like, why don't you know better? Well, one part of the answer is because they're not capable of observing themselves and their behavior and their desires from outside. Adults, and even I'd say, you know, 8, 9, 10 and older, have the ability to begin to think about themselves as, you know, they're looking at their life and they're saying, that was wrong of me or good of me or... or mean or these types of things. But before that, they don't even have the ability to do it. They only perceive their life from the inside. They don't think in terms of like, this person did this to me and so I reacted this way and what I did was either right or wrong. They're not capable of it. And what you find then is that that's why young children often scream, cry, throw things, and they have all kinds of trouble when they're little because they don't know how to love anybody yet.

Okay, they don't know how to assess themselves and their own behavior at all. All they know is that was mine and he took it and they want it back. Or he has it and I want it and I don't care. So, you know, they just see it and they just want it. That's childish thinking. The problem we have is that it doesn't, the ability to look at ourselves from the outside does come at a certain age. We're capable of it, but that does not necessarily mean that we do it on a regular basis. We have to realize that we're capable of living as children and reasoning and thinking and processing like a child, even though we're adults. We only think in terms of ourselves and how we're affected and what our desires are and how we should be served and whether that's fair or not in our way of reckoning. Paul calls that childish thinking. And he says, I used to think and reason and act like that, but when I became a man,

I did away with childish things. Stated another way, he's saying, when I grew up into Christ and received his Holy Spirit, I was then able to actually love other people. And so that should be our aim and our goal. We shouldn't get into life with one another as quarreling three and four and five-year-olds. Even if we keep that quarrel quiet until we go home. We should have a different perspective than a child. Do you ever look at yourself and say, you're just acting like a baby? You're just whining and crying about this and bellyaching about something that you ought not to be. Part of being a mature Christian is being able to love those who sin against you or irritate you or don't understand you. That is the beauty and the gift of Christ's death and resurrection is that it gives you the ability to truly love one another, to overcome sin, to where when you sin, you don't have to just get further away.

And then when it happens again, get further away. It actually allows you to stay in fellowship and unity with those who you sin against and who sin against you. We could all multiply our reasons for our cold, grumpy hearts toward one another, but we do have to circle back at some point and see if the larger problem, the real foundation, isn't actually our lack of love. I'll end with this. We've been talking a lot about our self-examination of our own hearts and examining whether or not we're truly loving or just thinking that we're loving. But I want to end by asking you, when you've experienced this sort of love, where someone has come to you and given to you and sacrificed for you, how did that change you? Did it leave a mark? Do you remember it with gladness and thankfulness that they came to you in your struggle?

And they helped you carry it. That's what's at stake. That's what I want. I desperately want us to give that to one another. And what gets in the way is our own selfishness and impatience and all these sins that we deal with. The things that so easily entangle us, Hebrews says. But I want us to get some vision for what we're giving up when we give into those sins. Because that kind of love, when we've received it, is memorable. And you know what's better than receiving that kind of love? Giving that kind of love. Remember Jesus said to us, it's better to give than to receive. More blessed to give than to receive. And so as we live together as a church and a family, brothers and sisters, there's going to be disagreements and conflicts and objections to any number of things.

And some of them will have to do with sin and obedience to God. And some of them will just have to do with personality and family traits. But whatever it is, our ability and willingness to give the gift of love that we have received from God in his son Jesus Christ is what's at stake. And so I don't want you to give love begrudgingly. I don't want you to do the right thing because it's the right thing. I want you to do the right thing. Because you love God and you see this as an opportunity to love your brother and to glorify God. God really does see these things, remember these things, bless these things, and it delights him to see his children walking together in peace. And so if we choose to focus on the things we disagree about, it doesn't really matter what we do for the people that irritate us if we don't love them.

You can host small group. You can lead small group. You can provide all the food for small group. You can teach at small group. You can do all of it. And if those people drive you nuts, it profits you nothing. But if you pursue love and you recognize, you ask God to help you, help me to recognize where I fail in this area and help me to fight it by faith. Give me love for my brothers and my sisters. Help me not to just smile and nod and act like everything's fine. Help me to love them, Lord. It'll be incredible what God will do to you and do for you with people. You'll find that you'll love people. You'll find this beautiful garden of love growing that you didn't plan. All of a sudden, your irritations with them will melt away. They won't be there anymore. And it takes faith to believe that. That the people who irritate you, the things that are going on, that if they truly, as an example,

Have a mouthy, snotty, disrespectful, disobedient, messy eating kid. Do you believe that that can change? Or is it just hopeless? Is it just like, well, they're just terrible parents and that's all there is to it. Guess we'll just have to let them come and spread a little of their mess at our house every week. Can't wait till it's over. That's such an awful perspective. I have kids, won't let my kids do that. You may not. Your kids may do something else that's equally irritating. They may never cry at all. They may just shove everybody down and be a big bully. I don't know what it'll be. Loving one another is a privilege. The other option is to live all by yourself. And most of our world is, or maybe not our world, though we could argue that birth rates in the world are in serious decline, but in America, more and more, we're choosing to live by ourselves so that we don't ever have to love anybody. Everything's becoming contactless, right?

COVID taught us that germs were bad and ought to be avoided. And there's, you know, you can get sick. Winter's coming and small groups are going to be affected by that part of the fall. You're going to bring your kids to small group and then you're going to get the text at 8 o'clock on Sunday night, my kid just puked. And you're going to be like, no! And you're going to start to view your child as just a ticking time bomb. And you'll be irritated at the people who didn't recognize earlier that their kid was sick because they'll say silly things like, yeah, he didn't eat much breakfast this morning, you know, and I'm looking back on it now, I can see that. And you ought to love them because while you're not dealing with a mess yet, they have a puking kid. What can you do for them? How can you serve and love them? These are the questions we ought to ask ourselves. It's a paradigm shift. It's a different way of thinking. It's a Christian way of thinking.

And as I said, the other option is to be alone. All of America, largely, young people your age are choosing that path. They're choosing to be alone. They don't want to get married. They certainly don't want to have kids. They want to make a bunch of money. They want to go live and consume and consume and consume and produce nothing. So that when they're gone, they're truly gone because they built nothing. But you have not started that way. You're young, you've married, you're having children, and bless you for it. God bless you for it. But man, have you got work to do still, don't we, of loving each other? Your kids are a lot of work. I know they're a lot of work in your house, and yet we still have to love the brethren and bear with each other and care for each other and teach each other and pray for each other and admonish each other in perpetuity so that when at the end of the spring in May,

when our small groups are wrapping up for the year, so we can have the summers off, you'll actually miss those people. And then next year, what the elders will be dealing with is all the people who don't want to be switched out of their small groups, who are inviting those same people to their house over the summer for informal get-togethers. That's what I hope God does for us and with us. And so let's practice it. Let's love each other. That's my exhortation to you. When you're irritated, you have an opportunity to love. Fight your temptation to be irritated, to be grumpy, to withdraw. Be vulnerable. Tell the people what you've got going on. Ask for their prayer and their encouragement and their advice. And trust that God will bless you through it. Let's pray.