How do you respond when the Holy Spirit prompts you to act, especially when the request feels unusual or unexpected? Do you obey? Do you hesitate? Do you try to reason your way out of it?

What if God is calling you to take the first step in love toward someone who isn’t like you, someone who may disagree with you, avoid you, or even hate you? When we realize obedience to the Lord is not ultimately about us, we open the door to unexpected and extraordinary opportunities. We never know what hangs in the balance, are you ready? 

The question I get the most whenever I talk about Love Goes First is this:

What about when I go first and it doesn’t seem to make any difference?

I love this question, because it means folks are actually putting these ideas into practice.

The interaction of Jesus and the rich young ruler gives us an answer.

Jesus loves the young man by telling him something he doesn’t want to hear.

The result? The man walks away.

And Jesus lets him go.

There is a lesson there for us.

The only way we are going to reach the people that don’t think like us, vote like us, agree with us—maybe even hate us—is to go first toward.

There is no other way.

The problem is that going first comes with a cost.

We can’t say that Jesus didn’t warn us.

How are we going to reach the people who don’t vote like us, think like us, agree with, maybe even hate us?

The first step, surely, is to actually *see* them.

Many people go a long time without ever truly being seen.

Take Zacchaeus, for example: a radical change in his life starts when Jesus stops and sees him.

That’s what my mom used to say to me and my brothers when we were little boys and would complain about the snakes around our African house.

I still don’t think she was right about the cobras we complained about. But with regard to other people: she’s dead on.

Other people really are more scared of you than you are of them.

In a world in which everyone is waiting to react to everyone else, the one who chooses to go first and act will fundamentally change the status quo and thereby open up new possibilities to walk into.

In the episode with Jesus and the woman at the well, it starts with just a simple (and shocking) question:

“Can I have a drink of water?”

One of the most overlooked aspects of Jesus’s ministry is how often he found himself in conflict—and with whom. Often it was not those who he was trying to reach, but members of his own tribe. If we're to reach across divides and love those who aren’t like us, we must accept and embody a particular trait of Jesus: the willingness to be misunderstood by our own side. If we choose not to, it will be our biggest barrier—and drive us deeper into division. 

We live in the most scientific and technologically advanced society in history.

And people are more imprisoned by their feelings than ever.

Isn’t that strange?

The political commentator Ben Shapiro is known for his catchphrase:

"Facts don’t care about your feelings."

That is 100% true...

and these days 100% irrelevant.

Many people claim that what’s true is whatever they *feel* to be true.

How do we move forward?

We start by looking at the interaction between Jesus and Pontius Pilate, and by examining the places our own feelings are getting in the way of the fact of the gospel.

There are three dead ends facing the church in our time.

We could accommodate, let go of anything the culture finds offensive.

We could double-down and shout judgement more shrilly.

We could withdraw and try to remain pure and unpolluted by the world.

But those three options are all dead ends for the church.

There is only way forward.

In week 02 of our “Love Goes First” series, we are asking, “How should the church proceed in our time, in this culture?”

Our answer: to GO.

“What do we do now?”

There is lots of talk about division and polarization these days, but what should we actually *do* about it?

In a nation of 340 million people there are millions of people who don’t think like you, vote like you, look like you, maybe even people who hate you.

For the church, reaching others is not an option: it is a command from Jesus.

How are we going to reach the people that hate us?

This is the question we will be answering in our “Love Goes First” sermon series, and it’s the reason that I wrote my new book “Love Goes First.”

In week 01, we are just getting the lay of the land.

It’s not 1955 or 1995 or even 2005 any more.

America has changed, and if we are going to reach others, we have to understand those changes.

Welcome to Negative World.

What if there were no more mercy? What if the Lord just turned off the tap that allows mercy to flow so that there were no mercy for *anyone*?

In our series on Jonah, we’ve come to the last chapter, one of the most explosive and unsettling chapters in the entire Bible.

In Jonah chapter 4, Jonah is so angry he would rather die than live.

Why?

Because he hates God for being a God of mercy. The Lord has chosen to forgive the wicked people of Nineveh, and that makes Jonah sick.

I can identify with Jonah—I have a hard time with the idea of God showing mercy to people who are wrong.

And yet, that’s not how it works. It’s either all, or nothing. That is, either the Lord gives mercy to everyone, or no one. He’s God, and I’m not, and he can show mercy to whomever he wills.

What if there were no more mercy for *anyone*?

What if we lived in a world in which there were never any forgiveness, never any chance to start over?

When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we confess that there is a mysterious connection between our willingness to extend mercy to our enemies, and our own reception of mercy from God.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

This is a hard truth. Let’s talk about it.