You want to get out your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12 is where we're going to be studying from this morning. We've been studying about setting goals on the basis of what we had previously studied about God's pursuit of the lost and God's mercies. God has shown tremendous love and mercy to all of mankind. He has demonstrated His desire for all of those who are lost to be found, for them to come back to Him, that He would lovingly welcome them into His arms, that He would embrace them, that He would forgive them and give them blessings beyond what they could ever deserve. We looked at Luke and saw many different parables that pointed us to that, and And then we ended with looking at Jesus and how far God would go to show His love for mankind that is lost, that are sinful and unworthy of His love, that He's demonstrated that love to us.

And in Romans 12, we noticed how the very beginning of chapter 12 says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, you know, Romans one through 11, very similarly to our previous study, Paul made it clear God has shown tremendous grace and mercy to us, even though we don't deserve it. And so in response to his love and his mercy, we should be willing to lay our lives down at God's feet. We should be willing to sacrificially serve in whatever capacity God has given us the ability to serve and so We have been focusing in on that and thinking about different goals that we need to be setting for ourselves Based on what Paul says here in Romans chapter 12. We don't set these goals because we have to we don't set these goals because people are going to be breathing down our necks trying to force us to or Because we feel really guilty and we just we have to do something. So we'll just do something We don't set goals like that, but we set these goals because we love Him.

We set these goals because we appreciate the love He's demonstrated to us, and we want to please Him, and we want to glorify Him. The first goal we talked about was the goal of sacrificial service, that each and every one of us have a gift that is unique to us. There's not a single person here who is a member of the body of Christ who does not have a gift that should be getting used in service to the body of Christ. Each and every member was given a gift that they were supposed to use in proportion to their faith with zeal, with fervency. They should be using their gifts to serve the church. The elders thought this would be a good time for us to have an update to our assignment sheet and our service sheet. So in the back, if you're a member here, be sure to grab one of those service sheets and fill out whatever it is you feel like you're able to do, whatever gift God has given you to do, so that we can employ you and put you to work and service.

There may be things not on that list that you can do, and I hope that you'll do it, but this is so that we can help you to do the work that God's given you to do. Today we're going to talk about the second goal. And the second goal is to love one another sincerely. Sacrificial service was hard. Sacrificial service is a lot. I mean, you're just laying your life down. You're not receiving appreciation maybe for the things that you're doing, but now we're getting a little bit more difficult as we think about loving one another sincerely. This is maybe a goal that we don't think much about, but loving one another sincerely is a big deal. It's very important. If you think about the greatest command is to love God with all your heart soul mind and strength and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself and Jesus replaced that second with love one another as I have loved you. God desires for us to love one another.

He wants to see an internal transformation and renewal notice he said that in verse 2 do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. He says, I want you to be a living sacrifice by being transformed by the renewal of your mind. There is an internal transformation that's supposed to be going on inside of Christians, and that is best seen in the statement that Paul made that we're gonna be looking at in verse 9, let love be genuine, or let love be sincere, or your translation may say, let love be without hypocrisy. There's a picture that there's an internal change that happens within us that now we love one another.

Genuinely, sincerely, we actually love one another. You know, it's easy for us to talk about love, but it's another thing for us to actually love other people with sincerity or with a genuine type of love. It's possible for us to serve one another without loving one another. It's possible for us to smile at one another and have friendly conversations with one another, but not really love one another. It's possible for us to do all the right things. It's possible for us to be really helpful and and do all kinds of good things but still have something wrong inside of us. Still have pride, selfishness, still have some kind of a desire and ambition that's that's focused on me. So what Paul is saying is let love be genuine. He's saying we need to think more clearly about what it means to love and how it is that we're doing love. You ever think about setting a goal in your life to love people more sincerely than you already do? You ever think it's a goal I've got for myself. I'm gonna love people more sincerely. You know, I don't think we really set that kind of goal. Not typically. We kind of think we're good.

I'll never forget whenever I was younger we came we had gone to services with my father-in-law mother-in-law I don't know if we were married yet but we came back and we ate lunch and I I was asked to say the prayer so I said the prayer and one of the things that I said was Lord help us to love each other as we should and after I finished that prayer I never really said that before but for some reason that was on my heart I just said us to love one another as we should. My father-in-law looked at me and said, are you saying you're struggling to love me?

And I was just like, well, I mean, I could do better. It's true. I could do better. You know, love is not really as simple as we make it out to be. It's so easy for us to claim that we love each other. It's so easy for us to assume that we're doing, we're doing right. We're loving one another. And we love you. I haven't killed you, you know, I haven't chewed you out or hurt you in any way. And, and I kind of do nice things for you every now and then, doesn't that mean that I love you? Yeah. I love you. But if you remember, uh, Jesus asked Peter three times, do you love me?

We wanted Peter to think about this a little bit more deeply, and I think it would be good for us to think about this a little more deeply, and to set the goal to love one another sincerely. Our thoughts, our desires, and our actions can be refined, can be improved, so that we love one another more sincerely, so that we focus on one another, and we actually show the genuine love that Paul is calling for us to show, that Jesus is calling for us to show, in the body of Christ. And if I'm honest with myself as I evaluate myself and my love for others, I am not where I need to be.

I fall short of this often. I have thoughts and feelings that are not really loving toward people sometimes, that are very selfish and self-focused, and I must I must learn to overcome these things and I must strive diligently to love others genuinely and sincerely and not in a way that just appears loving. Let's talk about what does it mean to love somebody. In our culture love is is very, very misunderstood. It is not just a feeling that we have in the moment.

It's not love. You know, those feelings that rush upon us whenever somebody is doing something kind for us or we have an attraction to somebody or somebody is very admirable and we appreciate them or we enjoy being around them so much, Those are not really love in the sense that we're talking about. I remember the story of Amnon, the son of David who was lusting after his half-sister, Absalom's sister, Tamar, and his buddy, Jonadab, told him, why are you haggard morning after morning? Why are you so upset? And Amnon says, I love Tamar. I love my brother Absalom's sister. And you see in this, he has these feelings of love for Tamar.

And so he deceives Tamar and he rapes Tamar because he loves her so much, but that's not love. We see after he commits the horrible act of rape, it says in verse 15, Amnon hated her with a very great hatred, so that the hatred with which He hated her was greater than the love with which He had loved her. And Amnon said, Get up and go. You see, this is the kind of love that our society thinks is love. But it's not real, it's not genuine, it's not sincere, it's something else. And it's not the kind of love that God calls for us to have. This bipolar love is not love.

It is emotional, it is full of feelings, and it's not what God wants us to have. Love cannot be defined merely by what feels good in the moment. Just because it feels good doesn't mean it's love. Just because it feels bad doesn't mean it's not love. Love is something else other than and outside of our feelings. Love is about seeking what is truly good for someone else. If I love someone, I am seeking what is truly good for them, and notice Amnon didn't love Tamar like that. His love had nothing to do with what was best for Tamar. His love was completely wrapped up in HIMSELF. Told you this is not a sermon series about husbands and wives, but hopefully you husbands and wives take note.

You don't love your spouse because you feel a certain way toward them. You love them because you truly desire what is for their good. You're living and you're sacrificing yourself because you care about them and you want what's best for them. This is love and this is specifically this sincere love that he's talking about here. I love how the other translations word it as genuine and then they also word it as without Hypocrisy without hypocrisy I think of hypocrisy I think about those religious leaders of Jesus day that he said woe to you hypocrites Because they're hypocritical They are just putting on a show a hypocrite as a person who plays a part. They wear a mask And he says, I don't want your love to be fake. I don't want your love to be hypocritical.

I don't want you to be like Ananias and Sapphira who go up and they sell their property and they go up and they offer What they've sold to the church and they say yeah, that's all of it. That's all everything We got from the land. We just lay it at the Apostles feet to spend it as they want. Well, actually it was it Actually, they held back part for themselves. That's putting on a show of devotion, a show of care, a show of concern for somebody else when internally the heart is not where it needs to be. If we're going to love one another sincerely, we're going to love one another genuinely, we have to get past the show.

We have to take off the mask and underneath must be an actual heart that loves and wants what's best for the people who are around us. Sincerity is both warm and it's honest. Think about a sweet old grandma. just loves you so much. Pinch those little cheeks. Grandma gonna cook the best foods for you and provide everything for you because loves you so much. It's just so much warmth in Grandma's house. It's just gonna take care of you, gonna provide for you, not gonna let nothing happen to you because they just love you so much. And think about the love of a father who corrects you when you step out a line and lets you know the way that you're supposed to act and how you're supposed to be. Is that love? Yeah it's love. Sincere love is both warm and honest. Both sides are found in sincere love. It's not, it's a range, it's a spectrum, it's not just all one way or all the other. Sincere love has a balance of the two things and both of those things should be included in our love for other people. So we need to have an honest heart and we need to have warmth toward one another.

And this is giving us the sense that the sincerity and the genuineness, the sense of the purity of the motive of the person. That if I'm going to love you genuinely and I'm gonna love you sincerely, then I really do deep down want what's best for you. I'm not trying to use you to get what I want from you but I'm trying to serve you I'm trying to sacrifice for you you can see how there's kind of a contrast you imagine I got that sweet little grandma picture in your mind you imagine a sweet little lady about to cross the road and you go over to help her cross the road why do you do it do you do it because she's got money and you want to be on her good side or do you do it because you're concerned for her safety and you love her.

You see, there's a difference. One appears loving, but there's no real love inside. It's selfish. And one is purely just trying to help someone out of a genuine love. So you understand sincere, genuine love. It's not fake. It's not self-serving. It's warm, but it's also honest. It has all of these different characteristics. Now, let's think about how are we going to develop sincere love inside of ourselves. Paul's gonna help us with this. He's gonna tell us two things. Notice verse nine. Let love be genuine. He immediately follows it with this. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. You wanna love sincerely?

Hate evil. Cling to what is good. Let's break this down and explain this. How do we hate what is evil? I heard Brent Kercheville put it, it's a holy hatred. We have a holy hatred. We're told we're not supposed to hate. You're not supposed to hate it. Tell my kids, don't say the word hate. You're supposed to hate what's evil. It's okay to hate what's evil. This is telling us abhor what is evil. It should be disgusting to you. You should be repulsed by evil. Whenever someone does something that is evil, it should be something you retract from, you're recoiling from, it should be something that you have a strong hatred for that you're wanting to fix, that you're wanting to stop the evil from happening.

This is showing us that sincere love has a backbone to it. love hates what corrupts, enslaves, or ruins people around us. I don't want someone to be wrapped up in what's evil. I want to pull them out of it. I don't want them to give in to those things. Whenever I see it, it affects me. It hurts me. I don't affirm their sin. You know our society, I want you to just tell me whatever it is that I'm doing is okay. That's not love. That's not sincere love. If I act like your sin is okay and your rebellion against God is okay, I do not love you. If I love you, I will speak to you about the evil and I will try to save you from the evil and help you understand how that's evil. I'm gonna do it in a very loving and compassionate kind of way. I could be wrong in the things that I'm seeing and maybe I'm misinterpreting and making assumptions and I don't want to do that. But if I know it's evil, if I know it's wrong and I tell you nothing. Do I love you? Sincerely? Genuinely? I know where that's going to end.

I know what's going to happen to you if you continue down that path and I say nothing to you. My son's running out to the street at two years old and I say nothing as he goes and he gets ran over by a car. Do I love him? No! I yell out, stop and I train him to listen to me so that hopefully we've got a relationship so that he'll listen to me and he'll stop and he'll be saved from it. We have to love one another enough to confront one another when we're wrapped up in sin. If I'm doing something that's sinful and evil, I need you to love me enough to talk to me about it. Don't chew me out. Don't cause emotions and rage to spawn up in me. Maybe it will and you do it right, but help me see it. Help me understand what I'm doing is wrong. Love me enough to share it with me. And if somebody's saying that stuff to you, don't think that they hate you. They don't hate you. They love you. They care about you. You think it would be easy for them to say those things? No, it's not easy for most of us to say those things.

In fact, I think we're very anti-confrontation in our society. Some of us it comes easy too, but most of us we don't like confrontation. So if somebody says something hard to you, take heed to what they say and appreciate their willingness to trust you with those things. We need to be people who are willing to hate what is evil enough to see it's threatening someone I love and I'm going to speak out and I'm going to try to prevent that from destroying their life. Second he said if we're gonna love sincerely we need to cling to what is good. You know, it's not enough to say, I love you. I need to actually pursue doing good things for you if I love you. Imagine a husband and wife and they just say they love each other and they spend no time together. They do nothing to help one another, support one another, talk to one, they don't even talk to one another other than just to say, You know, I love you.

I love you. Okay. Okay. It's not enough. We have to be men and women who are pursuing what is good for one another. We're holding on to good, even when it's difficult, even whenever someone mistreats me, I want to do what's good. I want to do what's right. I want to do what's loving and compassionate toward them. I don't want to respond in a way that is unloving or that satisfies whatever emotions are riled up inside of me. If we're going to love sincerely, we need to pray for one another. We need to forgive one another. We need to bear one another's burdens whenever we're struggling. We need to reach out and communicate that we love you and we're willing to help and we want to help.

In the midst of our busy schedules, we will make time for you in whatever it is that you're going through. Oh, we will be there because we care. We'll tell you the truth that you need to hear, even whenever it's difficult. We have to do this. The love genuinely, we have to put ourselves out there and try to demonstrate the love God calls us to. Verse 10 says, Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. I think this group has come a long way since I've been here and getting closer to one another. I told you this at the beginning of this series.

I'm not preaching this because we're just doing so horrible and everybody's living their own individual lives and nobody's ever talking to anybody I'm seeing a lot of people connecting and getting together and and it's wonderful and we've got even something planned This afternoon after services some of y'all have set up for those who are graduates and I love that It's so great to see us Investing in one another but notice these words Love one another with brotherly affection you see how a lot of times we might have our real family and then we've got our church family and there's things we can say and there's things we can do with our real family that we don't say and we don't do with our church family and Paul's saying this is your real family brotherly affection means you're my brother you're my sister I know you you know me I am there for you. You're there for me. We're sacrificing. We're going beyond what is normal and what people usually do with strangers. You come into my home. I come into your home. We call each other.

We text each other. We let each other know what's going on in our lives. We open up. We trust each other. That's the picture of genuine love and then he also says, outdo one another in showing honor. I like that because this is this is completely focused on what's best for you, lifting you up, making everybody see you, that you are doing everything well and it's great and wow what an amazing person you are. Look at him. Look at Keith, how hard he's working, how much he's suffering, and yet he's still being faithful to the Lord. Look at Kathy, how much she's been through. Look at this brother. Look at this sister. Honor them. Lift them up. Make everybody see their diligence. That's okay. It's not okay to say, look at me.

Look at all I'm doing. But it's perfectly fine to say, look at this person. Look at how hard they work and how much they love the Lord. We go above and beyond to show people we love them. That's the picture. That's the goal that we're after because that's what we see God doing for us. We just had a meeting that told us God loves you and wants to glorify you with the glory that He Himself has, He wants to glorify you. You didn't get that from the meeting, it's amazing, those comments that Barry brought forth to us. God wants to honor you and lift you up. God wants to show that kind of love for you.

Jesus has demonstrated the type of love He has for mankind in the way that He lived. He wasn't wearing a mask, it wasn't fake, it was authentic, it was genuine. He really cared about those people who the religious leaders thought were losers. He cared about them and he wanted what was best for them. He was willing to be scoffed and mocked because he wanted the person who had dropsy or the person who was paralyzed or the person who was unclean, he wanted them to be clean. He wanted them to be healthy, so he was willing to heal even on a Sabbath day or when other people would look down on him.

Is that you? Is that me? Am I willing to love somebody who may not ever pay me back or reward me for that love? I hope that you see the love that God has for you and I hope that you understand that God wants our hearts to be transformed from the inside out. He's not pleased with us putting on a mask and looking like we're good and righteous and obedient children of his He wants us to actually love one another Abhorring what is evil clinging to what is good having brotherly affection with one another and showing one another honor and lifting one another up Let's be sure that that is our goal and whatever situation you're in overcome the feelings of jealousy or envy or malice or whatever it is that you have going on in your heart with the knowledge that Jesus loves you in spite of all your weaknesses and your failures and honor one another and show that love. I hope that this has been encouraging for you. If anybody has any needs this morning, we offer this song as an invitation. Please let us know what you need.

Come as we stand and as we sing.

You want to get out your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12 is where we're going to be studying from this morning. We've been studying about setting goals on the basis of what we had previously studied about God's pursuit of the lost and God's mercies. God has shown tremendous love and mercy to all of mankind. He has demonstrated His desire for all of those who are lost to be found, for them to come back to Him, that He would lovingly welcome them into His arms, that He would embrace them, that He would forgive them and give them blessings beyond what they could ever deserve. We looked at Luke and saw many different parables that pointed us to that, and And then we ended with looking at Jesus and how far God would go to show His love for mankind that is lost, that are sinful and unworthy of His love, that He's demonstrated that love to us.

And in Romans 12, we noticed how the very beginning of chapter 12 says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, you know, Romans one through 11, very similarly to our previous study, Paul made it clear God has shown tremendous grace and mercy to us, even though we don't deserve it. And so in response to his love and his mercy, we should be willing to lay our lives down at God's feet. We should be willing to sacrificially serve in whatever capacity God has given us the ability to serve and so We have been focusing in on that and thinking about different goals that we need to be setting for ourselves Based on what Paul says here in Romans chapter 12. We don't set these goals because we have to we don't set these goals because people are going to be breathing down our necks trying to force us to or Because we feel really guilty and we just we have to do something. So we'll just do something We don't set goals like that, but we set these goals because we love Him.

We set these goals because we appreciate the love He's demonstrated to us, and we want to please Him, and we want to glorify Him. The first goal we talked about was the goal of sacrificial service, that each and every one of us have a gift that is unique to us. There's not a single person here who is a member of the body of Christ who does not have a gift that should be getting used in service to the body of Christ. Each and every member was given a gift that they were supposed to use in proportion to their faith with zeal, with fervency. They should be using their gifts to serve the church. The elders thought this would be a good time for us to have an update to our assignment sheet and our service sheet. So in the back, if you're a member here, be sure to grab one of those service sheets and fill out whatever it is you feel like you're able to do, whatever gift God has given you to do, so that we can employ you and put you to work and service.

There may be things not on that list that you can do, and I hope that you'll do it, but this is so that we can help you to do the work that God's given you to do. Today we're going to talk about the second goal. And the second goal is to love one another sincerely. Sacrificial service was hard. Sacrificial service is a lot. I mean, you're just laying your life down. You're not receiving appreciation maybe for the things that you're doing, but now we're getting a little bit more difficult as we think about loving one another sincerely. This is maybe a goal that we don't think much about, but loving one another sincerely is a big deal. It's very important. If you think about the greatest command is to love God with all your heart soul mind and strength and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself and Jesus replaced that second with love one another as I have loved you. God desires for us to love one another. He wants to see an internal transformation and renewal notice he said that in verse 2 do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. He says, I want

you to be a living sacrifice by being transformed by the renewal of your mind. There is an internal transformation that's supposed to be going on inside of Christians, and that is best seen in the statement that Paul made that we're gonna be looking at in verse 9, let love be genuine, or let love be sincere, or your translation may say, let love be without hypocrisy. There's a picture that there's an internal change that happens within us that now we love one another. Genuinely, sincerely, we actually love one another. You know, it's easy for us to talk about love, but it's another thing for us to actually love other people with sincerity or with a genuine type of love. It's possible for us to serve one another without loving one another. It's possible for us to smile at one another and have friendly conversations with one another, but not really love one another.

It's possible for us to do all the right things. It's possible for us to be really helpful and and do all kinds of good things but still have something wrong inside of us. Still have pride, selfishness, still have some kind of a desire and ambition that's that's focused on me. So what Paul is saying is let love be genuine. He's saying we need to think more clearly about what it means to love and how it is that we're doing love. You ever think about setting a goal in your life to love people more sincerely than you already do? You ever think it's a goal I've got for myself. I'm gonna love people more sincerely. You know, I don't think we really set that kind of goal. Not typically. We kind of think we're good. I'll never forget whenever I was younger we came we had gone to services with my father-in-law mother-in-law I don't know if we were married yet but we came back and we ate lunch and I I was asked to say the prayer so I said the prayer and one of the things that I said was Lord help us to love each other as we should and after I finished that prayer I never really said that before but for some reason that was on my heart I just said

us to love one another as we should. My father-in-law looked at me and said, are you saying you're struggling to love me? And I was just like, well, I mean, I could do better.

It's true. I could do better. You know, love is not really as simple as we make it out to be. It's so easy for us to claim that we love each other. It's so easy for us to assume that we're doing, we're doing right. We're loving one another. And we love you. I haven't killed you, you know, I haven't chewed you out or hurt you in any way. And, and I kind of do nice things for you every now and then, doesn't that mean that I love you? Yeah. I love you. But if you remember, uh, Jesus asked Peter three times, do you love me? We wanted Peter to think about this a little bit more deeply, and I think it would be good for us to think about this a little more deeply, and to set the goal to love one another sincerely.

Our thoughts, our desires, and our actions can be refined, can be improved, so that we love one another more sincerely, so that we focus on one another, and we actually show the genuine love that Paul is calling for us to show, that Jesus is calling for us to show, in the body of Christ. And if I'm honest with myself as I evaluate myself and my love for others, I am not where I need to be. I fall short of this often. I have thoughts and feelings that are not really loving toward people sometimes, that are very selfish and self-focused, and I must I must learn to overcome these things and I must strive diligently to love others genuinely and sincerely and not in a way that just appears loving.

Let's talk about what does it mean to love somebody. In our culture love is is very, very misunderstood. It is not just a feeling that we have in the moment. It's not love. You know, those feelings that rush upon us whenever somebody is doing something kind for us or we have an attraction to somebody or somebody is very admirable and we appreciate them or we enjoy being around them so much, Those are not really love in the sense that we're talking about. I remember the story of Amnon, the son of David who was lusting after his half-sister, Absalom's sister, Tamar, and his buddy, Jonadab, told him, why are you haggard morning after morning?

Why are you so upset? And Amnon says, I love Tamar. I love my brother Absalom's sister. And you see in this, he has these feelings of love for Tamar. And so he deceives Tamar and he rapes Tamar because he loves her so much, but that's not love.

We see after he commits the horrible act of rape, it says in verse 15, Amnon hated her with a very great hatred, so that the hatred with which He hated her was greater than the love with which He had loved her. And Amnon said, Get up and go. You see, this is the kind of love that our society thinks is love. But it's not real, it's not genuine, it's not sincere, it's something else. And it's not the kind of love that God calls for us to have. This bipolar love is not love. It is emotional, it is full of feelings, and it's not what God wants us to have. Love cannot be defined merely by what feels good in the moment.

Just because it feels good doesn't mean it's love. Just because it feels bad doesn't mean it's not love. Love is something else other than and outside of our feelings. Love is about seeking what is truly good for someone else. If I love someone, I am seeking what is truly good for them, and notice Amnon didn't love Tamar like that. His love had nothing to do with what was best for Tamar. His love was completely wrapped up in HIMSELF. Told you this is not a sermon series about husbands and wives, but hopefully you husbands and wives take note. You don't love your spouse because you feel a certain way toward them.

You love them because you truly desire what is for their good. You're living and you're sacrificing yourself because you care about them and you want what's best for them. This is love and this is specifically this sincere love that he's talking about here. I love how the other translations word it as genuine and then they also word it as without Hypocrisy without hypocrisy I think of hypocrisy I think about those religious leaders of Jesus day that he said woe to you hypocrites Because they're hypocritical They are just putting on a show a hypocrite as a person who plays a part. They wear a mask And he says, I don't want your love to be fake. I don't want your love to be hypocritical.

I don't want you to be like Ananias and Sapphira who go up and they sell their property and they go up and they offer What they've sold to the church and they say yeah, that's all of it. That's all everything We got from the land. We just lay it at the Apostles feet to spend it as they want. Well, actually it was it Actually, they held back part for themselves. That's putting on a show of devotion, a show of care, a show of concern for somebody else when internally the heart is not where it needs to be. If we're going to love one another sincerely, we're going to love one another genuinely, we have to get past the show.

We have to take off the mask and underneath must be an actual heart that loves and wants what's best for the people who are around us. Sincerity is both warm and it's honest. Think about a sweet old grandma. just loves you so much. Pinch those little cheeks. Grandma gonna cook the best foods for you and provide everything for you because loves you so much. It's just so much warmth in Grandma's house. It's just gonna take care of you, gonna provide for you, not gonna let nothing happen to you because they just love you so much. And think about the love of a father who corrects you when you step out a line and lets you know the way that you're supposed to act and how you're supposed to be. Is that love? Yeah it's love. Sincere love is both warm and honest. Both sides are found in sincere love. It's not, it's a range, it's a spectrum, it's not just all one way or all the other. Sincere love has a balance of the two things and both of those things should be included in our love for other people. So we need to have an honest heart and we need to have warmth toward one another. And this is giving us the sense that the sincerity and the

genuineness, the sense of the purity of the motive of the person. That if I'm going to love you genuinely and I'm gonna love you sincerely, then I really do deep down want what's best for you. I'm not trying to use you to get what I want from you but I'm trying to serve you I'm trying to sacrifice for you you can see how there's kind of a contrast you imagine I got that sweet little grandma picture in your mind you imagine a sweet little lady about to cross the road and you go over to help her cross the road why do you do it do you do it because she's got money and you want to be on her good side or do you do it because you're concerned for her safety and you love her.

You see, there's a difference. One appears loving, but there's no real love inside. It's selfish. And one is purely just trying to help someone out of a genuine love. So you understand sincere, genuine love. It's not fake. It's not self-serving. It's warm, but it's also honest. It has all of these different characteristics. Now, let's think about how are we going to develop sincere love inside of ourselves. Paul's gonna help us with this. He's gonna tell us two things. Notice verse nine. Let love be genuine. He immediately follows it with this. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. You wanna love sincerely?

Hate evil. Cling to what is good. Let's break this down and explain this. How do we hate what is evil? I heard Brent Kercheville put it, it's a holy hatred. We have a holy hatred. We're told we're not supposed to hate. You're not supposed to hate it. Tell my kids, don't say the word hate. You're supposed to hate what's evil. It's okay to hate what's evil. This is telling us abhor what is evil. It should be disgusting to you. You should be repulsed by evil. Whenever someone does something that is evil, it should be something you retract from, you're recoiling from, it should be something that you have a strong hatred for that you're wanting to fix, that you're wanting to stop the evil from happening.

This is showing us that sincere love has a backbone to it. love hates what corrupts, enslaves, or ruins people around us. I don't want someone to be wrapped up in what's evil. I want to pull them out of it. I don't want them to give in to those things. Whenever I see it, it affects me. It hurts me. I don't affirm their sin. You know our society, I want you to just tell me whatever it is that I'm doing is okay. That's not love. That's not sincere love. If I act like your sin is okay and your rebellion against God is okay, I do not love you. If I love you, I will speak to you about the evil and I will try to save you from the evil and help you understand how that's evil. I'm gonna do it in a very loving and compassionate kind of way. I could be wrong in the things that I'm seeing and maybe I'm misinterpreting and making assumptions and I don't want to do that. But if I know it's evil, if I know it's wrong and I tell you nothing. Do I love you? Sincerely? Genuinely? I know where that's going to end. I know what's going to happen to you if you continue down that path and I say

nothing to you. My son's running out to the street at two years old and I say nothing as he goes and he gets ran over by a car. Do I love him? No! I yell out, stop and I train him to listen to me so that hopefully we've got a relationship so that he'll listen to me and he'll stop and he'll be saved from it. We have to love one another enough to confront one another when we're wrapped up in sin. If I'm doing something that's sinful and evil, I need you to love me enough to talk to me about it. Don't chew me out. Don't cause emotions and rage to spawn up in me. Maybe it will and you do it right, but help me see it. Help me understand what I'm doing is wrong. Love me enough to share it with me. And if somebody's saying that stuff to you, don't think that they hate you. They don't hate you. They love you. They care about you. You think it would be easy for them to say those things? No, it's not easy for most of us to say those things. In fact, I think we're very anti-confrontation in our society. Some of us it comes easy too, but most of us we don't like confrontation. So if somebody says

something hard to you, take heed to what they say and appreciate their willingness to trust you with those things. We need to be people who are willing to hate what is evil enough to see it's threatening someone I love and I'm going to speak out and I'm going to try to prevent that from destroying their life. Second he said if we're gonna love sincerely we need to cling to what is good. You know, it's not enough to say, I love you. I need to actually pursue doing good things for you if I love you. Imagine a husband and wife and they just say they love each other and they spend no time together. They do nothing to help one another, support one another, talk to one, they don't even talk to one another other than just to say, You know, I love you.

I love you. Okay. Okay. It's not enough. We have to be men and women who are pursuing what is good for one another. We're holding on to good, even when it's difficult, even whenever someone mistreats me, I want to do what's good. I want to do what's right. I want to do what's loving and compassionate toward them. I don't want to respond in a way that is unloving or that satisfies whatever emotions are riled up inside of me. If we're going to love sincerely, we need to pray for one another. We need to forgive one another. We need to bear one another's burdens whenever we're struggling. We need to reach out and communicate that we love you and we're willing to help and we want to help.

In the midst of our busy schedules, we will make time for you in whatever it is that you're going through. Oh, we will be there because we care. We'll tell you the truth that you need to hear, even whenever it's difficult. We have to do this. The love genuinely, we have to put ourselves out there and try to demonstrate the love God calls us to. Verse 10 says, Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. I think this group has come a long way since I've been here and getting closer to one another. I told you this at the beginning of this series. I'm not preaching this because we're just doing so horrible and everybody's living their own individual lives and nobody's ever talking to anybody I'm seeing a lot of people connecting and getting together and and it's wonderful and we've got even something planned This afternoon after services some of y'all have set up for those who are graduates and I love that It's so great to see us Investing in one another but notice these words Love one another with brotherly affection you see how a lot of times we might have our real family and then we've got our church family and there's things we can say and there's

things we can do with our real family that we don't say and we don't do with our church family and Paul's saying this is your real family brotherly affection means you're my brother you're my sister I know you you know me I am there for you. You're there for me. We're sacrificing. We're going beyond what is normal and what people usually do with strangers. You come into my home. I come into your home. We call each other. We text each other. We let each other know what's going on in our lives. We open up. We trust each other. That's the picture of genuine love and then he also says, outdo one another in showing honor. I like that because this is this is completely focused on what's best for you, lifting you up, making everybody see you, that you are doing everything well and it's great and wow what an amazing person you are. Look at him. Look at Keith, how hard he's working, how much he's suffering, and yet he's still being faithful to the Lord. Look at Kathy, how much she's been through. Look at this brother. Look at this sister. Honor them. Lift them up. Make everybody see their diligence. That's okay. It's not okay to say, look at me.

Look at all I'm doing. But it's perfectly fine to say, look at this person. Look at how hard they work and how much they love the Lord. We go above and beyond to show people we love them. That's the picture. That's the goal that we're after because that's what we see God doing for us. We just had a meeting that told us God loves you and wants to glorify you with the glory that He Himself has, He wants to glorify you. You didn't get that from the meeting, it's amazing, those comments that Barry brought forth to us. God wants to honor you and lift you up. God wants to show that kind of love for you.

Jesus has demonstrated the type of love He has for mankind in the way that He lived. He wasn't wearing a mask, it wasn't fake, it was authentic, it was genuine. He really cared about those people who the religious leaders thought were losers. He cared about them and he wanted what was best for them. He was willing to be scoffed and mocked because he wanted the person who had dropsy or the person who was paralyzed or the person who was unclean, he wanted them to be clean. He wanted them to be healthy, so he was willing to heal even on a Sabbath day or when other people would look down on him.

Is that you? Is that me? Am I willing to love somebody who may not ever pay me back or reward me for that love? I hope that you see the love that God has for you and I hope that you understand that God wants our hearts to be transformed from the inside out. He's not pleased with us putting on a mask and looking like we're good and righteous and obedient children of his He wants us to actually love one another Abhorring what is evil clinging to what is good having brotherly affection with one another and showing one another honor and lifting one another up Let's be sure that that is our goal and whatever situation you're in overcome the feelings of jealousy or envy or malice or whatever it is that you have going on in your heart with the knowledge that Jesus loves you in spite of all your weaknesses and your failures and honor one another and show that love. I hope that this has been encouraging for you. If anybody has any needs this morning, we offer this song as an invitation. Please let us know what you need.

Come as we stand and as we sing.

Tonight, we're going to be studying about Saul and learning about the man who was crowned king and really the tragedy of his life because it is ultimately a tragedy. You know, some people look like they have everything going for them. Some people have the looks. They've got the abilities it seems like. They just fit the part, even their presence. It just puts off this air of ability. They have the ability to do whatever it is that they set their minds to. And apparently, that was Saul. Everybody who looked at him eventually came to that determination that he's the guy. He's the one that should be our king. He's the one that should be everything. And that's why it's so depressing and tragic to see that he fails miserably.

It's interesting. As we study the life of Saul, we really learn that it doesn't matter what someone looks like on the outside. What really matters is what is in their heart. And that is ultimately the issue with Saul. That's what makes his story so important for us to read and study and understand because as we look at him, we learn to stop looking at the outside and to start looking much more at the inside.

The story of Saul starts off with good things. Really, at the beginning, it's like, oh yeah, this is the guy. Everything is good. And whenever we come to chapter 9 of 1 Samuel, we see that the Israelites, as we studied last time, have asked Samuel for a king. God has said, okay, give him a king. And now he's going to give them a king. And the man is going to be Saul. But it's not obvious at first that it's going to be him. The story starts off telling us about Saul going, looking for his father's donkey. Apparently, he's a young man who is helping out at his father's farm. And he's going out to look for a donkey. And God works it so that he's in the area of Samuel.

And his servant tells him, hey, let's go up to the prophet. And he'll tell us where the donkey is. So they go up to the prophet. And lo and behold, God speaks to Samuel and says, this is the guy. He's the one who you're going to anoint to be the king of Israel. So Saul is told that that's exactly what's going to happen. And then Samuel proves it to him by foretelling certain events that are going to take place in Saul's life. And Saul's going to know that this is really from God, that God has chosen him. Well, all of those things start to happen. And Saul is anointed as the king. All Israel's gathered together to select a king.

And they cast lots to find out who's going to be the guy. And they determine it's going to be Saul, but they can't find him. He's hiding among the baggage. And that's very interesting. What is Saul doing? Why is he hiding like that? We find out that he is a man like no other in all Israel. He is head and shoulders above everybody else. He's a tall man. He looks the part. And so everybody looks at him and perhaps they have mixed emotions about him. Because on one hand, he's hiding in the baggage. He's not owning this. It doesn't seem like he's the kind of guy who has been looking for the opportunity to be made king. It's not like he was desiring this and lobbying for it, being very political and trying to kiss babies and shake hands to make everybody like him.

No, that wasn't what he was doing at all. Yet God chose him probably for that very reason, that he wasn't seeking it for himself. He seemed to be a humble man, a man who was helping his father look for donkeys. I mean, he was at service. He was helping people. And so as he selected at first, there's mixed emotions. Some people think, ah, who is he? Surely he can't be our king. And so after he is anointed as king, everybody just kind of returns home and goes about business as usual, ignoring the idea that they have a king. Even though they've asked for him, even though God has set him up with a king through Samuel, nobody really recognizes him to be the king and nothing really happens for a while until the Ammonites come up and they threaten the men of Jabesh-gilead, a town within Israel.

And they tell the men that if you will submit to us and you let us pluck out one of your eyes and be our servants, then we'll let you live. And the men of Jabesh-gilead say, okay, we'll submit to your terms if no one comes to our aid within the next seven days. And so they send out a message to all Israel trying to get people to come to their aid. And this is where Saul steps up. And he said, he cut, he's plowing the field with his oxen and he takes the oxen and he cuts them up into pieces and he sends them out to all Israel. And he said, may the man who refuses to come and fight on behalf of Israel, may their oxen be like this oxen.

And everybody responds to that. Nobody wants their oxen cut up. So there's a huge group that come and Saul leads them down to defeat the Ammonites and they do defeat the Ammonites. And everything seemed really good at this point. They are celebrating, they are feasting, they are rejoicing. And now they're not just anointing Saul as king, but they're proclaiming him as king saying he is going to be our king and he is able to go out for us and to lead our battles for us. Samuel is even there rejoicing alongside them, but Samuel makes it clear that if they refuse to continue following the word of the Lord with all their heart like Samuel had taught them, and even if Saul does, then they are going to be punished for that.

So it's very important that they continue to serve the Lord. Just because they've got a king doesn't mean that everything's going to go well for them. They must continue to serve the Lord. So at this point we see that every everything about Saul is pointing in the right direction. He seems to be a humble guy who has risen up and given this office and he's leading the people and he's being faithful. And that's a really good thing. He wasn't somebody who pursued the role of king. He has the ability to rally men behind him and go out and defeat the enemies of his people. He even credits the Lord with his victory. He honors God and he is able to encourage the people to be faithful.

So at first everything seems good, but what we're going to see is that having a strong beginning doesn't really mean anything.

Have you ever known a Christian who starts out on fire for the Lord and they're doing all kinds of things to serve God and they're really giving it their all and they're really zealous at the beginning and then they get burned out and then by the end they're not recognizable. They're not faithful at all. I've known Christians who were all about it. I mean they were asking everybody to come study with them, to come study with me. They were constantly trying to serve God in new ways and expand their abilities to serve God faithfully, but then eventually the trials came and people weren't moving as fast as they should and they got frustrated and they fell. They went after the ways of this world and so all their faithfulness and all their zeal didn't really matter and that's what we're going to see unfortunately is the case with Saul.

After this point Saul starts to battle against the Philistines. The Philistines are the most notable enemies of Saul at this time, of Israel at this time. They were oppressors of Israel. They were causing the people to suffer. They were taking away all of their weapons and only sharpening their plows and their hoes and their farming utensils for them and not allowing them to own any of those things. They were charging them to sharpen their stuff. They wouldn't let them have a blacksmith so that no one could create weapons of any kind in the land. So Saul became king and he had to deal with a major problem. The Philistines were their oppressors. Well the Philistines came up against them and they were ready to destroy the Israelites and Saul after a year of being king and reigning over Israel comes up with all of his men and he's ready to fight.

Samuel tells him I want you to wait seven days and after seven days I'm going to come and I'm going to offer a sacrifice and then the battle will be yours. God is going to take care of you but unfortunately that doesn't work out.

We see that Saul fails because he thinks he knows what's right to do. He thinks he knows the better way than the way that God has described to him.

In chapter 13 we see that Israel becomes very scared about these Philistines. I mean there's a ton of Philistines coming up in battle against them and they don't know what to do and they're starting to run away. They're starting to desert the army and so Saul's losing his people. They were already at a disadvantage and now he's losing people and it's all because they had to wait on Samuel to bring this sacrifice. The longer they wait the more scared the men become and so on the seventh day Samuel doesn't show up at the time that Saul thinks he should and so Saul says enough waiting I'll offer the sacrifice and then God will surely give us the victory. Well as soon as he finishes offering the sacrifice Samuel shows up and says what have you done?

Why didn't you wait? God would have given this into your hands and he would have made a name for you and he would have established you in your kingdom forever but you just needed to wait for God to deliver it to you instead of taking matters into your own hands and worshiping God the way that you thought you should worship. You see what we saw earlier as Saul's humility is revealed to be something else. He wasn't actually humble before he just had low self-esteem. He thought little of himself before but now Saul's the king and he's been proclaimed to be the king and he's got battles under his belt and victories and so he thinks that he knows better and it's interesting because in this part of the story we see that even though he's willing to do something so bold as go against the word and the command of God at the same time what he's doing is showing that he's very insecure and he's afraid of what's about to happen and he's become proud enough to think he knows better than God and God's commandments and so Saul offers up this sacrifice.

Well unfortunately Jonathan his son has more faith than he does and because of Jonathan they do have a great victory over the Philistines but still we are made aware that Saul has a character flaw and we kind of wonder what's going to happen there. I mean God's not establishing him but look at his son Jonathan maybe there's some hope.

Well whenever we get to chapter 15 we see God has set up Saul with another opportunity and this time God has told Saul you're going to go up against the Amalekites and you're going to destroy the Amalekites. You're going to completely wipe them off the map. Not a single Amalekite is going to live. In fact not even their animals all their cattle and all their possessions you just devote all of it to destruction because of the evil they did against my people when they were coming out of Egypt I want you to go and I want you to destroy them. Well Saul goes and he thinks that he completes the mission that God has given him to do and yet he keeps King Agag alive because I mean that's the king of the Amalekites and that's a nice trophy to have and he allows the people also to keep all the animals that are the best quality so that they can offer them in sacrifice to the Lord.

Well we'll devote them to destruction but we're going to take them up and offer them as a sacrifice in devoting them to destruction to the Lord. And so Samuel comes up and Saul greets him and says I have performed the commandment of the Lord and Samuel says uh what's the bleeding of sheep that I'm hearing in my ear right now? It's an amazing statement. A comment that says no you didn't. You didn't obey the command of the Lord. You disobeyed the command of the Lord and so Samuel rebukes Saul and tells him you have disobeyed the Lord. Why did you keep King Agag alive? Why did you keep these animals alive? And Saul says no no no I obeyed the commandment of the Lord.

We're going to destroy all the animals and and and yeah I just kept Agag. It's no big deal.

And here we see the heart of Saul and how it is totally corrupted that he's able to see his disobedience and think I have obeyed the commandment of the Lord.

He thinks he's fine. He thinks he's done everything that he should do because he's justifying his disobedience. He's thinking the ends justify the means. Yes I know God commanded me to do this but this is so much better and this is what God really wants. He wants more sacrifices to him. Look at how I'm going to be able to honor him by offering all these animals as a burnt offering to him. And Samuel responds has the Lord as great a 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 rams. For rebellion is as a sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord.

He has rejected you from being king. So Samuel rebukes Saul and Saul regrets what he has done but he doesn't repent of what he's done. He thinks he's fine and he even has tried to set up a monument to himself and his greatness before Samuel even got there. So something is very clearly wrong with Saul. I forgot I put this Saul up here.

So this is in chapter 15 verses 16 through 23. This is essentially the narrative. It says Samuel said to Saul stop I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night and he said to him speak and Samuel said though you are little in your own eyes are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel and the Lord sent you on a mission and said go devote to destruction the sinners the Amalekites and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.

I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took the spoil sheep and oxen the best of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice them to the Lord your God in Gilgal. And then Samuel says has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord. To obey is better than sacrifice. And these words are in parallel. Rebellion is as the sin of divination. Presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. You have rejected the word of the Lord. He has rejected you from being king.

Notice that what Saul has done in this situation most clearly explains the evil of his sin and what's going on within his heart. He is rebelling against the word of the Lord what God has commanded. He's not submitting to it. He's presuming that God will be okay with him doing something that God has not commanded him to do. And he's ultimately disobeying. At the end of this he reaches out to Samuel after Samuel is ready to walk away from him and he tears his tunic. And Samuel says your kingdom will be torn away from you. But then Saul says okay but go with me now to the elders. The very end is very sad because it shows us that Saul cares more about the approval of men than he cares about the approval of God.

He's completely lost sight on the will of God, the word of God. He's not really following in the ways of God. He's choosing to do what he thinks is best.

This is a very real danger that we all can fall into. It's very easy for us to take the command of God and translate it into whatever religious system that we've set up for ourselves. And when we're doing that we're not worshiping God. We're worshiping a form of God that we have set up for ourselves. And so we must be very careful and diligent in our study of God's word and in our evaluation of ourselves. We must be very introspective to be sure that we're not making the ends justify the means and basically overruling what God has very clearly commanded us. This is why we study so diligently and we're looking constantly at the Bible and we're considering how we are making mistakes or how we are maybe failing in certain areas because we don't want to be with the wrong heart like Saul has.

We see that this decision of Saul's to choose to do things his own way, to think he knows better than God is going to lead to his destruction. From this point in chapter 15 the story shifts and it's no longer really about Saul anymore. It actually becomes about David who we're going to learn about in the future. And really what it tells us about Saul from this point is just to illustrate for us the downward spiral that Saul goes down. I mean he is he's gone and God sends an evil spirit upon him to make him even more troubled and struggling and maybe it was in hopes that he would reach out to God and find some relief that he would be truly repentant but he wasn't he was just regretting that he made God mad and he was really continuing to seek his own will in his own way.

We see Saul getting very jealous of David and being consumed by that jealousy so much so that he starts hurling spears at David and even at his son Jonathan he commits all kinds of different sins even murdering priests and he goes on a hunt to try to kill David, who's totally righteous and innocent and everything. He's very selfish and self-focused, and it ends with him ultimately doing the very thing he forbade. He told the people, you are not to have any divination, you're not to have any sorcerers or sorceresses. But at the end of his life, he couldn't hear from the Lord, he couldn't get a message from the Lord anymore. And so he went himself to a sorceress in order to find out what was going to happen in the upcoming battle with the Philistines.

So we see Saul just goes further and further downhill, and he dies in the battle with the Philistines. Not because of the enemy killing him, but because he knew after all his sons were dead that he was going to die too, and he took his own life.

His story is very tragic, and it is ultimately here as a warning for all of us to help us understand that just because we have opportunities given to us, just because we might have an outward benefit, appearances, strengths, abilities, whatever it is, that doesn't guarantee our success. So maybe we don't have those, that doesn't guarantee our success, nor does it guarantee our favor, our success, our failure. Maybe I can get the word out. It doesn't, just because we have an opportunity, just because we have skills, doesn't mean that we're going to succeed. And ultimately it's not about us, and that's the problem that Saul is just so focused on himself that he can't see his need for God's help anymore.

He's relying on himself too much. And so opportunity doesn't guarantee his success even though he looks the part.

We see in this that pressure will reveal what we're trusting in. When the army's there and the seven days are up, the pressure is placed on Saul and he has to make that decision and he chooses to trust in himself instead of trusting in the Lord. And when the people want to keep the best of the animals, it appears Saul trusts in himself instead of trusting in the Lord, instead of obeying the Lord. So whenever God gives us commands and we're going out into the world, there's going to be times when pressure is put on us to obey those commands, but really the pressure is going to be to disobey those commands, to go after the ways of the world, and that's going to reveal what we're really trusting in.

Am I trusting in the Lord, or am I going to choose to trust in myself in my own ways to make my life more comfortable, and am I going to give in to the ways of the world?

We see that we can disobey, and our disobedience can look like partial obedience, and that's not what we want to do. We want to be obedient. And we see that if we fail to repent, if we just regret our sins, and we don't have hearts that are truly submitting to God and striving to serve him and surrendering our ways and our will to his will, that failure to repent can lead us in a downward spiral and result in ultimately a very dark path. Seen it happen in Christians before and it certainly can happen to all of us. We have to realize Saul's life is a warning that we don't know better than God does. So instead of relying on our own way instead of relying on our own wisdom we need to lean heavily on the will of the Lord and trust in him even whenever things get really really difficult.

But of course as we study the story of Saul we see a desire within us. I mean the story of Saul makes us sad. It makes us wish that things would have worked out better. We want something better. We don't like tragedies. That's why 90% 99% of our movies are having happy endings, right? We do not like the tragedies. We're looking for something better. We're looking for a king that's not like the nations. All the people were like, give us a king like the nations. That's why they chose Saul. He was a king like the nations.

We're looking for a king that's different. We don't want a king that that gives in to the pressure who disobeys God and rebels against him. We want one who will be faithful even when the pressure is on. We want one who will set an example for us to follow so that we can stay in line with the will of the Lord, and we can be faithful to him, and we can enjoy the blessings of that relationship. We want a king who will never fail to serve God faithfully and cause us to suffer because of his unfaithfulness.

And as we move through the story of Samuel, we see David is a wonderful prospect. But David too will fail. Jesus is the king we're looking for. That's what we've seen all throughout the judges. It's like, give us a king, we need this guy to be our king. And no, he's he's going to be a terrible king. And Saul even looked like the part, but he couldn't do what we really need him to do.

So we need to surrender our will to God's will. We need to to give up on our ways and our desires, and we need to do what God desires for us to do in our lives. And God is going to take care of us. He's provided us with that king. We need to follow him and trust in him in everything that we do.

If you're here tonight and you've not been trusting in the king, I hope this encourages you to have the right mindset and the right heart and to do the right things. If there's anything that we can do to help you, please let us know. Please come as we stand and as we sing.

Tonight, we're going to be studying about Saul and learning about the man who was crowned king and really the tragedy of his life because it is ultimately a tragedy. You know, some people look like they have everything going for them. Some people have the looks. They've got the abilities it seems like. They just fit the part, even their presence. It just puts off this air of ability. They have the ability to do whatever it is that they set their minds to. And apparently, that was Saul. Everybody who looked at him eventually came to that determination that he's the guy. He's the one that should be our king. He's the one that should be everything. And that's why it's so depressing and tragic to see that he fails miserably.

It's interesting. As we study the life of Saul, we really learn that it doesn't matter what someone looks like on the outside. What really matters is what is in their heart. And that is ultimately the issue with Saul. That's what makes his story so important for us to read and study and understand because as we look at him, we learn to stop looking at the outside and to start looking much more at the inside.

The story of Saul starts off with good things. Really, at the beginning, it's like, oh yeah, this is the guy. Everything is good. And whenever we come to chapter 9 of 1 Samuel, we see that the Israelites, as we studied last time, have asked Samuel for a king. God has said, okay, give him a king. And now he's going to give them a king. And the man is going to be Saul. But it's not obvious at first that it's going to be him. The story starts off telling us about Saul going, looking for his father's donkey. Apparently, he's a young man who is helping out at his father's farm. And he's going out to look for a donkey. And God works it so that he's in the area of Samuel.

And his servant tells him, hey, let's go up to the prophet. And he'll tell us where the donkey is. So they go up to the prophet. And lo and behold, God speaks to Samuel and says, this is the guy. He's the one who you're going to anoint to be the king of Israel. So Saul is told that that's exactly what's going to happen. And then Samuel proves it to him by foretelling certain events that are going to take place in Saul's life. And Saul's going to know that this is really from God, that God has chosen him. Well, all of those things start to happen. And Saul is anointed as the king. All Israel's gathered together to select a king.

And they cast lots to find out who's going to be the guy. And they determine it's going to be Saul, but they can't find him. He's hiding among the baggage. And that's very interesting. What is Saul doing? Why is he hiding like that? We find out that he is a man like no other in all Israel. He is head and shoulders above everybody else. He's a tall man. He looks the part. And so everybody looks at him and perhaps they have mixed emotions about him. Because on one hand, he's hiding in the baggage. He's not owning this. It doesn't seem like he's the kind of guy who has been looking for the opportunity to be made king. It's not like he was desiring this and lobbying for it, being very political and trying to kiss babies and shake hands to make everybody like him.

No, that wasn't what he was doing at all. Yet God chose him probably for that very reason, that he wasn't seeking it for himself. He seemed to be a humble man, a man who was helping his father look for donkeys. I mean, he was at service. He was helping people. And so as he selected at first, there's mixed emotions. Some people think, ah, who is he? Surely he can't be our king. And so after he is anointed as king, everybody just kind of returns home and goes about business as usual, ignoring the idea that they have a king. Even though they've asked for him, even though God has set him up with a king through Samuel, nobody really recognizes him to be the king and nothing really happens for a while until the Ammonites come up and they threaten the men of Jabesh-gilead, a town within Israel.

And they tell the men that if you will submit to us and you let us pluck out one of your eyes and be our servants, then we'll let you live. And the men of Jabesh-gilead say, okay, we'll submit to your terms if no one comes to our aid within the next seven days. And so they send out a message to all Israel trying to get people to come to their aid. And this is where Saul steps up. And he said, he cut, he's plowing the field with his oxen and he takes the oxen and he cuts them up into pieces and he sends them out to all Israel. And he said, may the man who refuses to come and fight on behalf of Israel, may their oxen be like this oxen.

And everybody responds to that. Nobody wants their oxen cut up. So there's a huge group that come and Saul leads them down to defeat the Ammonites and they do defeat the Ammonites. And everything seemed really good at this point. They are celebrating, they are feasting, they are rejoicing. And now they're not just anointing Saul as king, but they're proclaiming him as king saying he is going to be our king and he is able to go out for us and to lead our battles for us. Samuel is even there rejoicing alongside them, but Samuel makes it clear that if they refuse to continue following the word of the Lord with all their heart like Samuel had taught them, and even if Saul does, then they are going to be punished for that.

So it's very important that they continue to serve the Lord. Just because they've got a king doesn't mean that everything's going to go well for them. They must continue to serve the Lord. So at this point we see that every everything about Saul is pointing in the right direction. He seems to be a humble guy who has risen up and given this office and he's leading the people and he's being faithful. And that's a really good thing. He wasn't somebody who pursued the role of king. He has the ability to rally men behind him and go out and defeat the enemies of his people. He even credits the Lord with his victory. He honors God and he is able to encourage the people to be faithful.

So at first everything seems good, but what we're going to see is that having a strong beginning doesn't really mean anything.

Have you ever known a Christian who starts out on fire for the Lord and they're doing all kinds of things to serve God and they're really giving it their all and they're really zealous at the beginning and then they get burned out and then by the end they're not recognizable. They're not faithful at all. I've known Christians who were all about it. I mean they were asking everybody to come study with them, to come study with me. They were constantly trying to serve God in new ways and expand their abilities to serve God faithfully, but then eventually the trials came and people weren't moving as fast as they should and they got frustrated and they fell. They went after the ways of this world and so all their faithfulness and all their zeal didn't really matter and that's what we're going to see unfortunately is the case with Saul.

After this point Saul starts to battle against the Philistines. The Philistines are the most notable enemies of Saul at this time, of Israel at this time. They were oppressors of Israel. They were causing the people to suffer. They were taking away all of their weapons and only sharpening their plows and their hoes and their farming utensils for them and not allowing them to own any of those things. They were charging them to sharpen their stuff. They wouldn't let them have a blacksmith so that no one could create weapons of any kind in the land. So Saul became king and he had to deal with a major problem. The Philistines were their oppressors. Well the Philistines came up against them and they were ready to destroy the Israelites and Saul after a year of being king and reigning over Israel comes up with all of his men and he's ready to fight.

Samuel tells him I want you to wait seven days and after seven days I'm going to come and I'm going to offer a sacrifice and then the battle will be yours. God is going to take care of you but unfortunately that doesn't work out.

We see that Saul fails because he thinks he knows what's right to do. He thinks he knows the better way than the way that God has described to him.

In chapter 13 we see that Israel becomes very scared about these Philistines. I mean there's a ton of Philistines coming up in battle against them and they don't know what to do and they're starting to run away. They're starting to desert the army and so Saul's losing his people. They were already at a disadvantage and now he's losing people and it's all because they had to wait on Samuel to bring this sacrifice. The longer they wait the more scared the men become and so on the seventh day Samuel doesn't show up at the time that Saul thinks he should and so Saul says enough waiting I'll offer the sacrifice and then God will surely give us the victory. Well as soon as he finishes offering the sacrifice Samuel shows up and says what have you done?

Why didn't you wait? God would have given this into your hands and he would have made a name for you and he would have established you in your kingdom forever but you just needed to wait for God to deliver it to you instead of taking matters into your own hands and worshiping God the way that you thought you should worship. You see what we saw earlier as Saul's humility is revealed to be something else. He wasn't actually humble before he just had low self-esteem. He thought little of himself before but now Saul's the king and he's been proclaimed to be the king and he's got battles under his belt and victories and so he thinks that he knows better and it's interesting because in this part of the story we see that even though he's willing to do something so bold as go against the word and the command of God at the same time what he's doing is showing that he's very insecure and he's afraid of what's about to happen and he's become proud enough to think he knows better than God and God's commandments and so Saul offers up this sacrifice.

Well unfortunately Jonathan his son has more faith than he does and because of Jonathan they do have a great victory over the Philistines but still we are made aware that Saul has a character flaw and we kind of wonder what's going to happen there. I mean God's not establishing him but look at his son Jonathan maybe there's some hope.

Well whenever we get to chapter 15 we see God has set up Saul with another opportunity and this time God has told Saul you're going to go up against the Amalekites and you're going to destroy the Amalekites. You're going to completely wipe them off the map. Not a single Amalekite is going to live. In fact not even their animals all their cattle and all their possessions you just devote all of it to destruction because of the evil they did against my people when they were coming out of Egypt I want you to go and I want you to destroy them. Well Saul goes and he thinks that he completes the mission that God has given him to do and yet he keeps King Agag alive because I mean that's the king of the Amalekites and that's a nice trophy to have and he allows the people also to keep all the animals that are the best quality so that they can offer them in sacrifice to the Lord.

Well we'll devote them to destruction but we're going to take them up and offer them as a sacrifice in devoting them to destruction to the Lord. And so Samuel comes up and Saul greets him and says I have performed the commandment of the Lord and Samuel says uh what's the bleeding of sheep that I'm hearing in my ear right now? It's an amazing statement. A comment that says no you didn't. You didn't obey the command of the Lord. You disobeyed the command of the Lord and so Samuel rebukes Saul and tells him you have disobeyed the Lord. Why did you keep King Agag alive? Why did you keep these animals alive? And Saul says no no no I obeyed the commandment of the Lord.

We're going to destroy all the animals and and and yeah I just kept Agag. It's no big deal.

And here we see the heart of Saul and how it is totally corrupted that he's able to see his disobedience and think I have obeyed the commandment of the Lord.

He thinks he's fine. He thinks he's done everything that he should do because he's justifying his disobedience. He's thinking the ends justify the means. Yes I know God commanded me to do this but this is so much better and this is what God really wants. He wants more sacrifices to him. Look at how I'm going to be able to honor him by offering all these animals as a burnt offering to him. And Samuel responds has the Lord as great a 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 rams. For rebellion is as a sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord.

He has rejected you from being king. So Samuel rebukes Saul and Saul regrets what he has done but he doesn't repent of what he's done. He thinks he's fine and he even has tried to set up a monument to himself and his greatness before Samuel even got there. So something is very clearly wrong with Saul. I forgot I put this Saul up here.

So this is in chapter 15 verses 16 through 23. This is essentially the narrative. It says Samuel said to Saul stop I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night and he said to him speak and Samuel said though you are little in your own eyes are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel and the Lord sent you on a mission and said go devote to destruction the sinners the Amalekites and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.

I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took the spoil sheep and oxen the best of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice them to the Lord your God in Gilgal. And then Samuel says has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord. To obey is better than sacrifice. And these words are in parallel. Rebellion is as the sin of divination. Presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. You have rejected the word of the Lord. He has rejected you from being king.

Notice that what Saul has done in this situation most clearly explains the evil of his sin and what's going on within his heart. He is rebelling against the word of the Lord what God has commanded. He's not submitting to it. He's presuming that God will be okay with him doing something that God has not commanded him to do. And he's ultimately disobeying. At the end of this he reaches out to Samuel after Samuel is ready to walk away from him and he tears his tunic. And Samuel says your kingdom will be torn away from you. But then Saul says okay but go with me now to the elders. The very end is very sad because it shows us that Saul cares more about the approval of men than he cares about the approval of God.

He's completely lost sight on the will of God, the word of God. He's not really following in the ways of God. He's choosing to do what he thinks is best.

This is a very real danger that we all can fall into. It's very easy for us to take the command of God and translate it into whatever religious system that we've set up for ourselves. And when we're doing that we're not worshiping God. We're worshiping a form of God that we have set up for ourselves. And so we must be very careful and diligent in our study of God's word and in our evaluation of ourselves. We must be very introspective to be sure that we're not making the ends justify the means and basically overruling what God has very clearly commanded us. This is why we study so diligently and we're looking constantly at the Bible and we're considering how we are making mistakes or how we are maybe failing in certain areas because we don't want to be with the wrong heart like Saul has.

We see that this decision of Saul's to choose to do things his own way, to think he knows better than God is going to lead to his destruction. From this point in chapter 15 the story shifts and it's no longer really about Saul anymore. It actually becomes about David who we're going to learn about in the future. And really what it tells us about Saul from this point is just to illustrate for us the downward spiral that Saul goes down. I mean he is he's gone and God sends an evil spirit upon him to make him even more troubled and struggling and maybe it was in hopes that he would reach out to God and find some relief that he would be truly repentant but he wasn't he was just regretting that he made God mad and he was really continuing to seek his own will in his own way.

We see Saul getting very jealous of David and being consumed by that jealousy so much so that he starts hurling spears at David and even at his son Jonathan he commits all kinds of different sins even murdering priests and he goes on a hunt to try to kill David, who's totally righteous and innocent and everything. He's very selfish and self-focused, and it ends with him ultimately doing the very thing he forbade. He told the people, you are not to have any divination, you're not to have any sorcerers or sorceresses. But at the end of his life, he couldn't hear from the Lord, he couldn't get a message from the Lord anymore. And so he went himself to a sorceress in order to find out what was going to happen in the upcoming battle with the Philistines.

So we see Saul just goes further and further downhill, and he dies in the battle with the Philistines. Not because of the enemy killing him, but because he knew after all his sons were dead that he was going to die too, and he took his own life.

His story is very tragic, and it is ultimately here as a warning for all of us to help us understand that just because we have opportunities given to us, just because we might have an outward benefit, appearances, strengths, abilities, whatever it is, that doesn't guarantee our success. So maybe we don't have those, that doesn't guarantee our success, nor does it guarantee our favor, our success, our failure. Maybe I can get the word out. It doesn't, just because we have an opportunity, just because we have skills, doesn't mean that we're going to succeed. And ultimately it's not about us, and that's the problem that Saul is just so focused on himself that he can't see his need for God's help anymore.

He's relying on himself too much. And so opportunity doesn't guarantee his success even though he looks the part.

We see in this that pressure will reveal what we're trusting in. When the army's there and the seven days are up, the pressure is placed on Saul and he has to make that decision and he chooses to trust in himself instead of trusting in the Lord. And when the people want to keep the best of the animals, it appears Saul trusts in himself instead of trusting in the Lord, instead of obeying the Lord. So whenever God gives us commands and we're going out into the world, there's going to be times when pressure is put on us to obey those commands, but really the pressure is going to be to disobey those commands, to go after the ways of the world, and that's going to reveal what we're really trusting in.

Am I trusting in the Lord, or am I going to choose to trust in myself in my own ways to make my life more comfortable, and am I going to give in to the ways of the world?

We see that we can disobey, and our disobedience can look like partial obedience, and that's not what we want to do. We want to be obedient. And we see that if we fail to repent, if we just regret our sins, and we don't have hearts that are truly submitting to God and striving to serve him and surrendering our ways and our will to his will, that failure to repent can lead us in a downward spiral and result in ultimately a very dark path. Seen it happen in Christians before and it certainly can happen to all of us. We have to realize Saul's life is a warning that we don't know better than God does. So instead of relying on our own way instead of relying on our own wisdom we need to lean heavily on the will of the Lord and trust in him even whenever things get really really difficult.

But of course as we study the story of Saul we see a desire within us. I mean the story of Saul makes us sad. It makes us wish that things would have worked out better. We want something better. We don't like tragedies. That's why 90% 99% of our movies are having happy endings, right? We do not like the tragedies. We're looking for something better. We're looking for a king that's not like the nations. All the people were like, give us a king like the nations. That's why they chose Saul. He was a king like the nations.

We're looking for a king that's different. We don't want a king that that gives in to the pressure who disobeys God and rebels against him. We want one who will be faithful even when the pressure is on. We want one who will set an example for us to follow so that we can stay in line with the will of the Lord, and we can be faithful to him, and we can enjoy the blessings of that relationship. We want a king who will never fail to serve God faithfully and cause us to suffer because of his unfaithfulness.

And as we move through the story of Samuel, we see David is a wonderful prospect. But David too will fail. Jesus is the king we're looking for. That's what we've seen all throughout the judges. It's like, give us a king, we need this guy to be our king. And no, he's he's going to be a terrible king. And Saul even looked like the part, but he couldn't do what we really need him to do.

So we need to surrender our will to God's will. We need to to give up on our ways and our desires, and we need to do what God desires for us to do in our lives. And God is going to take care of us. He's provided us with that king. We need to follow him and trust in him in everything that we do.

If you're here tonight and you've not been trusting in the king, I hope this encourages you to have the right mindset and the right heart and to do the right things. If there's anything that we can do to help you, please let us know. Please come as we stand and as we sing.

Every newly married couple wants the same thing — a strong marriage with deep love, real support, and a shared life. But here is what I've learned from sitting with couples: healthy marriages do not fall apart because two people stop loving each other. They fall apart because two people start keeping score.

And the scorekeeping is always rigged. We remember our own sacrifices in high definition and our spouse's sacrifices in low resolution. So when couples come to me, I try to turn them around. Stop asking, "Am I getting my needs met?" Start asking, "How can I meet your needs?" The moment two people begin serving each other instead of measuring each other, the marriage starts to heal.

The same thing is true in the church.

Everybody wants a church with strong relationships, deep love, and shared life. But those things do not grow in a room full of people waiting to be served. They grow in a room full of people willing to serve. That is why our first goal as a church matters so much. If we want the kind of body God describes in Scripture, we have to become the kind of people who serve sacrificially.

Paul shows us how in Romans 12. Notice where it falls — right after the living sacrifice, right after the renewed mind, Paul turns immediately to life in the body. That is not a random transition. One of the first signs that God's mercy is actually changing you is that you stop living for yourself and start pouring yourself out for others.

So here is what I want to do this morning. I want to give you one definition and four practices. First, a definition — what is sacrificial service? Then four practices — how does it actually happen?

Paul begins in verse 3 in a place I would not have started. If I were writing about service, I would start with if you love God do all these things. I would start with tasks to be done. Paul starts with pride.

"For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment."

Then he moves to the body. "For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function." Why does he go this direction? Because there is no such thing as a solo Christian. When God saved you, He did not save you into isolation. He joined you to Christ, and in joining you to Christ, He joined you to everyone else He has joined to Christ. Your faithfulness affects me. My neglect leaves a gap in you. Your gift was never just for you.

So sacrificial service is not going to be about you doing what you need to do.

Then verse 6 — the heart of the passage: "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them."

Three things in one sentence. The gifts differ. The grace is given. He says, “Let us use them.”

So here is the definition:

Sacrificial service is humbly offering what God has given you for the good of Christ's body.

It is not self-promotion. It is not platform-building. It is not waiting until you find a role that makes you look impressive. The world teaches you to use your abilities to build your own kingdom. The gospel teaches you to use your gifts to build Christ's body.

And we know this because it is exactly what Jesus did. He did not come to be served. He came to serve. He did not climb; He descended. He did not protect His life; He poured it out. Everything we are about to talk about is simply what it looks like when the people Jesus died for start to look like the Jesus who died for them.

Paul says do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think with sober judgment.

Before you ever ask what your gift is, ask what kind of heart you have. Do you want to serve, or do you want to be seen? Do you want to help, or do you want to matter? Sometimes we quietly decide that certain work is beneath us. We hold back because the task does not come with applause or appreciation.

Pride can hand out bulletins. Pride can teach a class. A proud person can serve outwardly while every inward motive is about being noticed. That is not sacrificial service. That is using the church to serve you. And God is not impressed by us no matter how good we look.

Sacrificial service begins the moment pride stops ruling the heart so we can open up to the needs of others.

Paul says we are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

That one phrase — "members of one another" — ought to rearrange how we walk into this room. It means I stop asking the questions the world trained me to ask. I stop asking, "What do I get out of this? Am I being noticed? Do they do what I like?" And I start asking, "What is needed? Where is the gap? Who is hurting? How can I strengthen this body?" The leaders of the worship should have that mindset, but every person here who is a member of the body should also have that mindset.

A consumer walks into church asking what is on the menu. A member walks into church asking who needs a hand. A consumer evaluates. A member invests. A consumer leaves when the service dips. A member stays and helps carry the load. A church full of consumers will always feel thin, because the work falls on the same handful of people while everyone else watches. A church full of members feels different — because when one person is weak, six others are already moving toward them.

That is the shift Paul is calling for. From consumer to member. From audience to body.

Verse 6 again: "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them."

Notice the word given. You did not earn your gift. You were given it. Which means the question is not whether you have something to offer. The question is whether you will offer what you have already been given.

And here is where most of us get stuck. We look sideways. We see somebody else's gift and decide ours is too small, too quiet, too ordinary. So we do nothing. We bury the gift because it is not flashy enough. We wait for a better one to show up. Or maybe we tried it and didn’t get any good feedback from it. Meanwhile the body has a gap where our faithfulness was supposed to be.

The body does not need you to be someone else. The body needs you to be faithful with what grace has already put in your hands. Some teach. Some give. Some lead. Some show mercy. Some roles are up front. Some are in the kitchen, in the nursery, in the parking lot, in a quiet text message to someone who is struggling. All of them strengthen the body. None of them are wasted.

This is not about everybody doing everything. It is about everybody doing something.

Paul does not just list the gifts. He tells us how to use them. The one who gives, with generosity. The one who leads, with zeal. The one who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

That last line should stop us. Cheerfulness. It is possible to give while being stingy in spirit. It is possible to lead while resenting every decision. It is possible to show mercy while hating every minute of it. It is possible to serve and quietly keep a ledger of everything it cost you.

God is not just after the action. He is after the heart behind it. Mercy received cheerfully tends to produce mercy given cheerfully. Grace received freely tends to produce service offered freely. When service turns bitter, the first place to look is not the workload. The first place to look is the cross, because a heart fresh from the cross rarely serves with a scowl.

So when you are tired, when you are unnoticed, when you are wondering if any of this matters, do not look first at yourself. Look at your Head.

Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. He did not build His own platform. He emptied Himself. He did not protect His comfort. He went to a cross. And now, on the other side of the resurrection, He has made us one body in Himself.

Your service is not how you earn His love. Your service is how you respond to it.

So here is Goal #1. Sacrificial service: humbly offering what God has given you for the good of Christ's body. It happens when we think humbly, think like a body, use what grace has given, and serve in the right spirit.

And when we walk out these doors, the question is not whether everybody is doing everything. The question each of us has to answer is much simpler, and much more personal:

What has God given me, and how will I use it for the good of His people?

That is sacrificial service. And that is where we begin.

Our series on God’s pursuit of the lost closed last week, and I hope it serves us well as we head into this next series. I have entitled this series #RelationshipGoals. Now, I know that phrase had its moment years ago, and most people used it for dating posts, memes, and internet jokes. I understand that. But that is not really where we are going with this. This is not a series about dating, at least not exclusively. This is a series about relationships in general.

One of the most fascinating realities of Christianity is this: God pursues a relationship with us, and then He calls us into relationship with each other. He does not simply save individuals and leave them scattered. He brings us into His family. He makes us one body. He teaches us how to live together as His people.

So if God has shown this kind of mercy to us, what kind of relationships should grow among us? What should the church look like when people who have been pursued by God begin living together under the mercy of God? How do we build strong relationships with one another? Why do we want them? What are we really aiming at?

Romans 12 helps us answer those questions. I moved through this chapter pretty quickly in our Romans series last year, but I want us to slow down here and look at what it teaches more carefully. Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Everything in Romans turns on that phrase, “by the mercies of God.” Paul has spent eleven chapters showing us what God has done for sinners. He has shown us the wrath of God against sin, the inability of man to save himself, the justification that comes by faith, the peace we have through Christ, the gift of the Spirit, the faithfulness of God to His promises, and the wisdom of His saving plan. Then he comes to chapter 12 and says, in essence, “In view of all that mercy, here is the life that makes sense now.”

That matters because it tells us the motivation behind this whole series. Our relationship goals are not rooted in pressure. They are not rooted in guilt. They are not rooted in trying to become impressive. They are rooted in mercy. God pursued us when we were lost. God loved us when we were evil. God brought us near when we were far off. So now His mercy is supposed to change us. It is supposed to change what we want, how we think, and how we live with one another.

That is why Paul says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Because of God’s mercy, we no longer belong to ourselves. We now choose to continually offer ourselves to God. Not part of ourselves. Not the leftovers. Ourselves. Our bodies, our minds, our strength, our time, our attention, our gifts, our resources, our lives. And Paul says this is our spiritual worship. In other words, worship is not merely what happens when we sing. Worship is not merely what happens when we gather. Worship is a life laid on the altar because God has been merciful.

That is what I want us to see as we begin this series. If we miss that, then these sermons will just sound like a list of things to do. They will sound heavy. They will sound like one more burden to carry. But if we understand the mercy of God, then these goals start to make sense. We are not trying to earn something from God. We are responding to what God has already done. We are not trying to manufacture relationships by force. We are asking what kind of people God’s mercy is supposed to make us, and we are searching diligently for the answer together.

That is what I mean by #RelationshipGoals. It is important for us, as a congregation of God’s people, to have goals. A goal gives us aim. It gives us direction. It gives us a vision for the future. It keeps us from drifting. If you do not know where you are going, you will end up wherever the current takes you. But a goal says, “This is what we are aiming at. This is what we want to become. This is the kind of church we want to be.”

And it is important not only to have goals, but to have the right goals with the right motivation. If the goal is wrong, we will end up in the wrong place. If the motivation is wrong, we may do the right things in the wrong spirit. That is why Paul starts with mercy before he ever starts listing what transformed people do.

So what is the destination? What are we aiming at? Paul tells us in the next verses. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Before he tells us where we are going, he tells us how we will never get there. We will not get there by conforming to the world. We will not get there by adopting worldly ways of thinking. We will not get there by chasing applause, attention, image, or influence. We will not get there by acting like the point of church is to build our platform, defend our preferences, or win admiration.

The world is always pulling us toward self-exaltation. The world trains us to ask, “How do I stand out? How do I get recognized? How do I protect myself? How do I make this about me?” Paul says that way of thinking will never get us where God wants us to go.

Instead, he says, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” This is not behavior modification. This is transformation. This is not putting on a religious costume. This is God changing how we think from the inside out. And that is important because all of the goals we are going to study in this series are transformation goals. These are not merely external actions to copy. These are ways of thinking and living that require renewal from within. You can fake some religious activity for a little while, but you cannot build healthy spiritual relationships on a worldly mind. Our thinking has to be changed.

Paul then says, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.” There it is. There is the first mark of a renewed mind. Humility. Sober judgment. Thinking rightly about ourselves. Not inflated. Not self-obsessed. Not driven by pride. A transformed mind does not think too highly of self. It does not make self the center of everything. It learns to see itself honestly before God.

And that matters because pride destroys relationships. Pride poisons service. Pride makes us compare. Pride makes us defensive. Pride makes us easily offended. Pride makes us want positions without responsibility, recognition without sacrifice, influence without humility. Pride asks, “Why am I not being noticed?” Humility asks, “How can I help?” Pride says, “What about me?” Humility says, “What is needed?” If our relationships are going to be strong, then our minds have to be renewed out of worldly pride and into godly humility.

Then Paul explains why. “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” Christianity is not just about me and Jesus. God does not save us into isolation. He saves us into a body. He joins us to Christ, and in joining us to Christ, He joins us to each other. We are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

That means my life is not my own. It also means your life is not meant to be lived in detachment from the rest of the body. God wants a relationship with us, and God wants us to live in relationship with each other as His people.

That is why this series matters. It is not fluff. It is not shallow. It is not a gimmick. This is about what kind of people God’s mercy is making us into together. What kind of church are we becoming? Are we becoming a church where people know how to serve, love, honor, and speak truth in love? Or are we just gathering in the same room while remaining largely disconnected in heart and purpose? Romans 12 says the mercy of God should produce a transformed people who know how to live together as one body.

Over the next several weeks, I want us to think carefully about the kinds of relationships God wants to build among His people.

Next week, we are going to begin with sacrificial service. If we belong to one body, then we are not here merely to be served. We are here to offer ourselves to God for the good of one another.

After that, we are going to talk about honoring one another. In a world that teaches us to chase status and protect ego, God calls His people to outdo one another in showing honor.

Then we are going to look at zeal. God does not want half-hearted church life. He does not want a people who are cold, detached, and going through the motions. He wants a people who are fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

And finally, we are going to think about speaking the truth in love. Strong relationships are not built on flattery, avoidance, or pretending. They are built when God’s people learn how to speak honestly, faithfully, and lovingly with one another.

Those are the goals. Not random church activities. Not slogans. Not a temporary push to make ourselves feel more involved. These are transformation goals. These are mercy-shaped goals. These are the kinds of things the grace of God should produce in a church.

So as we begin this series, I do not want us to think first about what everybody else needs to do. I want us to think about what God’s mercy is meant to do in us. God pursued us. God brought us near. God made us His people. And now He is teaching us how to live together as His people.

Ask yourselves, “What does God’s mercy mean to you?”

That means this series is not about becoming trendy, impressive, or successful by worldly standards. It is about becoming the kind of church that reflects the mercy of God. A church where people serve as part of the body of Christ. A church where people honor one another. A church where people are fervent in spirit. A church where people speak truth in love.

That kind of church does not happen by accident. It happens when the mercy of God keeps transforming the way we think and live.

So before we spend the next several weeks studying these goals, we need to ask God to do His work in us. We need Him to renew our minds and spirits. We need Him to humble our hearts. We need Him to teach us how to live as one body.

Let’s pray.

Our series on God’s pursuit of the lost closed last week, and I hope it serves us well as we head into this next series. I have entitled this series #RelationshipGoals. Now, I know that phrase had its moment years ago, and most people used it for dating posts, memes, and internet jokes. I understand that. But that is not really where we are going with this. This is not a series about dating, at least not exclusively. This is a series about relationships in general.

One of the most fascinating realities of Christianity is this: God pursues a relationship with us, and then He calls us into relationship with each other. He does not simply save individuals and leave them scattered. He brings us into His family. He makes us one body. He teaches us how to live together as His people.

So if God has shown this kind of mercy to us, what kind of relationships should grow among us? What should the church look like when people who have been pursued by God begin living together under the mercy of God? How do we build strong relationships with one another? Why do we want them? What are we really aiming at?

Romans 12 helps us answer those questions. I moved through this chapter pretty quickly in our Romans series last year, but I want us to slow down here and look at what it teaches more carefully. Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Everything in Romans turns on that phrase, “by the mercies of God.” Paul has spent eleven chapters showing us what God has done for sinners. He has shown us the wrath of God against sin, the inability of man to save himself, the justification that comes by faith, the peace we have through Christ, the gift of the Spirit, the faithfulness of God to His promises, and the wisdom of His saving plan. Then he comes to chapter 12 and says, in essence, “In view of all that mercy, here is the life that makes sense now.”

That matters because it tells us the motivation behind this whole series. Our relationship goals are not rooted in pressure. They are not rooted in guilt. They are not rooted in trying to become impressive. They are rooted in mercy. God pursued us when we were lost. God loved us when we were evil. God brought us near when we were far off. So now His mercy is supposed to change us. It is supposed to change what we want, how we think, and how we live with one another.

That is why Paul says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Because of God’s mercy, we no longer belong to ourselves. We now choose to continually offer ourselves to God. Not part of ourselves. Not the leftovers. Ourselves. Our bodies, our minds, our strength, our time, our attention, our gifts, our resources, our lives. And Paul says this is our spiritual worship. In other words, worship is not merely what happens when we sing. Worship is not merely what happens when we gather. Worship is a life laid on the altar because God has been merciful.

That is what I want us to see as we begin this series. If we miss that, then these sermons will just sound like a list of things to do. They will sound heavy. They will sound like one more burden to carry. But if we understand the mercy of God, then these goals start to make sense. We are not trying to earn something from God. We are responding to what God has already done. We are not trying to manufacture relationships by force. We are asking what kind of people God’s mercy is supposed to make us, and we are searching diligently for the answer together.

That is what I mean by #RelationshipGoals. It is important for us, as a congregation of God’s people, to have goals. A goal gives us aim. It gives us direction. It gives us a vision for the future. It keeps us from drifting. If you do not know where you are going, you will end up wherever the current takes you. But a goal says, “This is what we are aiming at. This is what we want to become. This is the kind of church we want to be.”

And it is important not only to have goals, but to have the right goals with the right motivation. If the goal is wrong, we will end up in the wrong place. If the motivation is wrong, we may do the right things in the wrong spirit. That is why Paul starts with mercy before he ever starts listing what transformed people do.

So what is the destination? What are we aiming at? Paul tells us in the next verses. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Before he tells us where we are going, he tells us how we will never get there. We will not get there by conforming to the world. We will not get there by adopting worldly ways of thinking. We will not get there by chasing applause, attention, image, or influence. We will not get there by acting like the point of church is to build our platform, defend our preferences, or win admiration.

The world is always pulling us toward self-exaltation. The world trains us to ask, “How do I stand out? How do I get recognized? How do I protect myself? How do I make this about me?” Paul says that way of thinking will never get us where God wants us to go.

Instead, he says, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” This is not behavior modification. This is transformation. This is not putting on a religious costume. This is God changing how we think from the inside out. And that is important because all of the goals we are going to study in this series are transformation goals. These are not merely external actions to copy. These are ways of thinking and living that require renewal from within. You can fake some religious activity for a little while, but you cannot build healthy spiritual relationships on a worldly mind. Our thinking has to be changed.

Paul then says, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.” There it is. There is the first mark of a renewed mind. Humility. Sober judgment. Thinking rightly about ourselves. Not inflated. Not self-obsessed. Not driven by pride. A transformed mind does not think too highly of self. It does not make self the center of everything. It learns to see itself honestly before God.

And that matters because pride destroys relationships. Pride poisons service. Pride makes us compare. Pride makes us defensive. Pride makes us easily offended. Pride makes us want positions without responsibility, recognition without sacrifice, influence without humility. Pride asks, “Why am I not being noticed?” Humility asks, “How can I help?” Pride says, “What about me?” Humility says, “What is needed?” If our relationships are going to be strong, then our minds have to be renewed out of worldly pride and into godly humility.

Then Paul explains why. “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” Christianity is not just about me and Jesus. God does not save us into isolation. He saves us into a body. He joins us to Christ, and in joining us to Christ, He joins us to each other. We are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

That means my life is not my own. It also means your life is not meant to be lived in detachment from the rest of the body. God wants a relationship with us, and God wants us to live in relationship with each other as His people.

That is why this series matters. It is not fluff. It is not shallow. It is not a gimmick. This is about what kind of people God’s mercy is making us into together. What kind of church are we becoming? Are we becoming a church where people know how to serve, love, honor, and speak truth in love? Or are we just gathering in the same room while remaining largely disconnected in heart and purpose? Romans 12 says the mercy of God should produce a transformed people who know how to live together as one body.

Over the next several weeks, I want us to think carefully about the kinds of relationships God wants to build among His people.

Next week, we are going to begin with sacrificial service. If we belong to one body, then we are not here merely to be served. We are here to offer ourselves to God for the good of one another.

After that, we are going to talk about honoring one another. In a world that teaches us to chase status and protect ego, God calls His people to outdo one another in showing honor.

Then we are going to look at zeal. God does not want half-hearted church life. He does not want a people who are cold, detached, and going through the motions. He wants a people who are fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

And finally, we are going to think about speaking the truth in love. Strong relationships are not built on flattery, avoidance, or pretending. They are built when God’s people learn how to speak honestly, faithfully, and lovingly with one another.

Those are the goals. Not random church activities. Not slogans. Not a temporary push to make ourselves feel more involved. These are transformation goals. These are mercy-shaped goals. These are the kinds of things the grace of God should produce in a church.

So as we begin this series, I do not want us to think first about what everybody else needs to do. I want us to think about what God’s mercy is meant to do in us. God pursued us. God brought us near. God made us His people. And now He is teaching us how to live together as His people.

Ask yourselves, “What does God’s mercy mean to you?”

That means this series is not about becoming trendy, impressive, or successful by worldly standards. It is about becoming the kind of church that reflects the mercy of God. A church where people serve as part of the body of Christ. A church where people honor one another. A church where people are fervent in spirit. A church where people speak truth in love.

That kind of church does not happen by accident. It happens when the mercy of God keeps transforming the way we think and live.

So before we spend the next several weeks studying these goals, we need to ask God to do His work in us. We need Him to renew our minds and spirits. We need Him to humble our hearts. We need Him to teach us how to live as one body.

Let’s pray.

My grandfather used to have a chihuahua named Cuddles. It was a funny little dog. When it would sit in my granddaddy’s lap, it was the biggest dog with the biggest bark and bite you had ever seen. But if he put it down, it would cower in fear and roll over on its back if you came up to it. It would do the same thing at the door, but when you came inside, it was scared of you.

There are some people this way. They are just really bad at confrontation. They act tough and mean when they feel safe, spouting off about what others are doing wrong and speaking with conviction to condemn others. Then, as soon as there is real risk, they get weak and stumble over their words. They value something more than their convictions.

This is Eli.

In the story of Eli, we have a very difficult confrontation to make with ourselves.

When we first hear about Eli, he is a priest at the tabernacle in Shiloh. He had been a priest and a judge for Israel for a long time. So he appears to have been a man of great faith. However, the first thing we read about Eli is a mistake he made. Hannah had come to the tabernacle to draw near to God and pray that God would give her a son whom she would give to the Lord. She was crying out to God in anguish, but no words were coming out of her mouth. Eli assumed that Hannah was drunk.

He wasn’t going to sit by while a drunk woman came up to the tabernacle and defiled it. He stood up to her, saying, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.” In his mind, she was a worthless woman. He appears to be a man with strong convictions, but he is lacking in compassion and understanding. Eli was sharp with a wounded woman, mistaking brokenness for rebellion.

This is one of the easiest traps for religious people to fall into. We can become very alert to what looks wrong while failing to understand what is actually going on. We can be quick to accuse, correct, and condemn the innocent. He trusted the feeling in his gut that said, “That’s not normal. It must be wrong and sinful.”

How often do we do that? How often are we completely misreading the situation of people around us? We need eyes to see like God sees and ears to hear like God hears. The problem is that we have grown accustomed to our own ways, and we are too busy to understand others.

Hannah needed understanding, not suspicion. She needed compassion, not a lecture.

To Eli’s credit, he listened to Hannah and blessed her. Then, when God had done what Eli asked Him to do, Eli took the young boy Samuel under his wing and watched over him as his own.

This is important for us to see, because we often make the mistake of Eli. We condemn the innocent, and then we try to justify what we have done and double down. He was humble, and we must be too. Accept the fact that you were wrong in making a hasty judgment. That is what people of faith do. They own it.

But it would be better if we learned not to put our foot in our mouths to begin with. We need discernment, patience, and a willingness to listen with understanding. These should all precede confrontation.

In the rest of Eli’s story, we learn something very disturbing. In chapter 2, we are introduced to Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas. These men, we are told, are worthless. Having a righteous judge and priest as a father did not give them any spiritual advantage. Instead, they used their role in the tabernacle as a gateway to evil. They did not know the Lord. They did not fear God. They handled the holy things for the people of Israel, but they despised God’s holiness and profaned the sacrifices God had given them to conduct.

Imagine taking your offering to the Lord and having these men ruin it. Israelites were told specifically what to do in the time of sacrifice to honor the Lord. Priests had their job as well. But these priests took what belonged to God, refused to do things according to God’s commands, and ignored the pleas of Israelites. If the people would not give them the food, these men would take it by force.

We also find out that they were committing sexual immorality with the women who were serving at the entrance of the tent of meeting. These men were completely failing to see the enormity of their sin and the importance of their role.

Where was their father? The Scriptures tell us that Eli knew about this. He was not kept in the dark. He heard all that people were saying and knew the devastation they were causing.

He went to his sons and said, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people. No, my sons; it is no good report that I hear the people of the LORD spreading abroad. If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him, but if someone sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?” These are true words. He is trying to correct his sons, but notice the complete lack of authority. He does not speak to them with the same conviction and condemnation that he used with Hannah.

After this “confrontation,” if you can call it that, the men kept on doing what they were doing before. Can I just say that this is what weak parenting leads to? If parents are unwilling to be in an authoritative role, they should not be parents. Children are not in charge. If children are in charge, they grow up to look like these two men. They do not respect their father, and they do not respect the Lord.

The Scriptures condemn Eli. God curses him and his family because “he did not restrain them.” That sentence explains this whole tragedy that is about to happen.

Eli said something, but he did not say enough. He was saddened over the sin, but he did not do anything to stop it. He spoke and failed to restrain these rebellious priests from defiling God’s house.

Eli even named one of these sons Phinehas. That name would have carried weight in Israel. The earlier Phinehas in Numbers 25 is remembered for refusing to let blatant sin continue in the camp. He acted with zeal for the Lord when others stood by. He would not watch open rebellion spread while everyone shrugged their shoulders.

Then here comes Eli’s Phinehas, and the father who gave him that name refuses to confront sin the way that earlier Phinehas had.

That is odd. And it is sad.

I have known a man who caught his teenage son doing sinful and foolish things. He warned him and told him that if it continued, he would take his son’s name before the church and call him out for his sin. His son straightened up. That is what we need. Men who are willing to call it what it is instead of sweeping it under the rug.

The man of God comes to Eli in 1 Samuel 2 and delivers one of the sharpest rebukes in the book, directly from God.

1 Samuel 2:29–30 says, “Why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?’ Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the LORD declares: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.’”

His confrontation was upside down because his heart was upside down. God tells Eli that he has honored his sons above Him. This is what we are doing when we refuse to confront sin.

Sometimes words are not enough. Faithful confrontation sometimes requires action. If evil remains, corruption continues and spreads. Worship stays polluted. God is dishonored. There are times in our lives when real love requires more than words of disapproval. If we really love God, we will respond with action.

Honoring God will cost us our comfort, family peace, relational stability, and our own honor among men.

Sometimes we confront because something annoys us, embarrasses us, or makes us uncomfortable. That was Eli with Hannah. Other times we stay silent because confronting the real issue would cost too much. That was Eli with his sons.

So the problem is not merely that we do not know how to confront. The deeper problem is that our loves are disordered. We are governed by self more than by God. We are driven by comfort more than holiness. We fear losing people more than we fear dishonoring the Lord.

That is not just what happened in Eli’s day. That is what happens anywhere discernment dies. Tender souls get crushed while hard hearts keep moving. The sincere are discouraged while the shameless are emboldened. People who are weak but trying to seek the Lord get corrected out of place, while people who are actually doing damage are allowed to keep going because someone does not want conflict.

That kind of leadership poisons everything.

And in Eli’s story, the consequences spread far beyond the walls of his own house. His sons die. Eli dies. Israel suffers defeat. The ark is captured. The glory departs from Israel. The rot in one household reaches the whole community.

Eli may have thought he was avoiding pain. He was only postponing it until it became catastrophe. That is what tolerated sin does. It does not stay little because you leave it alone. It grows. It settles in. It becomes normal. And once sin becomes normal, judgment is not far behind.

So if there is something in your life, your family, your leadership, your relationships, your home, or your habits, and you know it is wrong, you are not helping anyone by refusing to deal with it.

When we look at Eli, we become grateful for Jesus. Jesus never condemned the innocent, and He always confronted the rebellious. He was faithful in all He did, putting actions to words and making it clear what righteousness truly looks like.

If you want to come to Jesus, He will confront you for your sin. God loves you too much to leave you in your sin. His grace does not pretend sin is harmless. It does not protect sin from exposure. It brings sin to light so sinners can be saved.

Let’s be men and women who let Jesus in and remove whatever is unholy inside of us. Let’s be men and women who follow Jesus and handle confrontation with righteousness. Don’t be like Cuddles, biting at everyone when you feel safe and cowering when things get hard. Discern faithfully and honor God over men.

Most people say they care until caring becomes costly.

It is easy to say, “I love you,” when love is convenient. It is easy to say, “I’m here for you,” when being there costs nothing. But the truth about love is revealed when the price gets high. Real love keeps moving toward people when it hurts.

That is what makes the cross so important. The cross is not just the sad ending to the life of Jesus. It is the clearest picture in the Bible of how far God will go to pursue us. In this series, we have seen that God pursues the lost, the wandering, the stubborn, the proud, and the broken. Now we come to the end and ask one final question: How far will God go?

After confronting the leaders and warning Jerusalem, Jesus gathers with His disciples for the Passover. That night, He reveals that one of His own will betray Him. The disciples do not understand what is happening, but Jesus does. He goes to the garden of Gethsemane, and there we see something we do not see anywhere else. We get a window into His soul.

He prays, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Jesus knows exactly what is coming. He knows the suffering, the humiliation, and the weight of what He is about to bear. He is not stumbling into the cross. He is not being caught off guard by the pain. He sees it clearly.

And still, He does not turn away. He goes forward in pursuit of the lost.

This is where we begin to understand the pursuit of God. God did not pursue us blindly. This was not an accident. Jesus saw the cost and stepped forward anyway. His love is not cheap. He does not say, “I love you,” and then disappear when things get hard. His pursuit does not stop when suffering begins.

Once Jesus leaves the garden, everything begins to unravel quickly. Judas betrays Him. The crowd arrests Him. Peter denies Him. The guards mock Him. The leaders lie about Him. Pilate knows He is innocent but caves to pressure. Herod treats Him like entertainment. Then the crowd chooses a murderer over Him.

Sin is on full display. Treachery, cowardice, injustice, manipulation, hatred, and abuse of power all come pouring out into the open. Human beings are doing exactly what sinners do when they are left to themselves. They betray truth, protect themselves, bow to pressure, and choose darkness over light.

And through all of it, Jesus does not turn back. He continues His pursuit.

He heals the servant’s ear. He looks at Peter and breaks his heart. He remains silent under false accusation. He allows Barabbas, the guilty man, to go free. Do you see it? Jesus is not just telling us that God is patient and persistent. He is showing us.

Imagine those hours. In the span of a single night, His friends disappear, His reputation is destroyed, and His freedom is stripped away. In their place come shame, rejection, and chains. He is dragged from place to place, mocked, beaten, and paraded in humiliation. The same crowd that once praised Him now shouts, “Crucify Him!”

And still, He keeps going.

Why? Because this is how far God will go. Jesus could have stopped it all. He could have judged them instantly. He could have called down wrath on every one of them. But He did not want to destroy them.

He wanted to save them.

By the time Jesus is led to the cross, you might think His work is finished. You might think there is nothing left for Him to do but die. But Luke shows us something incredible. Even on the way to die, Jesus is still pursuing people.

He has been scourged. His back has been torn open. He is so weak that someone else has to carry the cross for Him. Yet even then, He stops to speak. He turns to the daughters of Jerusalem and says, “Do not weep for me… weep for yourselves.” Even here, He is warning. Even here, He is calling people to see clearly. The day is coming when pursuit will give way to judgment, but not today. Today, God is still pursuing.

Then the nails are driven. He is lifted up, and every breath is agony. The mocking continues without mercy. “He saved others; let Him save Himself.” “If you are the king, save yourself.” “Save yourself and us!”

But Jesus does not come down.

Instead, He ministers. He says, “Father, forgive them.” While they are killing Him, He is praying for them. One criminal mocks, but the other begins to see clearly. He admits their guilt and confesses Jesus’ innocence. Then he says, “Jesus, remember me.”

And Jesus responds, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

Right there on the cross, Jesus is still saving. The world says, “He could not save Himself.” The cross says, “I stayed because this is how far I will go to save you.”

If you want to see the love of God, this is where you look. Not just in words. Not just in promises. You look in blood, suffering, and sacrifice. The cross is where the love of God is revealed most clearly and most powerfully.

God’s love is greater than ours. We struggle to forgive small offenses. God forgives betrayal, denial, mockery, and murder. We withdraw when relationships get painful. God moves closer. We pull back when people hurt us and it gets hard. God presses forward, enduring everything necessary to bring the lost home.

That is what the cross reveals. It shows us a God whose love can absorb the worst of human sin and still answer with mercy.

The cross is not just something to admire. It is something that speaks. It has a message for every one of us.

First, the cross says that your sin is worse than you thought. We are in that crowd. We are the betrayers, the deniers, the silent compromisers, the mockers. The cross tells us that we needed this. Our condition was so serious, so hopeless, so corrupt, that nothing less than the death of the Son of God could deal with it.

Second, the cross says that God’s love is greater than you imagined. God does not love like we love. When we are wronged, we pull back. We hold grudges. We protect ourselves. But God moves toward sinners. He forgives. He restores. He removes our sins as far as the east is from the west.

Third, the cross says that you cannot save yourself. Paul says, “If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” That is the message. You cannot fix this. You cannot earn this. You cannot save yourself. But Jesus came to do what you could never do.

Finally, the cross says that the door is open. God has done everything necessary. The question now is simple.

Will you come home?

If you ever begin to doubt the love of God, do not look first at your circumstances. Look at the cross. Do not admire it from a distance. Do not study it like a symbol. Do not reduce it to an idea. See what happened there.

Jesus suffered. Jesus endured. Jesus stayed.

And He did it to show you exactly how far God will go. It is a love you do not deserve, but it is a love you can receive. So do not walk away. Turn from your sin. Come to Him. Be baptized into Christ and receive the forgiveness He died to give.

We have been studying how God pursues the lost through these parables in Luke. Last week we stood in Luke 15 and watched the father run to the son who had wandered far from home. But that parable was never just about the son who left. It was also about the son who stayed. The older brother stayed near the house, enjoyed the father’s blessings, and yet never learned the father’s heart. He would not go in. He would not rejoice. He would not share the father’s joy over the lost being found. That is where chapter 15 ends, and that is why chapter 16 matters so much. Jesus does not drop the conversation. He keeps going. He keeps pressing. He keeps exposing. The question at the end of chapter 15 is this: Will the Pharisees ever get the heart of God? Will they rejoice that the lost are being received? Or will they keep clinging to what they really love? Chapter 16 answers that question. It shows us what they are pursuing. And it warns us that if we pursue money, comfort, and self-justification instead of God, that road does not end well.

Luke 16:1–2 (ESV) — 1 He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. 2 And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’

Jesus begins with a steward. He is not the owner. He is the manager. He handles what belongs to another. And he is accused of wasting his master’s possessions. That is the first thing this chapter puts in front of us. Everything we have belongs to God. Our money, our time, our opportunities, our marriages, our homes, our influence, our bodies, our breath. None of it is finally ours. We are all managers standing in someone else’s field, handling someone else’s goods, waiting on someone else’s evaluation.

Luke 16:3–9 (ESV) — 3 And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 8 The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

This steward hears that the day of accounting is coming. He is about to lose his position. So what does he do? He starts thinking hard about the future. That is the part Jesus highlights. The man is not righteous. He is shrewd. He sees the wall coming and he starts acting in the present because he knows he will soon have to answer for what he has done. Jesus is not telling His disciples to be dishonest. He is saying that worldly people can be very sharp when their comfort is threatened. They can plan. They can move. They can sacrifice. They can act decisively when they think their future is on the line. But the sons of light can drift through life carelessly while eternity sits just ahead of them.

That is why Jesus says to use unrighteous wealth in light of eternal dwellings. In other words, use temporary things with eternity in view. Do not live as though money is the prize. Use it as a tool. Do not worship it. Do not waste what God has put in your hands chasing comfort now while neglecting what will matter forever.

Luke 16:10–13 (ESV) — 10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Then Jesus makes the point plain. If you are faithful in little, you will be faithful in much. If you are dishonest in little, you will be dishonest in much. If you cannot be trusted with worldly wealth, why would God entrust true riches to you? And then He says it as clearly as it can be said: You cannot serve God and money.

That is the issue. It is not just whether we have money. It is whether money has us. It is not just whether we have comforts. It is whether comfort has become our master. The great danger is not that we will openly renounce God. The great danger is that we will quietly use God’s gifts to build a life around ourselves.

And that is exactly what the Pharisees were doing.

Luke 16:14–18 (ESV) — 14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. 16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. 18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Luke tells us plainly that the Pharisees were lovers of money. Then he tells us how they responded to Jesus. They ridiculed Him. That tells you what is in their hearts. When Jesus speaks against the thing they love, they do not repent. They sneer. When truth threatens an idol, truth starts sounding ridiculous.

Jesus answers them with words that ought to shake every one of us. “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.” Men look at appearances. Men praise polish. Men admire success, image, and status. Men can be fooled by religious performance. But God knows the heart. God knows what is driving us. God knows what we are protecting. God knows when we are using religion to cover self-love. And then Jesus says something even stronger: “What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” The very thing people clap for may be disgusting to God.

Then Jesus says that the Law and the Prophets still stand. God’s word has not failed. God’s standard has not changed. The kingdom is being preached, but that does not mean people can now bend righteousness into whatever shape they want. And that is why verse 18 is not random. The divorce statement is an example of the very thing Jesus is exposing. These men were willing to handle God’s word the same way they handled money. They would twist it when it served them. They would reshape obedience to get the outcome they wanted. They were not serving God. They were serving themselves with God’s things.

That is where this chapter digs into us. We may not call ourselves lovers of money, but how often do we do the same thing? We know what God says, but something else feels more practical. More useful. More manageable. So we compromise. We justify. We explain away. We pursue the outcome we want and try to drag Scripture along behind us. That is not serving God at all. That is serving self. That is taking what belongs to the Master and using it for our own ends.

And Jesus says God sees it all.

Luke 16:19–31 (ESV) — 19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

Then Jesus tells one final story. A rich man lives in luxury. Purple clothes. Fine linen. Feasting every day. Outside his gate lies Lazarus, poor, broken, covered in sores, longing for scraps. The rich man does not have to go searching for need. It is lying at his gate. He sees it and passes by it. Day after day. Meal after meal. Comfort after comfort. And then both men die.

That is when everything changes.

Lazarus is carried to comfort. The rich man is in torment. And now the man who had everything wants a drop of water. Now the man who ignored suffering cannot escape it. Now the man who had no room in his heart for mercy wants mercy for himself.

This is not Jesus saying that being rich automatically condemns and being poor automatically saves. This is Jesus showing that a life of self-indulgence, lovelessness, and disregard for God’s word ends in judgment. The rich man spent his life using what God gave him for himself. He had a gate, but no compassion. He had blessings, but no mercy. He had opportunity, but no repentance. And in the end, God’s justice finds him.

Then the rich man asks for his brothers to be warned, and Abraham says, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” That is the final blow. The problem was never lack of revelation. The problem was refusal to listen. He wants a dramatic sign. Abraham says they already have the word of God. And if they will not hear God’s word, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.

That is chilling. Jesus is saying that the issue is not information. It is the heart. People can have Scripture, hear truth, watch mercy, see need, and still pursue themselves right into eternal ruin.

So what is Luke 16 saying to us?

It is saying that if we pursue anything above God, we will lose everything that matters. If we pursue money, comfort, image, and self-justification, we will begin using God’s gifts to serve ourselves. We will begin bending truth around our desires. We will begin stepping over people at the gate. And unless we repent, eternity will expose what we were really living for.

As Americans, we especially need to hear this. We live surrounded by abundance, comfort, excuses, and endless ways to justify ourselves. We are trained to prize what works, what pays, what protects peace, what preserves the image, what keeps life easy. But Jesus says what is exalted among men may be an abomination to God. That ought to stop us in our tracks.

So do not waste your life managing God’s possessions as though they were your own. Do not use His blessings to serve self. Do not justify what He condemns. Do not act like comfort now is worth torment later. Hear His word. Submit to it. Pursue Him. He is the only Master worth serving, and He is the only one who can give true riches that last forever.

And the good news is that Jesus does not only warn us here; He is able to save people exactly like the ones this chapter exposes. He receives the self-justifying. He pursues the lover of comfort. He pursues the one who has wasted what belonged to God. He pursues those who might finally stop defending themselves and come to Him empty-handed.

That is our hope. Our hope is not that we have managed everything well. Our hope is that Christ came for bad stewards, for idolaters, for people who have loved gifts more than the Giver. He died for our greed, our lovelessness, and our self-serving religion, and He rose to give new hearts to those who trust Him.

So repent, yes. But repent knowing there is mercy for you in Jesus. Turn from dead masters to a living Savior. Bring Him your divided heart, your misused gifts, your buried compassion, your excuses, and your sin. He is not only the Master worth serving. He is also the Savior who forgives, restores, and teaches His people to use their lives for what will last forever.

Some people do not come back to God strong. They come back tired. They come back ashamed. They come back confused. They come back after life has taken more out of them than they ever imagined. They come back with enough faith to head home, but the world has robbed them of joy

That is Naomi.

Naomi is not presented like some untouchable hero. She is wounded. She is bitter. She is a woman who has watched her life fall apart. And that is what makes her so helpful. Naomi shows us what it looks like to return to God when you are empty. She shows us that God does not only receive the strong and cheerful. He also receives the broken. He receives the bitter. He receives the one who limps home. And He is able to bring healing under His wings.

The story begins in the days of the judges, in dark and unstable times. Then famine strikes Bethlehem. Naomi’s family leaves the land and goes to Moab, looking for survival, looking for security, looking for a way to preserve what they have.

But what they tried to protect slipped through their fingers anyway.

Elimelech dies. Then Naomi’s two sons die. By the time chapter 1 settles in, Naomi is standing in a foreign land without a husband, without sons, and without any clear future. The woman who left looking for life has been crushed by loss.

That is often how life feels. We chase fullness, security, control, or relief, thinking we can hold life together, making compromises, and instead we find ourselves emptier than before.

When Naomi hears that the Lord has visited His people and given them food, she decides to return. That’s important. However wounded she is, she knows where she needs to go. She heads home.

But she does not come home rejoicing. She comes home bitter. When the women of Bethlehem recognize her, she says, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara… I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.”

That is brutally honest. Naomi is saying, “I am not pleasant anymore. I am bitter. I am not full anymore. I am empty.”

A lot of people know exactly what that feels like. Maybe not outwardly, but inwardly. You know what it is to look at your life and think, “I used to feel steady. I used to feel hopeful. But now I feel empty.”

And yet, even here, grace is already working. Naomi returns. Not cheerfully. Not confidently. But she returns. Sometimes coming back to God looks less like triumph and more like dragging your tired heart back into His presence.

As Naomi travels home, she tells Ruth and Orpah to go back. In her mind, she has nothing left to offer. No husband. No sons. No future. She sees herself as a dead end.

Orpah leaves, but Ruth clings.

And Ruth says, “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” Naomi sees emptiness. Ruth sees a God worth following. Naomi sees loss. Ruth sees covenant faithfulness. Naomi thinks she has nothing, but God has already placed mercy beside her in the form of Ruth.

That is one of the great ironies in the book. Naomi says she is empty while Ruth is standing right there.

Pain can do that to us. It can narrow our vision until we stop seeing the mercies God has already placed beside us. We can say, “There is nothing left,” while the kindness of God is already closer than we realize.

Then Ruth goes out to glean, and she happens to enter Boaz’s field. From our view, it looks accidental. From God’s view, it is providence. There is no dramatic miracle here. Just a field, a faithful woman, and the quiet hand of God guiding the whole thing.

Boaz notices Ruth. He protects her, feeds her, and speaks kindly to her. Most importantly, he says that she has come to take refuge under the wings of the Lord.

That line explains the whole story. Ruth is not just finding food. She is finding refuge. And Naomi, though she cannot see it yet, is about to discover that God’s wings are wider than her bitterness imagined.

When Ruth comes home with an abundance of grain and tells Naomi about Boaz, Naomi begins to wake up. She says, “Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!”

That is a turning point. The woman who said, “The Almighty has dealt bitterly with me,” now begins to see that the Lord’s kindness has not left her after all. Healing begins there. Not with instant joy, but with the first flicker of hope.

By chapter 3, Naomi is changing. She begins to seek rest for Ruth. Hope has awakened enough in her that she can think about future and blessing again.

Ruth goes to Boaz and asks him to spread his wings over her, because he is a redeemer. That reaches back to Boaz’s earlier words about refuge under the wings of the Lord. Ruth is asking Boaz to become the means of that refuge.

And Boaz responds with integrity. He does not exploit her vulnerability. He acts honorably. He handles the matter the right way. He redeems. He marries Ruth. The Lord gives a child.

And suddenly Naomi, who came home saying, “I am empty,” is holding fullness in her arms.

She could not fix her life.
She could not undo her losses.
She could not create redemption by her own strength.

But God could.

He did not erase the pain of her past, but He proved that her pain was not the end of the story. Naomi finds healing in His wings.

Naomi learns that God is still working when bitterness blinds us. Her pain was real, but it was not the whole story. She said she was empty while Ruth stood beside her. She did not know Boaz was in the field. She did not know redemption was already moving toward her.

She learns that God often works through quiet providence. In this story, God works through a harvest, a field, a faithful woman, a righteous man, and the birth of a child. Quiet providence is still providence.

And she learns that God uses faithful people to bring restoration. Ruth’s loyalty matters. Boaz’s integrity matters. God often brings His kindness into broken lives through faithful hearts.

Naomi’s story is our story more than we may want to admit. We often leave God’s way looking for fullness. We chase security, comfort, control, or relief. And many times we end up emptier than before.

Then we lose hope. We get bitter. We stop seeing what we still have. We return to God, maybe, but with a bruised spirit.

Naomi teaches us that God still receives people like that. He can bless those who return. He can heal hearts that are bitter and disappointed. He can open our eyes to mercies we were too wounded to see. And He can redeem what we could never repair by ourselves.

That is the heart of the story. Naomi needed a redeemer. So do we.

This story leads us straight to Jesus. Ruth ends by pointing forward to David, and David points forward to Christ.

Naomi’s emptiness points to our emptiness. Sin leaves us empty. Self-rule leaves us empty. We need more than improvement. We need redemption.

Ruth shows us the beauty of faith that clings to God when life is uncertain.

Boaz points us to the greater Redeemer. Boaz could redeem a field; Jesus redeems sinners. Boaz could provide a home; Jesus gives an eternal inheritance. Boaz could spread his garment over Ruth; Jesus covers us with righteousness.

And in Christ, we find final healing in His wings. He brings the empty near. He covers the guilty. He welcomes the bitter home. He gives rest to those who return to Him.

Naomi came home calling herself Bitter. She thought her life had collapsed beyond repair. She thought emptiness was the end of the story.

But Naomi did not know what God was already doing.

Healing was already walking beside her in Ruth.
Healing was already waiting in the field of Boaz.
Healing was already moving through quiet providence.
Healing was already unfolding under His wings.

And maybe that is where some of us are. Empty. Tired. Disappointed. Bruised by life. If so, Naomi’s story tells us something we need to hear: the Lord still knows how to fill the empty. His kindness has not failed. His wings are still open. And in Christ, the greater Redeemer, there is healing for all who return to Him.

Some stories do not need much help getting our attention. This is one of them.

Almost everybody knows something about the story of the prodigal son, even if they have not read it in a long time. They know there is a younger son who leaves home, wastes everything, and comes crawling back. They know there is a father waiting on him. They know there is a celebration when he returns, repentant.

But what makes this story so powerful is not just that it is memorable. It is that Jesus tells it for a reason. At the beginning of Luke 15, sinners are drawing near to hear Jesus. Tax collectors. Outcasts. People with stained reputations. People the religious world had already sized up and shoved into a category. And when they gather around Jesus, the Pharisees and scribes do not rejoice. They grumble. They cannot stand the fact that Jesus receives people like that.

That is the moment this story comes out of.

And Jesus is not just telling a touching family story. He is opening a window into the heart of God. He is helping us see what happens when someone is lost, what it means to come home, and why some people still cannot rejoice when grace fills the house.

So before we rush to the end because we know the story, slow down and walk through it carefully. Because this isn’t just a story about people living a long time ago. It’s a story about us.

Luke 15:11–13 (ESV) — 11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.

The younger son comes to his father and says, “Give me the share of property that is coming to me.” This is not just a request for money. It is a rejection of the father and everything he stands for. He is saying, “I’m tired of this life. It’s boring and empty to me. I’m sick of your ways and your rules. I want adventure. I want pleasure. I want what you can give me, but I do not want you.”

That is the heart of sin. It wants God’s gifts without God. It gets tired of the Father’s house. It starts believing life must be better somewhere else.

So the son leaves for a far country, and there he chases pleasure, freedom, and independence, and for a little while it may have looked exciting. But sin always lies. It promises life and leaves you empty. It promises freedom and makes you a slave. He wastes everything chasing the wind.

Luke 15:14–16 (ESV) — 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

Soon the money is gone. A famine comes, and he ends up feeding pigs, longing to eat what they eat. The son who thought he was too big for the Father’s house is now starving in a field. That is what the far country does. It takes and takes until there is nothing left.

I’ve heard parents say, “They have to sow their wild oats.” They have to experience the consequences of their own foolish actions and suffer the pain that follows. Some people are hard headed like this. We want to tell them what will happen, but they won’t listen. We just hope they don’t die in the process, and that they will eventually learn the lesson.

Jesus tells us, “He came to himself.” That is one of the great turning points in the story. Sin had made him blind, but now he sees clearly. He remembers the wisdom of his father’s house. He remembers that even the servants there have bread enough and to spare.

So he says, “I will arise and go to my father.” He prepares his confession: “I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” That is repentance. It is not just feeling bad. It is turning back.

That is what an honest heart looks like. No excuses. No blame-shifting. No attempt to defend himself. He knows he has sinned, and he knows he has no claim to make. He just wants to come home. How many people are guilty of sin, claim to repent, and then try to justify themselves? Not here.

Meanwhile, the father hasn’t forgotten about his son. He’s not cold or callous. He didn’t go back to his work and talk like his youngest son never existed. He’s been walking a well worn path to a hilltop where he scans for his long lost son. One day, while he is still a long way off, the father sees him. He can tell by the way he walks. It’s him.

Can you imagine the emotion? He has been looking. Watching. Waiting. Hoping for the day his son would come home. And when he sees him, he does not stand there with crossed arms. He does not wait to hear the whole speech. He does not make the boy crawl the rest of the way.

He runs to meet him.

That would have shocked the hearers. Men like this did not run. But this father is not concerned with protecting his dignity. His son is coming home. So he runs to him, embraces him, and kisses him.

The son begins his confession, but the father quickly turns and starts giving orders. “Bring the best robe. Put a ring on his hand. Shoes on his feet. Kill the fattened calf.” Why? “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

This is the heart of God. He is not reluctant to receive the repentant. He is not annoyed when sinners come home. He is not cold toward the broken. Jesus is showing us a Father who moves toward the lost with compassion. He brings them close.

That is the joy of this chapter. The shepherd rejoices. The woman rejoices. And now the father rejoices. Heaven does not grumble when the lost are found. Heaven celebrates.

This is what makes the story so appealing and it stands out to us because it shows us God’s gracious attitude toward the lost, but the story doesn’t end there. I like a happy ending. It would have ended here and had a happy ending, but Jesus is telling this story to teach a point to the Pharisees and scribes about the heart of God.

Then the story shifts. The older son comes in from the field and hears music and dancing. He asks what is going on, and when he finds out his brother is home, he refuses to go in.

That is the surprise of the parable. The younger son was easy to identify as lost. The older son looked faithful. He stayed home. He worked hard. He kept the rules. But when grace fills the house, his heart is exposed.

He is angry. Bitter. Offended. He says, “These many years I have served you.” He sounds less like a son and more like a slave keeping score. His relationship with God is not based on love, but merit.

Then he says, “This son of yours.” He will not even call him his brother. That is what self-righteousness does. It keeps records. It compares. It resents mercy. It cannot rejoice when grace is shown to someone undeserving, because it secretly believes blessing should be earned.

And that is exactly where the Pharisees are standing in Luke 15. They are angry that sinners are being received. They do not share the Father’s joy.

But the father goes out to him too. That is one of the sweetest details in the story. He ran to the younger son, and now he comes out to plead with the older one. There is no favoritism here.

He says, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”

The father is trying to pull him into his joy. He is saying, “If you love me, then love what I love. Know my heart. Rejoice in what makes me rejoice.”

This father pursues both sons. He pursues the rebellious son in the far country, and he pursues the resentful son outside the party. One is broken by sin. The other is hardened by pride. Both need the father.

The attitude of the ninety-nine, the nine, and the one who stayed is the attitude of people who think they do not need grace as much as others do. They look at broken people and ask why they should be welcomed so warmly. They are not looking for the lost to return. They do not rejoice when sinners repent. They grumble.

That spirit shows up whenever we are more offended by someone’s past than moved by their repentance. It shows up whenever we sit coldly in our seats while visitors enter our building. It shows up whenever we act like grace should be rationed for those deserving.

The father is full of compassion. He watches. He waits. He runs. He embraces. He restores. He celebrates. And then he pleads with the proud son too. That is what Jesus wants us to see. God is not like the grumbling Pharisees. He is full of mercy toward the sinner who turns.

The father sees with love, and the older brother sees with pride. The father is focused on restoration. The older brother is focused on fairness. The father rejoices over repentance. The older brother resents grace.

At the deepest level, the older brother does not understand that he needs mercy too.

We do not make the father more like the older brother. We let our hearts become more like the father’s.

That starts when we remember that none of us come to God by merit. Some of us ran farther. Some of us sinned more publicly. Some of us made a mess in ways everybody could see. But every one of us needs the mercy of the Father.

And if the Father ran to us, then we cannot stand at the door with folded arms when somebody else comes home.

The parable ends without telling us whether the older brother goes in. Jesus leaves it open because the question is aimed at the Pharisees, and it is aimed at us. Will you share the father’s heart? Will you come into the Father’s joy?

The great tragedy is not only wasting your life in rebellion. The great tragedy is standing outside the celebration of grace while pretending you have always been near God.

But the Father’s heart is clear. He rejoices when the lost are found. He welcomes the repentant. He pleads even with the proud.

He wants the house full of crippled, lame, poor, and broken people. Is that you?