Brown, Kevin: Leadership ~ Camp Ministry-2004-02

Well, yesterday we, uh, began thinking about third John. Gordon, Lillian weren't here. We're still in third John, okay? Uh, they were here last year. Lillian was encouraging me on, and it's good to see their faces here this morning. I guess they're going to Canada tomorrow. I was thinking maybe I'd hop in and go with them, but they won't arrive till Friday, so that wouldn't do any good. But if you see Elaine on the way, say hi to her. And, uh, anyway, we're in Third John, but we're looking at it a little different than we did last fall. And we do have some other folks with us this morning and weren't here yesterday, so I'm going to do a brief review. We're looking at it from the point of view, and you were here last fall too, I believe. Part of it, maybe not. Maybe I've got you confused with someone else. He's putting his glasses on to see me. Uh, yeah, I'm looking at you. Uh, we looked at it last year in the point of the perspective of guys today and the rest of the week. We're looking at John's perspective, an elder, and hoping to gather some things, not just for those that are elders, and we do have elders among us, and praise God for you men who are elders, and hopefully we can encourage you and we can learn some of what your struggle is so that we can be better sheep. But also, we all kind of can find something here because, as we saw it yesterday, as husbands, we have wives and children, parents, we've got our children. As brothers and sisters, we should all be involved in discipling. I appreciated so much yesterday's testimony, Grady's testimony last night. Did you catch it, you know? It was when Leonard came down. Leonard took the initiative. He, he spent the energy, the time, and he went down and he got involved in this young man's life, and look what the fruit is. Leonard's with the Lord, been with the Lord for years, but here's Grady going on. Great, tremendous, and that's what we need to be about. And we don't want to just leave that up to, you know, a few people in the church, a few, the elders. Yeah, they should be discipling, and you know what? Uh, if they're not, this book should speak to their heart. Need to be discipling. That's what he did. And where are the future elders going to come from? The Lord's going to raise them up. Is that going to be an accidental thing? No. What did we hear last night? Uh-huh. God spoke creation into being, but the house of God, he used men. He used men. And he's going to use elders who are discipling others, and hopefully some of those are going to catch on to a few of the elder things, and the Lord's gonna work in them. And where are our future elders gonna come from? From those that are being discipled. Hm? Not all of them, the Lord's gonna work, but I would hope to see elders discipling young men, and those men eventually coming to the place where they too are caring for the flock, caring for the sheep. So what a testimony, what a thing to hear, what an encouragement to us to be discipling people. And so all of us, not just those that are elders among us, but all of us need to pay attention to what the Lord has to tell us from this book about the expectations that he has, and these are not the normal expectations that we go to, uh, when we think of the qualifications of an elder, as we find in First Timothy and in Titus. These are other things that normally, when we read the, the epistle of Third John, we maybe don't think of, but I think the Lord would challenge us with. Well, what were the expectations that we saw yesterday? We began with verse one, the elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth, and I was very unkind to Courtney and cast my web out there and caught her because she caught the most important thing, caught the most obvious thing, which is love, and yet we thought of two other things before that. First of all is to recognize the job, the responsibility, and how important that is. Uh, dealing with a another young man, not the one that I mentioned yesterday, that family, but a different family, and and this young man just has not caught quite the sense of the job that he has. Yes, he's married, he's got two kids, but, you know, he doesn't keep a job for more than two weeks. He sits around and and he doesn't quite got it, right? But he's got a job to do. He's got a responsibility that he he took upon himself asking this young lady to marry him, and that God has given him to love and care for her and his children. And it goes beyond the material. You can see it in the spiritual aspects of their family life. He needs to realize he's got a job, and we all need to realize that God has given us things to do. I appreciate greatly those two— and I can't even begin to remember their names, those two Old Testament saints that God gave that wisdom to, to, to build all these things, because I'm a crafty character. I like working with my hands. I like doing all kinds of different activities, and I use that, uh, with young people in Bolivia. And so I always read through that part and I say, man, that's, that's, that's cool. Well, God has given each one of us things to do and people to care for. So we need to catch that vision. Maybe we need to renew that. You know, we know we have that, but maybe we need to renew that this week. And you know, Lord, yes, how am I doing? How am I doing as a husband, as a father, as a brother to younger brothers in the, in the meeting? And think again, Lord, what is it that you have for me? Who is it that you would have me to care for? And so we see that he, he recognizes the job, the elder. I have this responsibility, Gaius, as an elder for you, the sheep. And then we saw that he recognized who his sheep were, Gaius. And he knew his sheep and how important it is for us to take that time, to be prepared to spend in getting to know our flock. And for those of us who are parents, our flock lives with us, you know, but it's still, we gotta take time. We just can't take it for granted that we're communicating and that we're knowing what's going on. We need to take the time. And then, in verse one, and this is where we're going to pick up today, uh, we see love. The third expectation here is to love. John says, to Ga- Gaius, whom I love in truth, whom I love in truth. Well, we have to ask ourselves, what's love in truth? Whom I truly love? And what was going on, uh, in Gaius' life? I, I tend to think that Gaius was being pressured. There's another name mentioned here. We have Diotrephes, and Diotrephes was kind of a character. I question whether he was a believer or not. I'm not sure. He just, there were certain things there that make me wonder, but it appears that he was a man who had a certain influence. He was dominant, domineering, and he was not above pushing people. And he was pushing Gaius, I think, a little bit. And I think one of the things that he was doing was, you know, well, brother, I really love you now. You, you gotta come this way. He was trying to sway him to his way of thinking, and his way of thinking was this, my way or the highway, okay? You do it my way or no way. You do it my way or you're out the door. That was what Deatraspes was like, and he was, was trying to influence Gaius, and I have no doubt that one of the things that he would do would pretend to be friendly to him and to tell him, oh brother, I really love you, I really love you. But John writes and says, you know, Gaius, I really love you. And when John says it, he means it, and he's got some things in his mind. And we're gonna look a little bit at that today, think a little bit about this idea of love. You know, we all know that we're supposed to love each other, don't we? You don't have to go to church meetings very long before you hear that we need to love each other. And, uh, because we know it, we tend to say it. Isn't that true? We know that we're supposed to love each other. I know I'm supposed to love my wife, so I tend to say I love you. And it's very easy for us to use that word. Very easy. It comes out of our mouth sometimes without thinking. Now, a lot of times, and this is in parentheses, a lot of times we don't use it enough, right? But other times we just use it lightly. We use that word lightly. Why? Well, we know we're supposed to love people, especially those in our church. We're supposed to love the brother and sister, and and we like to use that word, you know, that gains us certain things at times, doesn't it? Hm? Use of that word, misuse of that word, sometimes we can use that for our own benefit, and then we really don't love that person, is it? That's not love. We're trying to get something. You watch the grandmas and all the little kids, well, they run, I love you, grandma. Most of those little kids know grandma's got something in the purse. So do they really love grandma? Well, they do in a certain way, but what are they doing? They're trying to get their hands in the purse. Hm? And so we can use that word love to our own benefit. But John is saying, yes, it's not that way. I really love you. There's no hypocrisy, and when I say I love you, it's true. I love you. And, and this is coming from someone who knew the love of God, who knew Jesus Christ, and I think he's speaking because of that. He's saying, you know, Gaius, the love of God come in me. And you think of John. John was this Jewish fellow who at one time they're visiting Samaria, right? And he wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans. And a Jewish man, he probably would didn't have too much to think of Gentiles, but here he has been changed by the love of God, and he loves this Gentile man, Gaius. Incredible thing had happened in John's life. And so there's no hypocrisy. John says, I love you. A daring statement to make. Okay, if I tell my wife I love you, she knows whether I do or not, doesn't she? And she doesn't just hear the words. She thinks of the day or the week, and she thinks of how I have been, and she can say, hmm, well, yeah, you do, or well, you maybe didn't do such a good job. Sad story. Worked for years with a man in Bolivia. Another missionary, not from the assemblies, but he was involved with some of our work. Could never get close to him, and and to tell the truth, I had somewhat of a fear of him. He was kind of hard to get close to. He was older, born in Bolivia, raised in Bolivia, you know, his Spanish was one hundred percent. He spoke a couple of the Indian language, and, you know, kind of just this formidable person. And, uh, seemed to have good exegesis of the word and and all these things, but just something always seemed a little different. And working at a youth camp one year, he's talking to some of the rest of us, and I never tell my wife I love her. I show it. Is that right? I would ask the ladies, but I don't think ladies like that. I mean, they like to be shown, but they also like to hear, right? The two things have to go together. Well, the scary part is this. Unbeknownst to most of us, this man was living in sin all that time. His wife knew it, but she was so afraid. He had made her think it's your fault that I have all these other things going on, extracurricular activities. But you see, he never said he loved her because he couldn't show it. And when he, if he ever did, what was in her mind? Yeah, sure, you love me. Yeah. Well, John could say to Gaius, I love you. And this is something that the elder, this is something that the husband, this is something that the father, this is something that we have to be able to say truthfully, without hypocrisy. Can you truly say to your brother and your sister, to your charges in the Lord, I love you, without thinking, them thinking, what a hypocrite you are? Well, that's a tough one, isn't it? Because we all fail, and maybe we need to confess that to the Lord and say, Lord, help me. Help me to love. We have to love these people. If we had to go to a court of law to prove it, would there be proofs to support what we say? Would there be proofs of our love for our wives, for our sheep, for our children? Some serious, serious things to think about. Let's turn to First Peter, and we did go over this last year, but I think it, it's a good thing to go over again. First Peter chapter one verse twenty two. When we think about this love, you know, it's not that we, we can't, because Romans five tells us that the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts. God, who has loved us, has also poured his love into us so that we can be a vessel of his love to others. And we read in first Peter one twenty two some tremendous thoughts on love. Since, since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again, not of seed which is imperishable, uh, which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding Word of God. When I was saved, and that was several years ago, uh, I was at a, a crusade, uh, an associate of Billy Graham, and I was only twelve, almost thirteen, just a few days from my thirteenth birthday. And I, I knew I was a sinner, there was no doubt about that, and then I understood, yeah, I deserve going to hell, and and but boy, God is offering me salvation. He's offering me life. He's forgiving me. He's giving me. I wanted that, and I took it, and he saved me. But I didn't know that God had some other plans there, and one of his plans in saving me was that I would love other people. And here we have, since you have in obedience to the truth, the day that, that I believed, the day that you believed, God did a number of things, and, and one of the things is he made it possible for me to love other people with his love. Tremendous thing. And we need to realize that it's possible. God has, God has equipped us to do this. We can love each other. And you know, it's hard to love sometimes. It is, it is, it's hard. That's why we need verses like this to encourage us. God has given us this. In obedience to the truth, we purified our souls. Now, uh, that's a something that happened then. It's possible that it's kind of like our positional thing. We're there, we're, we're at that place we can love, but we got to put it into practice, right? We got to put it into practice. Our soul was purified that day, but, you know, there can be a practical purification, and a lot of times I think that's our problem in our love here, is that we allow sin into our life, we don't deal with sin, and so we can't love because we have, it's not that we have to go back and get saved again, but we have to do a little bit of that practicing of purification. We have to recognize, Lord, you know my pride, these are the ones that get in the way. My pride and my selfishness, they're here, and and they're keeping me from loving my wife as you'd have me love her, or from loving my brother or my sister in the body, from loving my neighbor who's lost. And so sometimes we need to do a little inventory, as we were seeing last night, and seeing that God's given us his love, but is it being used for what he intended? Am I loving others, or am I only loving myself? And so we have here a challenge that, well, we've been saved for this. God has this purpose of us loving, and he did that, he made that possible by purifying me, by saving me, but, you know, I maybe need a little foot washing today in this area in order for me to continue in this love. So I would ask, you know, have you, have I, in obedience to the written word of God and to the living word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you ever had an incident in your life where you thought, you know, I'm having trouble with this brother, I'm having trouble with this sister, and, and I'd like to point the finger at them and say the problem is them, but you know, Lord, let me examine myself in the light of your word. Lord, show me. And you came across something in your own life and said, okay, Father, this is sin. And this is keeping me out of fellowship with you and out of fellowship with them, and I'm not able to love them with your love because of this. And you took that to God, confessed it, and repented of it, and then were able to go and love your brother, your sister. We need to do this. We need to be in the word and have it washing us so that we can love our brother. And you know what, in this verse, you notice here that it's not that the reason for loving is not for the brethren, it's in obedience to God. It's to the truth of God. And it's only your heart, only your heart that needs to be clean. Oh, what? What? We all need it. No, no. It's only your heart. It's only my heart. Let's not think of the general group. Think of you. Think of you. Uh, I know that we all need this, but me, myself, the one with whom I'm having the difficulties, that other person, he needs it, but God knows that I can only deal with who? With me, with me. So it's my heart that needs to be purified. Too often we sit and say, yeah, that other person, he needed to hear that message. Oh yeah, talk it to him. But it's me that needs to hear the message, right? It's my heart that the word needs to be applied to. It's my heart that needs to be purified, because then I can love them, whether they love me back or not. So I need to deal with my problem of love. Then as we go on here, this love has a goal. There's an aim. Uh, it's... when he saved us through obedience to the truth, he purified our souls, and the aim was for a sincere love of the brethren. A sincere love. Mm. That's a problem we have a lot of times, isn't it? A sincere love for the brethren or of the brethren. A lot of times our love is not that sincere. And I can't judge you, but I can think of some experiences in my own life, you know, I know we struggle with this. Our love needs to be sincere, and it needs to be of the brethren. Sometimes we only want to pick and choose, don't we? Pick and choose this little group. Yeah, I can love them, but I can't get along with those other people. That's not what God has in mind. His aim is larger. His aim is that we love the body, the whole group, everyone. It's going to take work on our part. And, uh, this love is to be fervent, fervent, fervently love one another from the heart. You know, the lack of fervency causes trouble. Okay, what is fervency? Well, the word means stretch out the hand. Now, when I first got back from Bolivia, I know that I, I scared some people because in Bolivia, being a Latin culture, this is the typical greeting on a Sunday morning, okay? See a brother, grab your hand, give you, you know, not a dead fish handshake, but, you know, put some muscle into that, give you a good few pumps, put this hand around you, put this other one around you, meanwhile his hand's going around you, give you a couple good whaps on the back, a big hug, you know. Ah, right. If you're in Argentina, you'd go one step further. There's that holy kiss, right, with the brothers. Well, we're not quite that way in Bolivia. The lady's the same, they spot the kid on the cheek, okay? Well, you come up to good old North Dakota and the Norwegians and the Germans, and and I'm just culturally not quite with it, and rather than, whoa, you know, whoa, back off. I have to say I've got my mother and Judy Wagger kind of convinced that that is a good thing, and so I get my little bit of Bolivia every meeting when I see them, and we give ourselves a, you know, a hug and a kiss. But I haven't got those guys quite yet into it, yeah. But what a thing. Stretch out that hand, you know? Stretch out. To stretch out the hand. And so the first thing I think of, of course, is that greeting. How do we greet one another? Are we happy to see each other? Are we glad to... Do we love each other? Hey, I'm glad to see you, brother. You know, and extend the hand, but it goes beyond that, doesn't it? It goes beyond that. How about is my hand, spiritually thinking now, and even physically materially, is my hand stretched out to you because I see your need, and I want to minister to that need. I want to do whatever I can to meet that need. That's love, and that's how we have to be, you see. That's how we have to be towards our wives and our kids. That's how we have to be towards our sheep, reaching out, fervency in our love. The, uh, verb form of this word is to boil. Hm? Something to boil. What's usually boiling amongst us? Hm? Our tempers, a little bit upset with one another. But if only it was our love that was boiling over, just bubbling over, like a spring bubbling over, not like a boiling hot pot, but a spring of refreshing cool water. What, what a thing. And isn't that what the Lord had in mind? He said, you know, when they see your love, they will know that you're my disciples, right? They see that boiling over, refreshing love that is not in the world, but it's in us, the day that we believed, God shed abroad his love in our hearts. It's there, we can do it. We need, we need to get on the ball, maybe. And then he says, fervently love one another from the heart. Love one another. All too often, how's our love? In our marriages, how's our love? She doesn't love me, he doesn't love me. In the church, oh, there's no love in this church. You know, a lot of times they're right, because there's no love in them. Love doesn't think of itself, does it? This is agape love here, same as in First Corinthians thirteen where it says love isn't concerned about itself. And when a person says there's no love in the church, what's he saying? I'm concerned about me. I'm not being loved. Right? Love one another. Love one another. Be concerned about the other person getting the love. If you do that, you know, love reciprocates. When, when John wrote to the beloved Gaius, and he could say, I love you in truth, you know what? Gaius loved John too. Gaius loved John, and it comes back. Husbands and wives, when we love each other, you know, if the husband will, will make an effort, it's gonna come back. It's gonna come back to you. So love one another, and from the heart. What kind of love is it that we have? Too often it's just up here, isn't it? It's just that knowledge we know we should, and we say it, but this is from the heart. And so we need to say to ourselves, has my love for my brother and my sister, and let's be specific, has my love for that person that I'm having trouble with, whoever that may be. Has this love of God which is in me caused me to stretch out my hand, fervency, to love them? And notice here, we don't see it in English, but we have love mentioned twice, and they're two different words, two different words. It says that the aim of God in purifying our souls was that we would love, have a sincere love for the brethren. That's phileo. Okay, that's brotherly love. That's kind of the feeling, the fondness love. And so often we talk about, yeah, you know, and I've heard this preached, yeah, well, I love you, you know, I have all kinds, but I love him like a brother, and really what I'm hearing is, you know, I, I can be this way to him. It doesn't matter that I'm hard-nosed and whatever, because I love him like a brother. I, you know, I'm doing this out of agape. But I don't need to have filel waser. But God wants that. But where, how do we get to it? Well, the second love is fervently love agape. It's going to take that agape love. It's going to take that it doesn't matter whether I like this person or not, whether he pleases me as a person. I'm going to love him. I'm going to seek out his needs. I'm going to serve this person with an aim to get to that place where I do like him. I am fond of him. God wants us to be fond of one another. And it should be easy. We're just sons and daughters of God. We're children of God. But it's our sin, right, that we see so easily in the other person and not in ourselves that keeps us apart. Well, God would have us be fond of one another. And so John writes to Gaius, and he says, you know, Gaius, I really love you. And Gaius could think, he could think in his mind of examples of John loving him. And there was no hypocrisy, and I think John is saying this because, Gaius, there's other people that want to tell you that they love you, but they really don't. They really don't, but I do. And so we have this expectation of an elder, and also of us husbands. We know that, boy, the Lord tells us, right, Kevin? Love our wives. Love our kids. We need to love. Now, Bill, what time do you want us to end? We've been going a half an hour. Give us your message. Give us your message. Well, that would be a good place to stop, actually, but, uh... Perhaps we should, maybe... The next expectation is in verse two, and I think it'll take us more than fifteen minutes to get through it, so I'd rather stop here, maybe, if there's other comments for people to make, okay? Does any one of the men have something to share, uh, an insight on this? This aspect of loving each other. Randy, you got something? You're kind of squirming there. The translation I have has love in the truth, that's the word the. Love in truth, which one aspect is a, is a sincere love, but if it's also the truth, what aspect would that convey? Well, as we looked at this last fall, uh, we noticed that, that, uh, love in truth and love in, uh, in the truth. Uh, we could have the aspect of doctrine, okay, the truth. And I think that as we looked at this last fall, we wanted to not separate, uh, truth from what is the written and what is the person. And I think that John was coming from a love that had come from the knowledge, not just as you and I, you know, we have the knowledge that's written here, but that personal knowledge of he who is the truth. The truth. And we have the same thing because we better know the Lord Jesus. We know the Lord Jesus, so it's not just coming from there, but from that knowledge. Now, I don't know if that's what you're thinking of. You, do you have something in, in mind there? Yeah, I thought of that too. Uh, I'm using New American Standard. Uh, Gary Clark was the one who discipled me as I was a young man, and that's what he used. I do have King James, and uh, for many years I didn't use either one. That was just my Spanish Bible. But I noticed that too, the, the use here of in truth and in the truth. And it was interesting as we go down further, uh, in verse three, speaking more of truth. Truth is one of the key words here, mentioned six times in this book. Uh, they bore witness to your truth, it says in my, in my, uh, version, and then a little bit further in into verse four again, the truth. And then, uh, I guess that's the end there. In verse six, it says, bear witness to your love. And so we have that idea of what is the truth, kind of the, the body of doctrine, and John was within that. His love was in accordance to this word. And then we have the idea of, I love you in truth. This is a true thing. It's not a hip- hip- hypocritical thing, which I think he was making a comparison between himself and Diotrephes, uh, because I believe Diotrephes used the language. But I don't think the, the works were there, if you will, the works that accompany true love. That's my take on it. Anybody else? Um, I think, uh, being one of the unlovely people in the world myself, when he talks, he talks in their Peter life, and I'm I'm not sure. No, I would say we don't, but I think that in that day of salvation, that was made possible for us. Absolutely. And so, so what I'm saying there is this. I'm looking at my notes. My notes are kind of all coming from a negative point of view, and so this morning, as I reviewed this, I thought, you know, I don't want to be hammering, but how can we make this a positive thing? But at the same time, we don't want to give ourselves any excuse for not doing this. And to say, well, we can't, that would be wrong, because the love of God has been given to us, shed abroad in our hearts, and he saved us, and and he saved us for many purposes, but one of them is that we would love each other. I think that's, uh, that's clear there. He saved us for that. And praise God. What a difference. You look at our world, look at our world, and and there's people in our very midst who suffer because that love isn't there, but God has made it available to us. And you can see families where the husband is loving the wife, and as parents they're loving their children, and the children are responding, and the Lord's in them. What a blessing to see families like that. brother Kevin, back to that word of truth, I'm thinking of, uh, First Corinthians thirteen, that demonstrates love behind it. Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, But in the truth. rejoiceth in the truth. So what, what of course you're not saying, but the world sometimes does say, is that love means to tolerate everything. Mm. Accept everything. There's something the Lord Jesus hates, such as the days of neglect. Now, we might hate what that person's doing, but if we love them, we'll find a way to point them to overcome it. Amen. But it doesn't mean that it's tough to see the truth. Amen to that. Yeah, we see that right here. Uh, John is going to speak to us later, and we're going to see this as part of that aspect of, of overseeing. Here's somebody who's not abiding in the truth. He's gone beyond. And so I'm sure John loved the Atrophies. But things have to be said. I love my kids. Sometimes I gotta, I got to tell them some stuff, and sometimes that telling gets a little hot, you know, a little warm. Well, not so much anymore. They're a little bigger than they were before. Uh, but we have to be, this is a very good point, see. uh, love is going to discipline. Hebrews chapter five. God disciplines all of us that he loves and has called to be his sons. He disciplines us. And then part of that discipline will be, uh, castigation, if you will, when we're out there, but it's training, and and training is difficult, right, Mary? Two miles, at my age, it's a little hard, but hey, that's what it takes, and God is going to love us. And the elder, the elder is going to have to do that. If we thought of, uh, First Thessalonians, we didn't really look a whole lot at at the elders' job there, but it says that those who rule and admonish. Well, here we in, in John were saying he has to love, but here it says he has to rule and admonish. And we don't like it when people rule over us, tell us what to do and, and instruct us, correct us. That's part of the job, but it's done in love. And as Randy says, we find a way, and this is where my difficulty, I'll be honest with you, and my sons would be able to put a hearty amen into this, that I'm, as I go through this book, I'm learning, Lord, help me to kind of curb the tongue. Yeah, I love them, but do they know that love, and and can I do correction in such a way that that correction takes place, and yet they know they're loved. And so we have to, we have to work on this thing and get to where we can love in truth, we can, we can correct, and yet it's been done in a loving manner. Uh, some young brethren get a hold of some thoughts somewhere, I don't know, and uh, heard one young guy say, yeah, I got to go home and discipline my wife. Wow. Okay, uh, got to talk about that one, you know? And yet, you know, he's thinking, well, you, you discipline those whom you love and all this thing, but of course, when he says, eh, if you ever did that, you'd be missing teeth, and said, well, you know, brother, we got to get a little gracious here. He's young in the Lord. Hopefully there's going to be some changes made there, but love. God loves us and gives us that ability to love. Not easy, is it? Not easy. Hard, very hard, but that's usually because of us. If we can learn to deal with us, instead of worrying about the other person's response, we'll see progress, at least in our lives, and there will be blessing, there will be joy, there will be at least a certain peace in family life, in church life. So I think it's a very important, uh, aspect of being an elder. Any- anyone else? Bill, you got something? You usually have something to say. Paul, Paul of Philippians said, I pray that your love may abound to more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. So growing in love is something we pray for ourselves or ask others to pray for us, and we can pray for others as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's, that's quite often found in Paul's writing. He, he said pretty much the same thing to the Thessalonians. Didn't need to teach them about it, but he wanted it to continue to grow and to grow and to grow, and that's what it should be like, shouldn't it? Fortunately, in a lot of, uh, assembly meetings, you hear the opposite. And so I bring this up because we hear these things, because I struggle with it myself. I think something we need to be reminded of, and, uh, and be careful because there are others out there, and we're going to see this in, uh, one of our other expectations. There are others out there, even as Diotrephes was out there, who will say they love and pretend they're love, but they have an agenda behind it that is not God's agenda, and they're out to get our sheep. And so we need to make sure that we do love this way, and that's going to require our humbling ourselves before God, saying, Lord, what is it in me that I need to get out? Where do I need to be purifying that daily sanctification from the washing of the word so that I can love my brothers and my sisters, my wife, those that, that you've given me, placed in my charge. So the Lord bless, and uh, may we think of this, even this day as different situations come up, and love one another. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your love for us. The love that, uh, we don't understand, but we thank you for the little bit of it that we are able to comprehend, and we look forward to growing in this life and our comprehension of your love, and that would be even comprehension of you because you are love. And then one day, Father, as we thought of earlier, when the Lord Jesus comes and being in his presence, seeing him, what an understanding we have. But we thank you for what you give us now, and we pray, Lord, that you would use it and build upon it and help us, Lord, help us. We need help. Help us as those that are elders to love their flocks, and that that love would be, uh, something that the flock would be able to see and recognize and say, yes, you do love me. Help us as husbands to love our wives, and that our wives would be able to say, yes, he loves me, and our children, and those others that you've so graciously given us to care for, to disciple, to train up, to encourage, and, and, uh, send along. We thank you for these opportunities, and we just pray for your help in Jesus' name. Amen.