One of the biggest questions people ask when they come to Christ is simple:
What does life look like now?

Jesus said something simple and powerful in his teachings found in
Matthew 22:34-40

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

This is what it means to be a part of God’s family. Everything we have talk about the last few weeks can be summed up with these two simple truths:

Love God with everything Love people with everything.

The first one seems simple enough, but we all know that it’s not. Loving God with everything means making Him Lord. It means your life is no longer your own. It means you trust His way over yours.

If we were all to be really honest, right now, we could find at least one thing that we’re not allowing God to be Lord over, which in turn means that we aren’t loving God with everything.

This doesn’t mean that we aren’t saved. But let’s be real, do you love everything about your spouse? I know Alexis hates when I trim my beard because no matter how hard I try I don’t clean up all the hairs.

Now, what about loving people?

Loving people is simple — but it’s not easy.
Because sometimes love costs you.

Luke 9:23
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Isn’t this what Jesus showed us when he went to the cross?

Going to the cross was not in his best self interest, but as Hebrews 12 says for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.

Showing love isn't always about laying your life down for them. Sometimes the love you show people is about how you endure the hardships that they’re going through with them.

How do we effectively do this? I believe there are two things that we need to focus on:

1. How We Love

The question is then, what does the Bible teach us about love?

1st Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Patient, kind, selfless, humble, pleasant, not irritable, doesn’t hold things over people, mourns wrong doing, celebrates the truth, bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. This is what love does.

If you want what love gives, do what love does.
Here’s the truth.

You can’t give what you haven’t received.

1 John 4:7–8 (NLT)
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. It’s choosing someone else’s good over your own.

We experience love when someone chooses patience, kindness, humility, and sacrifice for us.

This is what God has offered to us. Jesus came to the earth to be the example of how we love. The grace, mercy, and kindness he extends is the example set for us to love. It’s the standard he has set for us. It is how he wants us to lead our life.


Romans 5:8 (NLT)
“God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

We need to understand that love initiates.
This is the example God gave us through Jesus. Ladies, do want to have to tell your husband every time you want flowers?

Are we doing what love does?

First off, we need to answer this question: Am loving God like this?

When this question came to my mind as I wrote this, I wrestled with it. I started to think “How can I be patient and kind to God?”
Maybe it’s when life gets tough instead of blaming God or asking where he is at, I am patient and wait for Him to deliver me. Maybe I am kind to Him by understanding that He fulfills His word and I know that He will never leave me or forsake me.

Side note: With God it’s pretty simple, obedience is kindness.

I could go on and on with each one of these. We can’t say we love God with everything if we’re holding parts of our lives back from Him.

He has already given everything to us, are we going to do the same for Him?

The second question: Am I loving people like this?

John 13:34 (NLT)
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.”

This one is difficult for me. Over the summer a person that treated me pretty poorly had some pretty serious things happen in their life. And when I found out about it without hesitation, I knew that I needed to go and visit with them.

I had already made up my mind before I could really process the situation. And the longer I sat on it the more my flesh wanted justice instead of grace.

And I know many of us in here are in a similar situation, but let me remind you, God made sure that we would have the opportunity to not get what was coming to us, so if you wanna love people with everything then you need to be a conduit of God's love, not a conduit of justice.

And this is hard because everything in us wants to get even, wants to see them suffer for what they've done, and so many other feelings and emotions.

Love doesn’t wait for people to deserve it.

Biblical love moves toward people, sacrifices for them, forgives them, serves them, and reflects Christ — because it was first received from God.

1 John 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.

We have to remember that how we choose to love people is in direct correlation with how we choose to love God. So here is a good question to ask:

Am I loving God's people the way God does?

So let me make this really practical.
This week, loving people might look like:
Choosing patience instead of sarcasmChoosing forgiveness instead of justiceChoosing presence instead of avoidance

This doesn't mean you know them, have relationship with them, or even like them. But there's still an expectation to love the people around you the way God loves you.

And so even in How we love, it comes back down to this:

2. How We Live

As we were winding down 2025 and moving into 2026, I really started praying and seeking God on what he wanted me to focus on in the new year. And one thing kept popping up and that was holiness.

I believe that the wave of holiness that is going to come through our church, our city, and the surrounding areas is going to change everything.

In 1st Peter it says this:
1 Peter 1:15
15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
There is an expectation that we are supposed to be holy. The problem is that well meaning christians with poor understanding made holiness into a works based achievement and status symbol.

Holiness isn’t a status symbol for Christian’s, it is a call by God for us to step out of a worldly culture and step into a set apart kingdom culture.

The kingdoms culture is on holiness. Why? Because God is holy.

Every time we see someone in the word, be taken up to heaven in a vision or dream. The angels are always crying out, “Holy holy holy is the Lord God, Almighty.”

Isaiah 6:3
3 And one called to another and said:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”[b]

The church talks about holiness a lot but what actually is it?
Holy means set apart, distinct, and pure — completely separate from common use.

That means that God is commanding us to be set apart, distinct, and pure, and completely separate from common use.

Are you walking in holiness or hole-iness?

Imagine your life is a bowl that God wants to fill.
God’s desire has always been to fill us with His presence, His peace, His power, and His love.

But sin doesn’t just break relationship, it creates leaks. Every unconfessed sin, every hidden compromise, every area we refuse to surrender creates a hole.

And God is faithful to pour. But what He pours in can’t stay where there’s no integrity.

It’s not that God isn’t willing to fill us. It’s that sin creates places where what He pours in can’t remain.

God wants to fill us and then send us. But correction always comes before commissioning.

We need to practice repentance.

Repentance is turning away from sin and turning towards God.

Isaiah encounters God's holiness and the first thing he says is "woe is me” he's lamenting in this moment, he's grieved. No one confronted him, there's no explanation, there was just God's present holiness.

And he confesses what his sin is. Isaiah’s sin touched the very thing God called him to do.

But then we see what happens next, he is cleansed. This is what God's holiness produces in us. It makes us aware of what holes we have. So we can confess and God can come in and restore.

Once we are restored it’s now time for us to walkout holiness.
How?

By walking out the what Jesus told are the greatest commandments.
Love God with everything Love people with everything.

Everything we’ve talked about today comes back to love.
Not the love we try to manufacture, but the love God has already poured out.

You cannot love God fully and live casually. And you cannot experience God’s love deeply and remain unchanged.

The issue for most of us isn’t that we don’t want to love God or love people. It’s that we’ve allowed holes to remain in our lives that keep God’s love from staying. Some of us keep asking God to fill us, but we keep resisting His correction. And God is too loving to pour Himself into something He knows will leak.
Before we respond, I want to give you language for what God may already be doing in your heart.
Holiness starts with three simple steps:
Identify. Confess. Surrender.

Identify the area that’s leaking.
Confess it honestly to God.
And surrender it fully — not halfway.

The question isn’t do you want more of God. The real question is are you willing to let God fix what’s been leaking? Because God doesn’t just want to fill you, He wants to fill you fully. And some of us keep asking God to pour out His love, His peace, His presence…but we keep resisting His correction.
Not because we don’t love Him, but because correction feels uncomfortable, and surrender feels costly. Holiness isn’t God pushing you away.

Holiness is God loving you enough to make you whole.

Today isn’t about shame. It’s not about exposure. It’s about invitation. If there is an area of your life that is not under the lordship of Jesus, today is the day to bring it into the light.

God is not standing over you with condemnation. He’s standing before you with love.
And the same love that forgave you is the love that will transform you. So if you know there’s something God has been putting His finger on, an attitude, a habit, a relationship, a pattern, a compromise, don’t harden your heart.

Holiness starts when we stop hiding and start surrendering.

If you haven’t confessed Jesus as lord and believed in your heart, we want to do that today.

Before I pray, if God is calling you to surrender an area of your life, I want you to step out and come pray. If everyone could bow their heads, and close their eyes.

If you need to confess Jesus as lord today, will you raise your hand?
Let’s pray.