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South Bay SDA Church

Eric Nelson

Walk in Love

It was 2002, actually 2 days ago, December 16, 2002, and a conspiracy was hatched.

The conspirators were myself, Phil and Sherry Mills, my brother-in-law Phil Mills, Jr., and Ruthie Mills.

Now noticeably absent from this conspiracy was Rachel.

And as the conspiracy proceeded, I needed to find some time to be alone with Rachel.

I had gotten an old box of a cassette tape.

So I had a cassette tape box, and I wrapped it up.

And I had a nice little poem that was going to go along with this gift.

And the conspirators helped me find a time to be alone with Rachel.

So Rachel enjoys seeing Christmas lights.

And this time of year, there's many people who put up Christmas lights.

So for some context, pretext or another, Ruthie and Phillip said they weren't interested in seeing Christmas lights, and So Rachel likes seeing Christmas lights, and I like spending time with Rachel.

There weren't as many Christmas lights that year as there had been in the past, and we were struggling to find them.

So finally I said, well, there's a few Christmas lights there, let's park here.

And I gave Rachel this gift, this small wrapped-up box that was empty with this poem.

This is a very special gift that you can never see.

The reason that it's special is it's just for you from me.

Whenever you are lonely or when you're feeling blue, you only have to hold this gift and know I think of you.

And about that time where we had parked, I became acutely aware it was not a great place to carry out this conspiracy because a homeless person rattled by right in front of our car with their cart.

1 of the wheels wasn't working very well.

And they went around back of the car and I noticed for the first time, Oh, there's a dumpster back there.

And they started looking through the dumpster for things they could put in their cart.

We looked for some more Christmas lights.

Eventually we found some Christmas lights.

And we got out and we walked around and I noticed something else.

And that is that many people who put up Christmas lights have very large windows on the front of their house and they're sitting there looking at their Christmas lights.

Eventually I found a house where there was a large tree, large tree in their front yard that had been decorated.

And so I was able to get on the side of the tree opposite the large window so they couldn't see.

And I got down on both knees and I asked Rachel, will you marry me?

To which she replied, you've got to be kidding.

But there was enough in the body language of the way she said that, that I wasn't completely disheartened by that reply.

But it took a few more moments as we're walking back to the car for me to elicit that that actually meant yes.

And as we walked back to the car, We Walked in Love.

The title of our sermon today is Walk in Love.

Dear Jesus, I ask that you will teach each 1 of us something new today about love, about our lack of love, and what it is you want to do about it.

We stopped at another set of grandparents.

We told everybody that we are going to be getting married.

The news had to be shared with everybody because love was very important to us.

Now let me ask what might seem a stupid question as well.

Why couldn't we be Christians and not really consider love that important?

So God is love, and we're called to love others.

We're called to love the brethren specifically.

That's how other people will know we are Christians.

We're going to look this morning at many passages of Scripture.

Our first passage of Scripture is 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 9.

I will read in your hearing, but as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love 1 another.

If God wants to teach you something, what is something he's probably going to be teaching you?

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Walk in Love

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