So it's a great joy to be able to be with you, again. This had come from a conference in West Palm Beach and the conference was about authentic Christianity. And what is a true Christian? So in the book of 1 John chapter four, verses seven to 11 is a text that covers that concept. In the conference we covered ideas such as, how does a Christian abide in the word? How does a Christian obey? How does a Christian, or how does the family life of someone represent what life of a true Christian is like? And so this topic is how does they love relate to a true Christian? So how does love relate to a true Christian? Let's read 1 John four, verses seven to 11. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God. For God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. So about a month ago, or a little over a month ago, you guys know that in the nightclub downtown, was a Latin night at the homosexual nightclub called Pulse and in which a Muslim shooter killed a number of homosexual people there and other people in that nightclub. And about a week or so afterwards, about a month ago, Holly, not Hollywoods, excuse me, Broadway's brightest stars came together to try and raise money for Orlando's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community.  And what they sang was, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that can save us all. Perhaps you've heard that song from the 1960s and perhaps more than just Pastor Mark. So what's wrong with that? Is that a right definition of love? Okay, so you have a Muslim shooter who has an idea of righteousness and he goes into this nightclub and he decides he's gonna institute righteousness by the righteousness of God, by killing people who are disobeying God's law. And then you have, by and large, most of America now, saying that what we need now to overcome this is love. That's a, both of those have a wrong definition of love. Both of those have a wrong definition of love, whether it's love for God or love for people. How do we rightly define love? God's word must rightly define love for us. We need God to tell us what love is. Not by what happens inside of us, not by our emotions, not by what we think would be nice and how to treat other people. We need God to tell us what love is. And he does here. He does here in this text. He tells us what love is and he tells us why. So this sermon is three reasons why we are to love one another. There couldn't be, there's a few topics more important to talk about that are more central to the Christian life than love. And there are a few ideas that are more, that are misunderstood as much as love. So in our text, first off we have the apostle John telling us, beloved, let us love one another. Now the apostle John being older in this time, he's telling us, he first addresses the audience with a term of affection. He could command us to love. And many times in the Bible that command comes. But here, here it's not a command. Here there's a persuasion. Here there's a motivating. Here he's telling you why to do it. He's trying to draw you in. He's trying to put his arm around your shoulder and say, don't you see the reasons why you're to love one another? He said, beloved, let us love one another. How does John define love? How does John define love? Let's look up some texts and see in the book of first John how love is defined by him. What does it look like? Let's look in chapter three. Chapter three, verse 10 to 12. And we remember here that John is writing so that he's gonna correct Gnostic heresy. And Gnostic heresy has told of a different Christ. A Christ that didn't come in the flesh and is told of a different Christian lifestyle. You don't have, in the Gnostic living, you don't have to live for the Lord. You can have greasy grace. You can live whatever way you want. You can obey the, disobey the law of God and it's okay. That's, and John is gonna correct that. John's gonna correct the false teaching about Christ and say that Christ came in the flesh. We saw him, we handled him, we touched him and he's gonna correct the wrong understanding of Christian living. And in the book, he does that by talking about how obedience is a mark of true Christianity. He talks about how admitting sin is a mark of true Christianity. He talks about how not loving the world is a mark of true Christianity. How perseverance is a mark of true Christianity. How doctrine of Christ being fully God and fully man is a mark of true Christianity. And here, in the book, he talks about how love is a mark of true Christianity. So in chapter three, verse 10, he says, and we're looking now at what is the love that he talks about. In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God. Nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning. That we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not marvel my brother and if the world hates you. We know that we've passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He does not love his brother, abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So how is love defined here? How's love defined here? He gives the example of Cain. Cain is the example of someone who doesn't love. Okay, so Cain, Cain is, what does he do to his brother? He murders him. Okay, so then when God comes to Cain and kind of asks Cain, where's your brother? What is, how does Cain respond? How does Cain respond? Am I brother's keeper? So he doesn't know where he's gonna say, am I supposed to know where he's at? Where's he at? I don't know. Am I supposed to be keeping track of him? Okay, so then consider how there's two different kinds of hate, there's a hate that attacks and then there's a hate that's like, I don't care. Unneglect.  Right, and going and living whatever way he wants. You see the different kinds of hate? Okay, so then what is the love then? If the love is to be opposite, we're not to be like Cain, love would be pursuing, pursuing your brother, your Christian brother. And it would be knowing how your Christian brother's doing. How is your Christian brother's sister doing in their walk? You see? The opposite of Cain, and that's what we do in small group. So do you know how your brothers and sisters are doing? That's not just a pastor's job, that's in everybody's job. Love is in everybody's job, okay? So how does John define love? Let's look at the next example, following along at verse 16, by this we know love because he laid down his life for us. There's how he know love, what God has done for us, laying down his life, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? Okay, here's the next example of love, is you're to lay down what you have for others. So you gotta know about need, you gotta pursue and find where is their need, and how can I fulfill it? What can I do to serve another? What can I do when I see someone in need? Now he's not talking about greed, he's talking about actual need, right? So remember when I'm talking about the bomb on the side of the street corner who's been there for months and months and months and you see him on the same street corner and he is, doesn't get a job and he could be holding a sign for like Pizza Hut or something, twirling it around, instead he's just holding his sign that he made. We're not talking about that, we're talking about somebody who actually needs some food. They actually need a car, they actually need help with provision. So he says in verse 18, my little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but indeed in truth. Let's not just have a sermon about it, but let's actually do something about it. Let's not have a sermon about it, let's actually think about how can we apply it? And what does he say in verse 19? And by this, we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemns this, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. You see, don't you want to have more assurance? Well, that comes when you think less of yourself and you think more of others. So how is love defined? How is love defined? Not just by words, by deeds and truth. We is defined by God, by God who lays down his life for us. Let's look back in our text then, in chapter four verses seven to 11. Well, let me quickly, I'll very quickly go to 1 Corinthians 13, a reminder for you. Let's look there to see and remind ourselves the love that we're to have for others. This text is a particular friend of mine. It is the first text that I prepared to preach was this one and it has remained with me. And when I see this text, you ever seen those pictures where you have all these different colored dots and then when you step back, it produces a picture that you couldn't see up close?  It says in verse four, love suffers long. So how do we know love, what is love? Love is gonna take, is gonna be patient, it's gonna be willing to take pain. It's going to, you're gonna have to suffer in order to love. Love is not defined by when someone treats you nicely. Love is defined by when someone treats you badly and how you treat them back. Love is kind. Do you pursue other loving actions for others? Love hunts down opportunities to be kind. This word can be used of a taste. How would your actions taste towards others? Love does not envy. You see, there's things that love is defined by what it does and by what it does not do. There's no emotions here. There's no, it's not an inward feeling, but instead there's a choice. There's a choice that's made here in this definition of love, a choice that is made for the good of others. There will come emotions and will come attitudes and they will come, but love is primarily not that, but it is primarily the choice to do what is best for someone defined by God. Love does not envy. Love does not, can look at what someone else has and wish to remind. Love doesn't look at somebody who does something better than you and wish that you have it or someone who has a position and you wish that you had it or love doesn't look at what other people have. Instead, it wants the best for others. Love doesn't parade itself, but instead love parades Christ. Love is not puffed up, but love instead meditates on the glories of Christ and the good of others. Love genuinely considers others better than himself. Do you genuinely, when you look at somebody else, do you genuinely believe them to be better than you? Love does not behave rudely. Love considers the effect of your actions have on others. You just don't think, what do I need right now? What do I, what's best for me right now? Instead, you think about the people that you're around and what is the thing I'm about to do? How does it affect them? It reminds us of the old person who limits their liberty in 1 Corinthians. Love does not seek its own. Love is not focused on just what would be pleasing to me. Love is not provoked. Here, love is defined as having a long fuse. It takes a lot to get you angry.  But a humble person has a long fuse. It takes a lot to make them angry. Love doesn't think no evil. Here's a accounting term and addressing that someone who keeps a records of all the sins that have been done against them, that person is not loving. They've forgotten how much they've been forgiven. Love does not rejoice in equity, but it rejoices in the truth. Here, we come back to our analogy about the song where we sing love, sweet love, that's the only thing that will change us all. Well, the definition of love that includes homosexuality is not truth. God defines what is true, God defines what is love. In the truth that revealed from God, the revelation from God, love is defined by not lying but telling someone the truth. Love is defined by not stealing, but instead working hard to give to one another. Love is not defined by being greedy but being benevolent. Love is not defined by cursing God's name but praising his name before others. Love is not defined by loving yourself or loving something, making an idol more than God, but love is defined by loving God with all your heart and soul and mind. Love is defined by the truth. Love is defined by the truth. I often use this analogy about how am I gonna pass out this love and truth go hand in hand like this water and a bottle? Yeah, I can hand you the empty bottle.  Or I can try and give you love without truth and I try and pour out the water in my hands and I'm gonna try and give it to you, pass it off to you. How much is it gonna actually get in your stomach? Almost nothing, almost nothing. Love and truth must go together. Truth must define the shape of your love like the water is shaped by the bottle right now. Truth and love go hand in hand. You cannot have love without the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love bears all things, it's willing to be a roof. It's willing to be a shelter. It's willing to take the pain for somebody else. It's willing to suffer long. Love believes all things. That's like the example of someone in church where you see someone else sleeping in church and you, instead of thinking the worst about them, you believe the best about them. They must have been up all night trying to help somebody or serve and they must be exhausted. It's believing and thinking the best about them. The believing all things is believing the best about them within reason, within reason not to be without discernment. But it believes the best about them and then for the future it hopes the best about them. Not just believes the best about them now but it hopes the best for them in the future. And love endures all things. It doesn't, it's not defined by time but it will define by perseverance. So this definition of love now is what we're called to back in 1 John 4. This definition of love. And now in our text we'll see three reasons why we should love. First, God's people are marked by it. Second, God himself is marked by it. And third, the gospel is a story of it, is a mark of it. So three reasons why we are to love. Verses seven to eight, we see it's a mark of the people of God. Verses, second part of verse eight, it's in God's character and verses nine and 10, it's in the gospel. So first now we're called to love one another because love is of God. You see that in verse seven? All true biblical love, all biblical love comes from God. True biblical love is a divine thing. There is no true expression of love that does not start with or come from God himself. Okay, so you would look back at that and you could say, but you don't understand. I have, I can give you an example of my own life. I have a Catholic grandmother. She doesn't know God but she's given me many kind things. She gave a honeymoon to Hawaii, kind things. Ever since I've known her, all I've known is kind things from her. And I would say, isn't this love? But then when you see the truth is that, for example, when my mother died six years ago, then she has grown very angry with God and it's been made clear that her God is not the God of the Bible, but her God is family. She lives for family. And when God allows her daughter to die, she in return, returns hate towards God. And so is to have an idolatry of family. Looks like love from a certain angle, but then when you look at it from God's viewpoint, you see how it's constant love, not for him, but instead for the gifts that he's given. It's not love. Many people in idolatry are very fervent for their idols. Many people in idolatry are very fervent for their idols. That doesn't mean that it's true love. Whether it's Madonna giving away things in Africa or whether it's Broadway's Brightest Stars trying to raise money. It's not love if it's not defined by God's truth. And all love, all true love is defined by God in 1 John and 1 Corinthians comes from God. It's gotta come straight from him. He's the source of it. If he's not the source of it, it's not real love. That's why it's a mark of salvation. That's why it's a mark of salvation. Look here in verse seven and eight and see. Everyone, everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God for God is love. How is, what is born again? But born again is to be regenerated, to be born from above, to have a new life made in you, spiritual life. You were dead in your trespasses and sins and you're given new life like Lazarus rose from the dead. The dead sinner rises with life inside and love for God and love for others. You can't see where the wind, you can't see the wind but you can see the effects of it. Like being born again. You can't see when someone's born again but you can see the effects of it. How in love for one another. This was very helpful for me personally in looking back and seeing my false profession and seeing my life was not, when I was unsaved, my life, I was amongst the people of God but had no love for them. The person who does not love the church does not love God. You can't say you love the church if you're not willing. You can't say that you love God if you're not willing to love the brother that you do see. You do see. So here is one of the most significant reasons given in the flow of the book. Here's one of the most significant reasons because this fits into the flow of the book as a whole. First John is not written just to explain the gospel. It's written with the gospel in mind, with the gospel as the center and the motivation but as an outworking of showing where is true salvation? Where is true Christianity? So this is why John is writing about love. It fits in the overflow, the flow of the book. Do you wanna have comfort knowing your salvation is true? Do you question your salvation? Then forget yourself, love one another. Forget yourself, love one another. True assurance, remember true assurance is a tripod. True assurance is a tripod, three legs. One leg, the work of Jesus Christ and what he's done on the cross outside of you trusting in him for him to pay for your sins. Second, that that work is real and actual in your life, that his love that he showed on the cross is true in your life. And then third, that it's applied by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit applying to that truth to you so that you would believe it. You wanna have more assurance? Believe in Christ more. Have greater faith in what he's done on the cross. Trust that that's for you. Love one another. Depend on the Spirit to apply that to your soul. That's what the word of God would teach you to do. If you can see a change in your life, of a pattern of selfish behavior to a pattern of biblical love, then be encouraged, be assured, be joyful. Look and see though what the hand of God has done in your life and rejoice. If you cannot see that then humble yourself. Ask, talk to someone that you love, respect. Talk to us as a pastors. Talk about the state of your soul. If you truly don't have this love, sometimes you do have it and it takes someone who loves you to be able to point that out to you when you have weak faith. And sometimes you don't. Talk to someone who knows you well and who's spiritually mature. First, so the first reason that we're to love one another is because the people of God do. They are marked by it, they're known by it. Second, it is in God's character.  Why is love a mark of salvation? Because it's in the nature and attributes of God himself. Notice it says God is love. It doesn't say love is God, okay? It doesn't say God is the love. It doesn't say God is a love. It says God is love. Those differences mean that you cannot take your definition of love and then worship that and say, that's how my definition of love is who God is. That's wrong. Instead, you have the Bible to find that God in part of his character and who he is, is love. And that goes along with God is love. God is light. God is a consuming fire. God is spirit. God is holy. All of these go perfectly together. And not one trumps another. They all go perfectly together in a beautiful perfection. This is a qualitative now. So it describes the quality nature essence of God. God's love is uninfluenced. He's the one who moves first, Deuteronomy 7, 7 to 8. Jeremiah 31, 3, God's love is eternal. It will continue and it has begun from before the foundation of the world. Romans 9, 19, God's love is sovereign. He loves whom he will. And he does that in a perfect way. Ephesians 2, 4 and 3, 19, God's love is infinite. You can't swim to the bottom of it. You can't fly to the height of it. You can't measure the breadth of it. God's love is infinite. John 13, 1, his love is immutable. He loves the unlovable. John 13, 1 is an example of where he loves the unlovable disciples. God's love is holy. Hebrews 12, 6, his love is shown by scourging his children. He will take his children to the woodshed. He will take you and he will give you extremely difficult things so that it washes away, so that it prunes you, so that it takes away sin. That is the love of God, a holy love. God's love is gracious in that he would send his own son. Behold the love of God.  He doesn't just make you, but he loves you. To treasure God is to have a good understanding of the love that he has for you. Does an election do that for you? When you think about how he's chosen you and he didn't have to. When was the last time that you shed tears over the love that God has for you? What a blessed thing the love of God is. Where would you be right now if God did not have the immense love that he does? Where would you be? We've seen that love is in the people of God, a mark of the people of God. We've seen that love comes from God and now look to the final point in verses nine to 11. Love is revealed, made manifest in the gospel. In this the love of God was manifested toward us. That God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. You wanna know love? You wanna see the love of God? Then meditate deeply on this. Believe this, believe this, that God has sent his son. His greatest expression of love is a revealing of himself, a giving of himself. What would make you happiest but to know God?  It's because I'm a pastor for selfish reasons. I'm a pastor because I wanted to know God. I wanted to know God and I thought, where can I get to know God? I'll say the Bible. And where do I get to say the Bible if I'm a pastor? So my motivation for going and being in, going to Guatemala, going to ministry, all that, is because that is where I get to see and know God the most. And there's a byproduct, a benefit of it, being able to serve other people with that. I get, it's like a Sunday. You get whipped cream and cherry on top of already the ice cream underneath. But what is the ice cream for me? What is the heart of that? It is that I get to know God and look at what God gives. What, look how love is expressed. Not in sending an angel, not in sending a another, just another prophet or another preacher, but he sends himself, he comes to this planet. He walks on this dirt. He looked at the same son that you looked at. He looked at the same stars. And he comes. What love is this? How costly is it to the Son of God to leave the praises of heaven and receive the curses of us? He sent what love from the Father that he would send his son.  Some people would die for their dogs, right?   I don't know if any, I don't think anyone would do that.  Never, then we were farther, we're a farther distance from him. We're closer to a dog. That distance between a dog and us is closer than our distance between God and us. And he sent his only son, his only unique son. Here, the term monogonace, unique, one of a kind, incomparable. It does not mean mate. It does not mean mate. He is God, he is and always has been God and always will be God. And so the love of God is shown, but how God has sent his only son into the world. Look at all that phrase. You think, you see God and you see what the love of the Father, you see sent and you think of what Jesus Christ has done.  Look at the sin in there. What a beautiful economy of words. God would have to write this book in order to communicate such an immense love in such a short amount of words. And to what result? What gift does he give that we might live, that we might live, that we might live through him. We have physical death coming for us. We will end up in a casket. We are born spiritually dead.  But look at the life that we might live in all those ways that we might have spiritual life in our souls. We might love what we ought to love that we would have eternal life that we would have, that we would die but we will be raised again one day. Behold the love of God. You may say, but yes, I see that he's loving but I don't know that he loves me in particular. I see that he loves his church but I don't know that he loves me. And I would say to you, faith, faith is what you need. Faith, believe it, trust it. Believe it, trust it. Christ died for the ungodly. You know I've repeatedly said that to you. I've said it to you many times. Christ died for the ungodly. You are ungodly. So why should Christ have not have died for you? Believe it, what's the point of that? Of saying that? Because if you can believe you're ungodly, that's not that hard, right? To believe that you're ungodly? Praise God for this grace in us. I'm looking at a crowd where I can say that. I'm looking at a crowd where I can say that. If you know that, it's not that hard to believe that because you know by the grace of God. So then make the link, make the link that since you know you're ungodly and Christ died for the ungodly, you know those two truths, then believe that truth for you. Believe it for you. You can say, but there's nothing lovable in me. And I would reply that that's the definition of love, to love the unlovable. And you can say, well, I won't love him back like I should. And I say once again, God has loved the ungodly. He will help you to love him more. Look at verse 10. He can't help pointing out another aspect. He says, in this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. He can't help and point out the contrast of sin. He can't help but point out the darkness of the night with the brightness of the rising sun. He's got to point out the darkness here so that you would treasure the rising sun, the light of God's love. And this is love, not that we love God. We didn't love God. We love and we are slavish in our love. We love because someone gives us money. We love because someone's strong. We admire athletes. We admire musicians. We love because we admire someone who serves us. We love because we see someone beautiful. We love because of family. They're near relation to us. So we love because of positions. But Christ freely loves. Christ loves not because of any of those things. He loves the poor. He loves the weak. He loves those who have hated him. He loves the ugly. He loves those who are his enemies. He loves those who are lowly. His love is the freest love. We love and it's a show. We love and it's flattery. We love and it's deception. That's what flattery is. You tell somebody that something that's not true so that they would treat you nice. Like, do I look fat in this? You lie to them in order so that things would be good for you. Not in order to be good for them. But Christ's love is not a flattery. It's not a deception. It is the truest love. His love is genuine. Our love is weak. His love is strong. Look at the strength of the love of God and what he has done, what he's doing and what he will do. The strength of God's love is expressed in what he's done. He came. It's expressed in the gospel. It's expressed in him interceding. It's expressed in him preparing a place for you. It's expressed in what he will do. It's expressed in how he will keep you. It's expressed in how he will make all things work together for your good. It's expressed in how he will stand by you in death. He'll carry you on to glory. He'll raise you up into a glorified state. The love of God is the surest love. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it, Philippians 1-6. The love of God. That he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Another beautiful expression of the love of God. This is another twisted term, like monogany. This term has been redefined by many through the years. They say, people who don't like the idea of the wrath of God, they say, this is just expiation. This is just delivering of guilt. But rightly defined, this is a satisfaction of the wrath of God against us and a delivering from guilt. Both of these things, both of these things, I call to your memory.  Jesus Christ is receiving the praise of the angelic host of the seraphim saying, holy, holy, holy. And he lays aside this, these praises of heaven. He comes off the throne of heaven.  He becomes a baby in a womb. And he humbles himself to come out in blood and fluid. He humbles himself to take on flesh. And he humbles himself to learn obedience, not just to know it experientially, to be able to learn to submit to his parents, to be able to learn to submit to his teachers, to be able to grow before God and man. And in his humanity and his deity, he experiences through, in his humanity, all the things that we have. And he does so in a sinless way. Why am I talking about this, the incarnation? Because his active obedience is necessary in order to be the propitiation for our sins, all that he's done in humbling himself to learn to say, yes, mommy, to acknowledge Mary's authority as a little child. For him to learn that is for love, love that he would be the propitiation for our sins. And he's tempted by the devil and doesn't give in. He's tempted by his eyes. He's tempted by what his body feels and tells him to do. And he doesn't give in. Not a single sinful thought, no temptation takes him. And praise God, praise God, our deliverer has come. Praise God, the only one who could be the propitiation for our sins, our only hope, our only hope is victorious over sin, Satan and the world. Unstained by it, unstained by it, he goes to the cross. And he bear in his humanity and deity, he takes on the full wrath. He takes on the horrors of hell. He takes on the screams of the damned. He takes on all what would take an eternity to pour out on you. He takes on all of hell in a matter of hours. And he drinks it all. He drinks it all and he says to tell us die, to tell us die. It is paid in full. It is paid in full. And the wrath of God is satisfied in his active and passive obedience.  And he rises to the third day. And his atonement, his payment for sin is the wrath of God is satisfied. And we have a God. We have a God who is just, who pours out and pays sin. We have a God who is a justifier, one who forgives in Christ Jesus. That is the love of God. It answers the Muslim.  Here is true love.  Here is true justice. Not in a legalism, but in God laying down his life for the payment of sin. Beloved, if God so loved us, verse 11, we also ought to love one another. Don't you remember the servant who was forgiven the billion dollar debt? And then he goes out and strangles the guy who owes him a thousand dollars. The same principle is true here. If God loved you so much, could you not love your brother? Could you not love your brother? That's why it's a mark of salvation. How can you say you've received the love of God? If you don't, who you don't see, if you don't love your brother, who you do see? Let us love one another. Because one, it's a mark of the people of God. Two, it's a mark of God himself. And three, it's in the gospel. That's how the love of God is revealed. Let's pray. Dear God, we know that your love is greater than we can talk about now or listen to now or read about now. We know that your love, the way you've written on these pages in front of us, is greater than an angel could express, let alone a man. So God, help us. Help us with tired bodies. Help us with dull hearts. Help us, Lord, to see what you're communicating here. Help us to see the significance, the weight of it. Help us to see the truth of it. We can know with our minds this is the greatest truth that we can be conceiving of. Help us now drive it deep into our souls. We pray. Lord, we pray that we would be changed by your love, that you would help us to be motivated by this. Help us to grow. Every one of us needs to grow in patience. Every one of us needs to grow in kindness. Every one of us needs to grow in humility, controlling our temper, defining love by not by our own experiences, but instead by your word. Help us, Lord. Help us now, we pray. We're hopeless and helpless without your word. Hopeless and helpless without your spirit to apply these truths in our hearts. So we pray fervently, Lord, help us to do so. Thank you so much. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your great love. Thank you so much. Amen.


In an interview, we cannot ask our research question as is. Had I asked Sher Singh what real art signifies and what transformations have come about in the art practice over time, it is possible I wouldn't have got much of an answer. Instead, Sher Singh and I had many conversations which led me to understand the place of painting in his life and in the life of his community. We talked about how he started painting, who taught him to paint and why they were painting on paper. We discussed how his status in the community was connected to his art and many such topics. Some of these conversations were prompted by questions that I had prepared beforehand. But some others emerged organically. Among these was the origin story about why the veils paint. But I had to prepare for these organic meandering conversations. This involved putting together a set of questions that would help me understand Sher Singh's relationship with his art. For many researchers, this is where the preparatory work for an interview begins with designing an interview guide. At its simplest, the guide is a set of topics or questions which we hope to discuss with our participants. But it is not a laundry list of questions which we can rattle off and then expect participants to answer them one by one. It is an attempt at designing and structuring the conversations we want to have so that we may learn about particular phenomena. So how do we exactly prepare? First, we must understand the basic structure of an interview. It is often like a wave. It starts slower and easy as the researcher and participant get to know each other. The intensity rises as we near the middle where we approach more complex topics and then it pulls off with simpler discussions towards the end. We are likely to have a limited period of time within which to conduct the interview. In this limited time, we need to hear from the participant as much as possible and therefore we need to ask questions or introduce topics that are important to us. For this to happen, we must plan ahead to ensure we have enough time. In an hour-long interview, we can hope to ask eight or maybe ten questions in all. Any more than that may leave the participant feeling too tired. The first few questions of any interview which may take up the first ten minutes or so are likely to be generic questions. With these, we open the conversation and put our participants at ease. The next few questions are the core questions. With these, we hope to generate complex discussions for which we need to factor in time. In this part of the interview, participants are likely to also introduce new topics. And for these two, we need to leave some time. We may have 30 to 40 minutes in all for eight to ten questions of this kind. And the last few minutes is where we ask a couple of relatively simple questions to wind down the conversation, just like the wave. Let us take a closer look at the different parts of this interaction. The first few questions are meant to build rapport between the participants and us, where we introduce them to our research. In this stage of the discussion, we try to introduce them to the interview process and include procedural clarifications. We request for their consent to have the interview, the permission to record and discuss their right to the recorded material and so on. Some researchers like to prepare a small note telling the participants about themselves and the research. A written version of this sometimes doubles up as a consent form. Our initial questions are designed to give us some background knowledge about our participants. We can start with questions about where they grew up, what they do for a living, the different cities they may have lived in and so on. Something that gives us a sense of their journey so far. Introducing themselves to us in their own way helps participants settle into the conversation. What we learn at this stage can help us contextualize the events that are brought up later in the conversation. Let us reflect for a moment on what kind of opening questions we may ask. Here's a scenario from an interview. A researcher prepared a guide to interview her participant, a woman in her mid-thirties. She began the interview by asking, what is the profession of your spouse? Do you think this was a good opening question? Why or why not? Think for a moment and write down your responses. Some of you may have said that this is a good opening question. It gives us some information about the participant and starts of the conversation on a neutral note. Some of you may have disagreed. You may have said the question is too personal or that it is based on certain assumptions. You are right. In asking such a question, the researcher is assuming that the participant is married and there is the additional assumption that her spouse has a profession. Both of these assumptions are quite problematic. The assumption that she has a spouse can be seen as judgmental and perhaps prying. Particularly in a society where men and women in their mid-thirties are often expected to be married. And by asking about her spouse's profession and not hers, the researcher is suggesting that the participant does not have a profession or that her profession is not as important as that of a spouse. A good opening question in this case may have been something less personal or more casual. Like asking someone how their day has been so far or asking them what their interests are or simply by asking them to tell us something about themselves. This way the participant can choose what they would like to share with us. From these opening questions, we move on to the core questions. These are the questions that relate to our central research topic. Discussions around these usually take a lot of energy and thought. So we give them plenty of space in our guide. We try to place them right after the opening questions so that they are not left for the end. Because by then, participants may be too exhausted or overbend to continue with intense discussions. As we have said earlier, our questions cannot be a direct translation of the research question. They are often formulated by deconstructing our research question. In drafting the core questions, we try to maintain a certain focus. Not everything that we need to learn can be formulated in words. So we put in those topics which can be best discussed through a verbal conversation. Interviews are best for learning about our participants' particular experiences. So we design our guide to seek out personal histories and experiences. We ask participants to share with us their personal opinions and perspectives. And through personal narratives, we can also try to grasp how a phenomena is situated in their society. That is, how is it experienced and perceived by others like them? Let us take an example to understand this better. Imagine that I am working on a project which requires me to understand the use of machines and tools by workers in a factory. As part of my fieldwork, I am going to interview a female employee who has been working there for almost a decade. I want to learn from her about her experiences of operating machines. I also want to learn her particular experiences as a female worker. That is, as a woman operating machines which were not necessarily designed for different genders. And I want to learn how her experience with these machines may have changed over the years. Can you suggest some questions that I should include in my interview guide? Take a moment to write them down. I hope you wrote down some questions that I can use during the interview. Here is a list that I made and see how many of yours matches with mine. What are the tasks you are expected to perform? Are there tasks that are segregated by gender or age? What tasks are these? Which tools or machines do you operate? Can you describe the process? What characteristics or skills does a person require to carry out these operations? Does it help to be tall or short? Does it require physical strength or flexibility? Are there certain tasks which you feel more comfortable performing than others? Can you describe these to me? What are the tasks which you feel uncomfortable doing? Or which you dislike? What do you dislike about them? Do you feel like your ability to operate machines in the factory has changed over the years? In what way? Through the discussion these questions generate, I hope to understand the particular experiences of this participant. Additionally, I may learn about the more general experiences of female workers at the factory and of workers who are in the same age group as her. I may also learn how the machinery and the tasks in the factory have changed over the last decade. This is one part of designing our guide, its structure and the content of the core discussion. The other part is its details, framing questions, structuring the discussion around every topic, moving from one topic to another and so on. We will discuss these in our next section.