68a) The Church Ministering to Itself in Love #2

The point: Direct people to understand that true love for brethren is most profoundly shown in secret intercessory prayer.

The duty to pray for one another is compared to the self-evident need to breathe to live, illustrating that some commands are so fundamental they don't need explicit articulation.

Number one, that the duty is so self-evident that it's difficult to find God commanding explicitly what is as self-evident as the need to breathe. If you want to live. I don't know a command in the Bible that says you ought to draw in your next breath if you expect to live. But because it isn't there, if you think because you can't get a text for it, you're at liberty to stop breathing, then go ahead and make your choice.

1:22 - 1:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Direct people to understand that true love for brethren is most profoundly shown in secret intercessory prayer.

Martin recommends Donald Carson's book, describing it as revolutionary for his own prayer life and exhorting his elders to read it, illustrating the practical impact of good theological resources on intercessory prayer.

and certainly our Lord Jesus is eminently the one who prays for his brethren in the community he has redeemed by his own blood and called by his own grace ever lives to make intercession for them and the Apostle again, then and again could say in his letters how much he prayed for individuals and for groups of churches and then even gives a distillation of the burden of his prayer for them. Now along this line I want to recommend a book that I'm working through right now and have found it nothing short of revolutionary in certain aspects of my own prayer life. It's Donald Carson's A Call to Sp...

3:18 - 4:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate fervent love that covers a multitude of sins, being a 'blanket factory' rather than a 'magnifying glass factory' for brethren's faults.

The believer's heart should be a 'blanket factory' to cover sins, not a 'magnifying glass factory' to amplify faults, illustrating the disposition of love that covers a multitude of sins.

in the hands of the risen Lord not only to keep that group healthy but it also has a powerful repelling influence to those who simply want to jump on the church bandwagon as a social club they will sense look if you're not serious about being holy amongst these people serious enough to welcome these people lovingly getting in your face not just the padres doing their thing on Sunday but throughout the week the rank and file being their brother's keepers no man dared join himself to them but the Lord added such as should be saved and we must lay this responsibility upon the consciences of our p...

9:09 - 10:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Inculcate in your people the truth that unforgiveness leads to damnation, constantly laying before them the attitudes and activities of mutual forgiveness.

The story of the master and the unforgiving servant from Matthew 18 is used to illustrate the severe consequences of failing to forgive a brother from the heart, linking it to damnation or forgiveness.

where do I have this that I do work that move towards us and then the only petition he amplifies is that one, if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly father forgive you your trespasses and then the frightening indictment of our Lord in Matthew 18, 21 where the master takes the servant who ostensibly having been forgiven much and ought to have a spirit suffused with the wonder of that forgiveness, gets his fellow servant by the throat and is ready to choke him demanding all that he owes him remember what the Lord Jesus said so shall my heavenly father do to every one ...

11:35 - 13:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Get over hang-ups about physical contact and embrace biblical physical expressions of affection, adjusting manifestations to culture but not de-physicalizing the command.

The example of a woman expressing affection to Jesus by wiping his feet with her tears is used to argue against legalism regarding physical contact and to justify physical expressions of love among believers.

1 Corinthians 16.20 the same imperative 1 Thessalonians 5.26 and then 1 Peter 5.14 greet one another with the kiss of love there's the different nuance of Peter the kiss of love not of eros not of sensuality but the kiss that is born out of genuine internal spirit wrought love that is finding expression in keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and brethren you have a responsibility to get over your own hang-ups about physical contact with other men and assuming that any physical contact with women must of necessity be sensual and must be a stumbling block if the Son of God let a...

15:58 - 17:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Set before your people the responsibility and privilege of aggressiveness in hospitality.

The observation of men in his church hugging without embarrassment is used as a personal anecdote to show that conforming practice to biblical instruction, even against upbringing, leads to genuine expressions of love.

now if you can get me off that dilemma of saying how we can be physicalized those commands you'll help me because it's meant I've had to put behind me so much that was part of the baggage of my upbringing and conform my practice to my Bible and I didn't inherit it as part of my personal or ecclesiastical heritage and when you see a bunch of men around here who hug without embarrassment that didn't happen it came out of explicit Biblical instruction dealing with the internal issues dealing with the proper Biblical expression of it but then they're not only in the social is there the physical co...

17:26 - 18:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate sympathetic identity with each other's joys and sorrows, weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice.

The practice of church members providing meals for new mothers or sick individuals is given as a concrete example of the church ministering to itself in material ways, often without direct leadership involvement.

are the righteous describes them in terms of these very things they identified with their brethren in their affliction and in their periods of unusual trial I was in prison and you visited me sick and you came to me naked and you clothed me in as much as you did it unto the least of these my little ones you did it unto me and then there is the physical and the material in which the people of God are privileged and mandated to demonstrate that they understand that they are body that they are a family and here again several pivotal texts Romans 12 and verse 13 distributing to the necessity of th...

20:23 - 21:51 Read in full sermon

The point: Continuously work the soil of the human heart through biblical exhortation, counsel, and admonition to pull out weeds of self-centeredness and indifference.

The human heart, individually and corporately, is compared to a field that, if left alone, will be full of weeds (self-centeredness, indifference) that choke out good plants, illustrating the need for continuous 'working of the soil' through biblical exhortation.

your elders had no hand in that first thing we know first time we know about it is when we see a notice on a Wednesday night to read at a prayer meeting dear brothers and sisters at Trinity thank you for the meals brought in for the last three weeks now how does that happen folks that didn't just happen in this cold dog eat dog northeast section of the country that didn't just happen there was a lot of working of the soil and it won't continue unless there is a continuous working of the soil by the tender of these things by exhortation by exposition all of those means may not need to be the sa...

21:51 - 23:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not shut up your bowels of compassion when you see a brother in need, but love in deed and truth, not just in word.

God's 'bowels' being open to us in our need, leading to Gethsemane and Golgotha, is used as an analogy to show that if His love is in us, it should lead to open compassion for others in need.

that you didn't respond to a need and you say I'm not omniscient did I ever claim to be omniscient and be in all places at all times and know all things and you must not be bullied into false guilt because you're not omniscient but John says he that sees his brother have need and deliberately shuts up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him he saw us in our need and his bowels were open to us and the opening of his bowels cut a swath of Gethsemane and the horrors of Golgotha but if that love is in you then certainly it doesn't lead you to shut up the bowels of you...

23:19 - 24:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not be weary of reminding your people again and again of their duties in the area of Christian experience, engaging in 'holy nagging' to stir them up.

Peter's intention to 'stir up' believers by putting them in remembrance is likened to a wife 'nagging' her husband to do something he should have done, reframing persistent reminders as 'holy nagging' for spiritual growth.

Jesus said by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one to another John 13 35 and then I've listed John's constant emphasis in first second third John and then one of the texts that I hope when I go to my grave and people say what were his ten favorite texts this will be one that a number will remember where Peter says look I'm going to tell you these things not because you don't know them not because you're not doing them he said you know these things and you're even established in them but I think it meet or I think it right as long as I'm in this tabernacle as l...

32:09 - 33:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not be weary of reminding your people again and again of their duties in the area of Christian experience, engaging in 'holy nagging' to stir them up.

The elders' decision to rope off pews to encourage people to sit closer together due to attrition is a personal anecdote illustrating the need to apply biblical principles of unity and mutual care even to seemingly mundane issues like seating arrangements.

is that what you call nagging Peter says I'm going to engage in some holy nagging and the difference is they were doing it is that what he says verse 12 I'll be ready to put you in remembrance though you know them and are established in the truth that is with you wasn't that they were ignorant or that they were presently lessening their grasp upon these truths they knew them they were holding them but he said I'm going to stir you up they're so important I want you to hold them all the more firmly stir you up by putting you in remembrance and so we could do a lot worse and have people say well...

33:12 - 34:41 Read in full sermon