Love of the Brethren

The Walk That Pleases God and the Necessity of Regeneration

0:07 I trust by now that all of you who have been here over the past few weeks are aware that the general theme and subject of the last two chapters of this letter is set before us in the first verse of chapter 4. It has to do with the walk that pleases God and God's will that we abound in that kind of a walk. Finally then, brethren, or furthermore, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk, that ye abound more and more. This then is the theme, the life that pleases God and how to abound in that life. I remind you also that this is the children's bread and must not be given to dogs. If you are here this morning a stranger to the grace of God, a stranger to the regenerating work, the Holy Spirit, a stranger to conversion, then it is impossible for you to please God, for God expressly says so in Romans 8 and in verse 8, that they that are in the flesh cannot please God. So though you might attempt to bend your life to the teaching of chapters 4 and 5, and in great measure you might succeed in the outward semblance of these things,

1:36 every bending of the life to these things, standards upon the foundation of an unregenerate state is simply the stench of self-righteousness in the nostrils of God. If you're a stranger to God's grace in regeneration and in conversion, then chapters 4 and 5 are utterly unattainable for you. You cannot please God. But if, like the Thessalonians, the gospel has come to us not in word only but in power, if like them we have turned, turned to God from our idols, chapter 1 in verse 9, then it is absolutely essential for us to take seriously the teaching of chapters 4 and 5 in order that we might be more pleasing unto our God as we abound in the walk that He directs us to walk. From then, that general area of teaching, he moves specifically into an expression of the will of God, verse 3, this is the will of God, even your sanctification, specifically in the matter of sexual purity. And we've spent four weeks working through this very important section seeing that Scripture does not take the matter of man's sexuality and brush it under the rug, but it sets it before us as the gift of God in creation, the possession of God in redemption,

3:02 and tells us that the way to avoid sexual impurity is by the full acceptance of our sexuality and our sexual purity. As the creative gift of God, as the redemptive possession of God, and subjecting it to the standard of God, thereby to glorify Him. And anyone who rejects that biblical standard, the Apostle Paul says in enforcing this teaching, three things that we considered last week. He exposes himself to the judgment of God, verse 6, the Lord is the avenger of all such.

3:35 He is walking contrary to the call of God, for God hath not called, He hath not called us to uncleanness, but to sanctification, and he is setting himself against the authority of God, for he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God. So much then for the first subject of this fourth chapter of the life that pleases God, the matter of sexual purity. Now in verse 9, we're introduced to another entirely different subject, though in some ways related. But concerning love, love of the brethren, ye have no need that one write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

The Subject Announced: Love of the Brethren (Philadelphia)

4:17 For indeed, ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia, but we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more. As we think our way through these two verses this morning, consider in the first place the subject announced. What is Paul about to deal with? Well, writing to an infant church, he uses a verb, a very simple method of teaching.

4:41 He says, this is my subject, but concerning love of the brethren. Isn't it wonderful when someone's talking about something, when you know what they're talking about? Often when I've heard someone talking, I've had to say, what's he talking about? When he gets all done, in the middle, at the beginning, I wonder what's he talking about?

4:58 Well, Paul says, I want you to know what I'm talking about. So anywhere at the beginning, the middle, or end, my subject for the next few sentences is the subject of brotherhood, brotherly love. Now, the particular word that he uses to introduce this subject is the word from which the city of brotherly love is named, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And that's just a transliteration of the word, taking the Greek letters and giving them English equivalents.

5:29 Paul says, now concerning Philadelphia, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. From the Greek word phileo, to love, and abel phos, the Greek word for brother, and you have then this love of the brethren. This particular word is used five times in the New Testament and speaks of that love which Christians have one for another, now listen carefully, because they are part of the same spiritual family. We are to love all men according to the teaching of Holy Scripture.

6:04 We're to love our neighbor as ourself. Now, your neighbor is any one of your fellow men. And the duty incumbent upon us by the law of God is to love God with the whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and my neighbor as myself. This is not talking about that love which we owe to all men as our fellow creatures of God.

6:27 This is speaking of that peculiar love that we have to people because of their peculiar position as children in the family of God. For you see, there are some people whom we naturally love because of blood ties. The old saying, blood is thicker than water. It's true.

6:50 This tie to people simply because we have this blood tie. Some people we love them because we have a great sphere of common interest or general compatibility. We just, as we say, we hit it off well with them naturally. Some people we love because God commands us to love all our fellow men.

7:10 But this love is love that reaches to people many times with whom we would have very little natural affinity or natural compatibility, very little natural common interest. But the thing that moves us to love them is we are part of the family of God. It's speaking of a kind of love that is the peculiar possession of the people of God who have been born into the family of God by the mighty, by the operations of the Spirit of God. It's called here love of the brethren.

Identifying the Brethren for Brotherly Love

7:48 Now, who are they? Well, we cannot infallibly identify them. Only the Lord can do that. 2 Timothy 2.19 The foundation of God's stand it's sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are His. Well, if we can't judge infallibly who are we to recognize as brethren? If this is a peculiar kind of love peculiarly limited to the flesh to the family of God how do I know when I should have it and when I shouldn't? But concerning love of the brethren how do I identify the brethren?

8:22 May I suggest that there are three ways that scripture directs us to identify the brethren. For if this subject is brotherly love we better know what it is and to whom it is to be directed. We are to recognize as a brother or sister in Christ anyone who meets these following three requisites. One, he is a brother by the profession of his own faith in Christ.

8:48 Someone professes repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That's one aspect of recognizing him as a brother. Secondly, his association with the people of God. There's no such thing and don't misunderstand me but just trace it out.

9:07 There's no such thing as an unchurched Christian in the New Testament. When did they recognize a person as a brother or a sister? Well, if it was in a Jewish context when that person was willing to acknowledge Jesus as his Messiah and acknowledging that confess his faith by identification with Christ in baptism he then became a part of the visible community of the people of God. If he was a heathen such as many of these Thessalonians were when they turned to God from their idols declared themselves believers how were they going to do that?

9:45 How would they recognize his brethren again when they identified themselves in the waters of baptism and became part of the visible church of Christ in Thessalonica or in Jerusalem or wherever else it was? Paul indicates this in 1 Corinthians in dealing with the problem of church discipline. So that's the second requisite. There must be this profession of faith and association with the visible people of God and in the third place the judgment of charity.

10:14 There are some people in whom there is this profession of faith they associate with the people of God and yet there are glaring areas of inconsistency. Are we to fail to recognize them as brethren? No. We are to look upon them in the judgment of charity as brethren until their sin is such that it warrants church discipline and then when they are cut off from the fellowship of the church scripture says we are to regard them how?

10:42 As the heathen or the publican. Now, are you supposed to love heathens and publicans? Yes or no? Are you?

10:50 Sure you are. But are you to love them as brethren? No. Now see, there's the distinction.

10:56 We're to love the heathen and publican. Sure we are. We're to follow our Lord who receives publicans and sinners. But this peculiar love of the brethren is something different.

Brotherly Love in the Context of Creation, Fall, and Redemption

11:07 So anyone who professes faith in Jesus Christ who associates with the people of God and who in the judgment of charity may still be recognized as a brother or sister we are thus to extend to them this love of the brethren. Now, before we proceed to see what the apostle says about this very vital subject I want us to set it in the larger context of the, what we might call the whole perspective of scripture. For this is not some surface or some surface or peripheral issue that the apostle is confronting us with in this paragraph. In creation God did not create man in isolation but he made man in community. For he no sooner created the man than he made a woman. And when you've got the man and the woman you've got a community. A very small community but a community nonetheless.

12:03 And if all things proceed according to schedule you'll have a little larger community after a period of time. And that's precisely what God said. Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. So the community of two would become a community of three.

12:15 Three and four and five and six. And after they got old enough to be married the process of multiplication until as you know in the past few years it's gone like this. Now if man had never sinned what would the world have been? Well it would have been a world filled with men and women living in a right relationship with God their creator.

12:40 Loving him with the whole heart mind, soul and strength. Glorifying him in all the activities of their mind. Their affections, their bodies in their occupation. But you'd have had something else.

12:53 You would have had a world in community that was in right relationship to itself. So that there'd be no jealousy. No friction. No suspicion.

13:05 No backbiting. No gossiping. No war. No bloodshed.

13:10 God in the original expression of his revealed will to Adam and Eve indicated that it was his desire that they have a right relationship to him a proper vertical relationship a right relationship to each other he gave them directions for their relationship with each other so that in the whole purpose of creation we've got to get away from this idea that the only thing that matters is if I'm right with God. No, God made me as his creature in community with other people and it's his will that I be right vertically and horizontally. Now what happened in the fall? Well, we know what happened in the vertical relationship.

13:51 That beautiful relationship with the creature and this God was ruptured by sin. And we find Adam and Eve running from the presence of God to hide amongst the bushes of the garden. But not only was there a rupturing vertically but horizontally. And we find Adam bringing accusation in terms of the woman.

14:09 And the first child born of that union turns out to be a murderer. And Cain rises up and slays his brother Abel. And Cain says, and takes from Abel his most precious possession, his life itself. Whereas slander would have ruined his reputation, envy would have put acid in his relationship to him.

14:29 When a man murders someone else he takes his most precious possession, his life itself. And so wherever you find categorical descriptions of the effect of sin upon the human race such as you have in Romans 3, 10 through 19, you find this vertical, horizontal rupture clearly described. As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth.

14:54 There is none that seeketh after God. That's the rupturing of the vertical. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable.

15:03 There is none that doeth good, no not one. Then he says, their throat is an open sepulcher. Their mouths full of cursing and bitterness. Feet are swift to shed blood. There's the horizontal. And in the description, of man in a state of sin, God is very clearly setting before us that there's been the rupturing vertically and horizontally. But now in the midst of that terrible thing, God is accomplishing a work of redemption. And it's really a work of recreation. Isn't this what it's called in scripture? We are his, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Now what is God doing in this work of recreation?

15:47 Why you say, he is redeeming a people for himself. Yes he is, but is he doing it in isolation? Is he simply taking individual people and healing the ruptured relationship vertically? No.

16:02 He intends to have a people in whom not only there is a healing of the relationship vertically, but horizontally as well. For sin has not only put a roof over us, it's put a wall between us and our fellow man. And in the work of new creation, God is not only taking off the roof and bringing us into right relationship with himself, he's knocking down the walls and bringing a people into right relationship with each other. And because this love of the brethren is loving people for their peculiar characteristics wrought in them by the grace of God. They have the same values, the same goals, the same savior, the same destiny, the same sense of response and action and reaction to the world and men and things. There is a peculiar love, the kind of love that men would have known for each other had Adam never sinned. For you see, the world would have been filled with people who had the same regard for God, the same regard for his gifts, the same regard for his glory. Now that God is doing a work of recreation and only some of the world's population regard God as the end of their existence, his glory as the purpose of their lives, his word as the rule

17:25 of their conduct, his son as the pearl of great price. It's only those people that can have this peculiar love of complacency as the old theologians call it. A love that has as its basis common interest, common goal, common values, a common savior. So then there must be a peculiar love in this recreated community of God so that at the very threshold of the Christian experience God not only brings you into right relationship to himself but 1 Corinthians 12 13 says that the same spirit by which we are joined to Christ is the spirit by which we are baptized into one body and then we are brought into the visible body of Christ the local assembly. Why? That this new life may develop not in vertical isolation so we go off somewhere and sit on a bump on a mountain and meditate. No, no. God wants that life

18:27 to come to development in the community of his people. So he no sooner imparts life than he brings that life into the cradle of the church that there it might develop. There it might grow. There it might expand.

The Essential Quality of Love Within and Without the Church

18:41 So when the apostle Paul writes to some of the churches, he tells them he was convinced that God saved them when he saw both of these directions wrought in them. He says to the Ephesians I pray for you since the day I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love to all the saints. Ephesians 1 15. He says the same thing in the first chapter of Colossians. I pray for you since the day I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love to all the saints. Now if this is true that in creation God created man that he be in a relationship of vertical harmony and horizontal harmony. If the fall has marred and ruptured that and if in the new creation then God is restoring that which sin has taken away. What is the most vital quality in this communal life of the people of God? What quality

19:44 must they have above all others? Well some would say zeal. If we can only get to church full of zeal and busy others would say well not zeal but knowledge. If we can only get the church to think right all will be well.

20:01 Some would say no. No in the 20th century in this fast complicated life we get the right organization and if you can really administrate right then the church will function. Others would say well you just got to have activity. You know if you're going to keep the kids you got to compete with the world and you got to have spoodles of activity. And if you're going to keep people from running off to this place or that place you've got to compete with commensurate activities so that if they spend Thursday night generally going down to the beer gardens you've got to have a special activity to attract them on the Thursday night. And if others spend Monday night out at the bridge party you've got to have them so they'd say activity. Well what does scripture say? What does scripture set before us as the most essential characteristic for the people of God as they live in community with each other? Well you'll look at

20:52 several verses with me now. I don't want to merely quote them. I want you to get them by the eye gate. First of all Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. He's been giving practical instructions about personal holiness mortifying the deeds of the flesh and beginning with verse 5. Then he gives positive instruction in verse 12. Put on therefore as God's elect holy and beloved a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long suffering, forbearing one another, forgiving one another. If any man

21:40 have a complaint against any even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on love which is the bond of perfectness. Are you to put on all these things? Yes. And he says above all of them as a canopy stretching over all of them as the unifying factory in all of them. Put on love which is the bond of perfectness. What kind of love? Love to God?

22:11 No. He's talking about love to one another. The whole context is speaking of the people of God living in community. So that instead of pride which causes friction there is meekness. Instead of being short tempered which causes a nasty reaction long suffering. Instead of being grudging and holding a grudge when someone wrongs me. He says forbearing, forgiving, above all of these things put on love which is the bond of perfectness. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 4. You ladies ought to be familiar with this. I believe you came over this ground last Lord's Day morning in your Bible class. The apostle is given many many exhortations touching various areas of the Christian life. And now he says in verses 7 and 8 of chapter 4 1 Peter 4, 7 and 8 but the end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore of

23:08 sound mind and sober unto prayer. Above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves. For love covereth a multitude of sins. Above all things oh yes this is important and that's important and this is important and above all things put on this fervent love or have this fervent love one to another. And then of course a classic statement of this is 1 Corinthians 13. We won't turn to it and read it. But here he's dealing in chapter 12 with the whole concept of the body. Each member having a different function. In chapter 14 he enlarges upon the specific function of certain gifts and that which cements together the functioning body with its functioning gifts is what? Love. And he says if I have the gifts and I function with them that have not love, I am nothing. And then he describes that love and it's obvious it's not talking about love to God.

24:10 You never need to suffer long with God. He suffers long with us. He says love suffereth long. He's talking about love and how it acts where?

24:22 In community with the people of God. And is kind. Love vaunteth not itself. You never vaunt yourself in the presence of God. I hope you do.

24:33 It's quite another story when you get in the presence of your fellow creatures. So easy to mouth the language of humility before God but then to structure stuff in the presence of his preachers. Love is patient. You never need to be patient with God.

24:47 But you sure need to be patient with people. Don't you? And people need to be patient with you. Don't they?

24:55 So the apostle is saying in that 13th chapter that in all the functioning of the body that quality which is needed above all other things and all other gifts is the grace of love. So within the body itself, in this recreated community, that quality needed above all else is brotherly love. Then what quality should speak most loudly to the world outside of us? Within, we need that bond of perfectness which is love.

25:25 What should be our badge that we wear before the world? Are you thinking of the passage I'm going to quote? John 13, 35. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples. If you are consistent five point Calvinists, that's the way some would write it. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you're busy beaver Christians stirring up a cloud of dust working for Jesus. That's the way some would read it. Boy, if the world can look at your church and see a cloud of dust around the doors all the time, they'll say, boy, that's a going outfit.

26:03 Let's get near there. No. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you can really get on the world's wavelength and imitate their beat and their music and imitate their dress. And your bearing, that's the garbage being fed at us now.

26:20 I've got to speak at a conference next Saturday. I don't know what'll happen. If you hear a rumbling way up here about four o'clock in the afternoon, you'll know. I speak twice during the day on a Saturday and the closing session is a gospel folk rock outfit that's going to bring some entertainment. Well, I'm going to stay on as long as I can stand.

26:42 But you see, the philosophy behind that is this. You want the world to know you're my disciples? Then get mobbed. See, get down where they are and really communicate.

26:51 Part your shaggy hair from your eyes and plunk your guitar. And then the world will know that you're really mine. You're contemporary Christians. Oh, you say that's a caricature. No, it isn't. That's pretty much the picture. But then what the Lord said. He said, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you have love to everybody in the world. That's what the ecumenist are saying.

27:18 They say, we can only show the world we love.

27:23 We're not going to be bigots anymore. Everybody's nice. Everybody loves God. Let's all get together. Then they say, we're going to prove to the world we're the real church. That isn't what the Lord said. He said, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples. If you have what? Love, not to them, but one to another.

27:45 I didn't read it that way before. Well, you ought to. That's what it says. He says, when the world sees you have a peculiar distinguishing love for each other that leaps over.

27:57 The love of blood. The love of natural association. The love of natural interest. And they see people who normally would have no affinity for each other. No common interest. No common goals. And they see them knit together bone to bone and sinew to sinew. The world will know. The only reason that guy loves that guy is because he sees something of his Savior in him.

28:24 By this shall all men know that you're my disciples. If you have love, love one to another. Lucian, second century Roman writer said this. This is how it worked that day.

28:37 It is incredible to see the ardor with which the people of that religion, speaking of the Christians, this is not a Christian talk, with which the people of that religion help each other in their wants. They spare nothing. Their first legislator, that is Christ, has put it into their minds that they are brethren. Their first legislator has so put it into their minds that they are brethren that it's amazing to see the ardor with which they love one another.

29:10 That's the subject the apostles dealing with. This tremendous subject of that peculiar affection that the people of God have for one another for this simple reason that they are the people of God.

The Thessalonians' Experience: Taught of God to Love

29:28 Well, I can see I'm not going to get through, but let's move on to the second thing that's here in our text. Having announced his subject, he then describes the experience of the Thessalonians. So we have the subject announced. Secondly, their experience described.

29:44 What was it? But concerning love of the brethren, he says, ye have no need that one write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another, for indeed ye do it to all the brethren. In other words, Paul says, the reason I'm picking up this subject is not because you've been at each other's throats and fighting like cats and dogs. Now, he couldn't say that to the Corinthians. He says to the Corinthians a similar phrase in 2 Corinthians 9, it's superfluous for me to write to you about ministering to the saints. They've been very good about giving. Now, he nowhere in the Corinthian letter says, now concerning love of the brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. They did have a need, a very obvious need.

30:29 And he's using a figure of speech, what we call an absolute for the relative. He didn't mean they had no need at all. If they had no need at all, he wouldn't give this exhortation. What he's saying is, relatively speaking, if I was to go down the list and say, now what are the five, six things that I really must deal with about the Thessalonian church? Well, one of them would be their ignorance about the doctrine of the second coming. One would be they need to have a Christian perspective on the sanctity of work and of labor. And when he made his list, one of the things that would not show would be love of the brethren. So he's using a figure of speech, using a little bit of Christian tact, saying, in essence, you people are doing fairly well here, but I want to exhort you to get on with it and abound more and more. Their experience was not a glaring lack in this area. And the reason, he says, is this. You have no need that one write to you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. He attributes the fact of their experience of brotherly love, not to their temperament, not to their background, not to their cleverness, but to the fact that God had effectively taught them this duty of Christian love.

31:45 Now, I've had to discipline myself to stick with the text, because this whole phrase, taught of God, is a fascinating one, as one traces it through Scripture. Suffice it to say that this matter of being taught of God is one of the peculiar blessings promised in the New Covenant. In Jeremiah 31 in verse 34, God says, in describing the New Covenant that he makes with his people, they shall no more say every man to his neighbor know the Lord, for they shall all know me. They shall all be taught of God. That promise is quoted in Hebrews 8 and verse 11. Notice, as he quotes from this passage in Jeremiah, beginning with verse 10, this is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind, and on their heart also will I put my laws. I write them, and I shall be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.

32:42 And they shall not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. The Lord Jesus had said in John 6 and verse 45, Everyone that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me. I believe I've quoted it right, John 6 and verse 45. It is written the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Everyone that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned cometh unto me. Now this, being taught of the Father, is something more than merely being exposed to instruction. We call a person a teacher if he stands in the classroom and passes out some information, and tries to get something through your thick skull or mind. But he may not really be teaching you anything. He may just be

33:34 exposing you to a lot. But when the scripture says they shall all be taught of God, this is something more than the mere exposure to knowledge. It is an actual communication of knowledge that affects a transformation. For notice what Christ said in John 6, All that hath heard and learned of the Father, come to me.

33:57 There is always the commensurate result when the Father teaches, he teaches with power. He teaches in such a way that the heart and life come under the power of the truth that is taught. Now this teaching of God does not bypass or nullify human teachers, but it goes beyond that which human teachers can impart. You see, I am teaching you the word of God this morning.

34:27 And some of you are being taught at Pastor Martin. I hope all of you are being taught at Pastor Martin. You're learning some facts, but only some of you are being taught of God. All of you are being taught by Pastor Martin, but only some of you are being taught of God. You see, in some of you, you're getting the concepts that are coming across, and you're putting them into the file cabinet of the mind, and they're either registering and making sense or not, but there will be no commensurate power in the heart and life as a result of what you hear. You'll hear all about love of the brethren and go on out with bitterness, and anger, and wrath, and unforgiveness, and far more love for your worldly companions and your natural relatives than you have for the people of God, because they're the people of God. But others of you, you're being taught of God. The things that are being conveyed from my lips based upon Holy Scripture are coming home to your heart in such a way that they're going to transform your life.

35:26 Now, Paul says, that's what happened to you Thessalonians. He said, I have no need to write to you about this subject. You've been already taught of God. That is, they were not taught in such a way that they didn't need the gospel. Chapter 1 utterly cans that idea. He says, we preach the gospel unto you. Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power. This is the thing he's driving at.

35:48 When we preach the gospel and taught you, there was a mighty operation of God. Our Lord indicated this to Peter when he asked him, whom do men say that I am? Oh, you're this prophet or that prophet. Who do you say that I am?

36:02 You're the Christ, the Son of the living God. And he says, Peter, flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee. Wait a minute. The Lord had claimed to be the Son of God.

36:11 Flesh and blood in that sense did reveal the fact, but when that confession is made from the heart, from a heart that is brought subject to Christ, that loves Christ and obeys Christ, there's been more than the teaching of man. Flesh and blood did not reveal this unto thee, Peter, but my Father, which is in heaven. That's the teaching we're talking about, that accompanies, or that is the accompaniment of the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit. And so, he says of these Thessalonians, their experience was they were so taught of God that they actually had this peculiar love for the brethren.

The Evidence of Love: Tangible Action, Not Just Feeling

36:49 And how did he know it? Well, you'll notice the little phrase, and this is as far as we'll be able to get this morning. How did he know it? Notice carefully the wording of this verse 10.

37:00 Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another, for indeed ye do it. Now, didn't he throw us a curve? We'd expect him to say, for indeed ye have it. That is love of the brethren. He didn't say, indeed ye have.

37:16 He said, indeed ye do it.

37:20 It was not that they professed love of the brethren. It was not that they imagined it or felt it, but they didn't. And what is he referring to? Well, if you'll cross-reference this with 2 Corinthians 8, 1 and 2, you'll see that he has a specific instance in mind. They had responded to the need of other Christians. Not only in all Macedonia, but even their brethren down in Jerusalem. And Paul says here, Thessalonica being a city of Macedonia, that you showed your love to all the brethren in Macedonia. 2 Corinthians 8 says it even went beyond that. And so he could discern the presence of love by the action of love. Indeed, he'd do it to all the brethren. If they were brethren, that's all that mattered when they saw legitimate need. They sought to tangibly, visibly, in a demonstrable way, express their love.

38:16 I submit to you this morning as I've sought to wrestle with this subject and slay it out in some semblance of order. And now to put some practical teeth on it in closing. There's only one way you can know that you love the brethren. That's by the actions of your life with respect to the needs of the brethren.

38:37 Well, you say, well, I just feel that I really love the brethren. Well, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. You've got a nice, warm feeling right down there. And I want to ask you, could Paul say, ye are taught of God to love the brethren, for ye do it? Is there the evidence of that love? Well, what is the evidence? Well, read 1 Corinthians 13.

39:00 Do you find it in your heart to exercise toward your brethren that kind of love? Love suffereth long. Love is kind. Warmtheth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own.

39:19 Do you find yourself willing to forego personal rights and liberties for the sake of your brethren? Brethren, that's how you know whether or not you love them, not because you think you do, or you may feel that you do. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. And the proof of the presence of this love is in the activity when you're conscious of the need of your brother.

39:45 Is his need for forbearance and long-suffering and forgiveness? Then love extends it. Is his need physical sustenance? Then within your power, and as these Thessalonians, Paul said, beyond their power they gave, out of the abundance of their poverty, they responded to the needs of their brethren. If there is not this tangible expression in deed and in truth, as John says, then John would tell us that we have no saving light. 1 John 2, 9 through 11, he that loveth not his brother is in darkness. Chapter 3, verses 14 to 16 of 1 John, he'd say there's no saving life. By this we know we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not

40:31 abideth in death. He didn't say he that hates abides in death. He says that in the next verse, but here he said the absence of love and its positive expression is an evidence that death still abides in the Lord. For where the life of God is, where there is this saving life, that life will express itself in love. Then John says in chapter 4, 7 and 8 of his first letter, there's no saving knowledge if there's no love. God is love, and he that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God. And then chapter 5, verses 1 and 2, wherever there's saving faith, he that is begotten, he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is begotten of God, and he that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of God.

41:17 Do you claim to have saving light? Saving life? Saving knowledge? Saving faith?

Exhortation to Abound More and More in Brotherly Love

41:23 That's what these people claimed, and Paul said I think their claim's valid. Why? Because ye do it. To all the brethren. You demonstrate that peculiar love which the saints have for other saints because they're saints. Because they have a common Lord, a common goal of holiness, a common passion to walk well-pleasing to him. Well, after announcing his subject, describing their own experience, then he exhorts them, and we'll have to pick up that thought next week, Lord willing, but we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more. You've already got this grace present in you, but don't take your hands off the oars and coast. No grace in

42:08 the Christian life comes to perfection this side of heaven. And if we need to abound at our strongest points, what ought our attitude be toward our weakest points? If we can't afford to coast in the areas where we're most conformed to the will of God, what should our attitude be in those areas where we're least conformed to the will of God? If he has to say, I've no need that I write to you about this, you're doing pretty good. If he has to say, I exhort you to abound, what would he do in the areas where we do need to have him write to us? I think in some measure, if Paul lived amongst us, he could maybe say that, I don't have any glaring need to write to you, but there's no stagnancy in the Christian experience. And if we don't increase in this peculiar love of the brethren, there's only one direction we'll go. This way, down.

43:03 No stagnancy. And so may God grant that we shall not only accept the will of God in this first paragraph, touching sexual and moral purity, but as touching love of the brethren, that we who I trust, many of us have been taught of God to love one another, shall increase and abound more and more. The Lord willing, we'll deal with what that involves in practice and experience and how to abound. But suffice it this morning to say that this is God's will if we want to please him.

43:35 We must be found in that path. Of an ever increasing, ever abounding, peculiar love to the people of God because they are his people. Let us unite in prayer.