1 Th. 4:10
Abound More and More
Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds 1 Thessalonians 4:10b, exhorting believers to "abound more and more" in brotherly love. He first defines the audience as true Christians, not mere professors, and clarifies that the exhortation is an authoritative charge to the mind and will. Martin then meticulously unpacks the nature of brotherly love, drawing from Puritan thought, describing it as an intelligent energy that esteems God in others, desires their good, actively promotes it, delights in their fellowship, and covers their failures. He concludes by emphasizing that while God is the ultimate source of this love, believers must actively choose to cultivate it through obedience and prayer.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 7 sections · 47 min
- The Theme: Abounding in Pleasing God 0:02
- The Audience: The Brethren 2:02
- The Form of Address: An Authoritative Exhortation 7:54
- The Two Halves of Christianity: Truth and Obedience 14:00
- The Duty: Abounding in Brotherly Love 17:29
- The Nature of Brotherly Love 24:12
- The Source and Cultivation of Abounding Love 40:19
Key Quotes
“It is not enough to know what pleases God to please Him, but we must do what pleases God to please Him.”
“True biblical Christianity has these two things inseparably fused together a body of truth believed and a set of directives obeyed and unless you have those two you don't have Christianity.”
“Assurance in spite of the evidence is presumption for people to say I know I'm saved I'm not going to look at the evidences that's a presumption but lack of assurance in the face of evidence is unbelief.”
“Paul says above all things put on love which is the bond of perfectness if we have a measure of truth and understanding and zeal and all the rest what is it that ties it all together and makes the church of God beautiful it's love of the brethren.”
“Sensitivity of that nature is sinful why? because if there were love for the brother you wouldn't read into that all kinds of hidden motives no no you wouldn't do that.”
“If you don't think that demands self-denial to rejoice with somebody who's up on cloud nine when you're down in the dirt you just try it sometime you got to stick your own feelings under your heel and step on them.”
Applications
All listeners
- Examine yourself to determine if you are truly one of the 'brethren' to whom this exhortation applies, having experienced the word and power of the gospel.
- If you are not one of the brethren, repent and believe the gospel.
- As one of the brethren, be active in your mind and will to receive and comply with the specific charge to duty from this exhortation.
- Let your 'thinker' sweat and your 'willer' work to produce holy resolve in response to God's word.
- If you can face exhortation without mental engagement and volitional compliance, you have no grounds to claim you are a Christian.
- Do not presume assurance without evidence of love, nor lack assurance in the face of evidence.
- If you have abounding assurance but little evidence of love for the brethren, your assurance is on 'stolen goods' and should be re-evaluated.
- If you have little assurance but much evidence of love for the brethren, stop living like a 'corporate' (impoverished) and start believing God more, living on the goods that are rightfully yours.
- Actively promote the good of your brother, especially in monetary need, even if it means sacrificing personal desires for 'foolish nothings'.
- Do not deliberately absent yourself from stated church meetings without providential reasons, as this indicates a lack of deep affection for the people of God.
- Stop excusing hypersensitivity and touchiness, as they are signs of not abounding in love.
- Choose to do what love does: confront grudges, forgive, overcome jealousy, suspicion, and hurt.
- Force yourself to make contacts with brethren to become aware of their needs, and practice self-denial to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
- Cry to God for the grace and power to abound in love one to another.
- If you have been pierced by the sermon's implications, do not sulk, but let the wound drive you to the Lord for fresh mercy and grace to abound in love.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 72 paragraphs, roughly 47 minutes.
The Theme: Abounding in Pleasing God
Let us turn again this morning to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and we shall focus our attention upon the last half of verse 10 in our studies this morning. The theme of this section, as we have reiterated each time we have come to it, is set forth very clearly in the first verse, chapter 4, namely, how to walk so as to please God, and not only to walk so as to please Him, but to abound in the walk that is well-pleasing in His sight. The Apostle then moves into specific areas in which the saints of God, first of all, need to know how to please God, and then, if they are to please Him, to abound in their obedience to that direction. It is not enough to know what pleases God to please Him, but we must do what pleases God to please Him. And so the Apostle instructs them how to walk, and then, intermingled with that instruction, are exhortations to actually do what he tells them.
The first general area covered is the area of sexual purity. The Apostle would have them and us know how to have our whole...
Our whole sexuality so ordered by the directive of God that God is as pleased with our activity or non-activity and our thinking and acting and reacting in this area as He is when we are scripturally praying or scripturally witnessing. The second great area is introduced in verse 9, namely, the love of the brethren, but concerning love of the brethren. And then he enlarges upon this theme. And for several weeks, we have been looking...
The Audience: The Brethren
Looking at these two verses which deal with the subject of brotherly love. Paul wrote to these people, not because there was a glaring, gaping hole in their sanctification at this point, for he says, you really don't have a need, a crying need for me to write to you about this subject, for it's obvious that you have been effectually and powerfully taught of God to love one another, but since my theme is not merely how to walk so as to please God, but to abound in such a walk, though you're pleasing God by loving one another, I want you to abound in it. So to keep consistent with his own theme, he must exhort them, even though there is some measure of attainment, he wants an abounding in these virtues and in these graces. And so we shall focus our attention this morning upon the latter part of verse 10, but we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more. And more. Will you notice in the first place, the people whom he addresses are called the brethren.
But we exhort you, brethren. In other words, Paul is reminding us that whatever he is saying, this is children's bread, and it is not fit meat for the dogs. This is children's bread. Whatever we encounter in our study this morning, this is directive, peculiarly addressed, to the people of God, to the brethren.
There's more foolishness abroad, in the church and in the world, by a failure to apply the right scripture to the right people. I talked a few months ago with some people who absolutely have no respect to the commandment of God, say the seventh commandment or the ninth commandment or tenth commandment, but when we get talking about Vietnam, all of a sudden they want to start applying the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill. And when you take the directive of God to individuals and try to apply it to the affairs of nations, you get all kinds of foolishness. And when you take directive for society at large and try to apply it to individuals or reverse it, you get all kinds of problems.
And you find in the professing church today, people are taking certain directives given to an exclusive body of people, and in trying to apply them to someone outside the circle of that directive. They end up in confusion. And so this is not telling you how to be a Christian, why not love everybody. No, this is bread for the children of God.
He says, but we exhort you, brethren. Who are the brethren? The people whom he described in chapter one. The people of whom Paul can say, who are in Christ Jesus and in God the Father.
They are the people described in verse five. To whom the word of God came not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost. They are people who, by the grace of God, are not strangers to the word or to the power of the gospel. If you're a stranger to the word of the gospel, you're not one of the brethren.
If you're a stranger to the power of the gospel, you're not one of the brethren. The brethren are those to whom the word of salvation has come, and who've experienced the power of the Spirit. They're applying that word and transforming the life. And these people then, because life has an affinity with life, are always found flocking together in little bands called the churches, who are knit together in this unity of faith and of experience.
So I ask you this morning, do I have any right to preach this verse to you? I don't want to do what I shouldn't do. Do I have a right to preach this verse to you? Are you one of the brethren?
If you're ignorant of the essential truths of the gospel, you're not one of the brethren. If you're ignorant of the basic things of sin and of grace and of the cross, but you may be thoroughly acquainted with the word of the gospel, but if you're a stranger to its power, if there's been no radical revolutionary change bringing you out of darkness into light, turning you from a course of selfishness and self-will to the place where Christ is the object of your life. I've done...
I've done a right to preach to you this morning what this verse says. I have a mandate, and it's my delight to preach the gospel to you, and tell you about your sin, and tell you about the Savior, and command you to repent, and command you to believe. But I have no word of directive for you from this passage. And that thought never leaves me when I preach, because I know, though I'm preaching to a unified assembly in terms of these four walls holding us in, God has erected a wall that looks something like a man's.
A wall that cuts through and segments some of you out of the family of God and includes some of you in. I wonder what God's walls look like this morning. I wish I could see them. I wish I could know those of you whom God knows, not only know the word of the gospel, but have experienced its power, and God would let me corral all of you over here so I could talk to you for half an hour.
And then those that God has walled up as not the brethren, strangers to the word and the power of the gospel, I could box you up over here and preach a different truth to you, but I can't do that. But if you have any concern for your soul, you'll do it. And I hope you'll do it, even in the study of the word of God this morning. So much then for the people whom he addresses, they are the brethren.
The Form of Address: An Authoritative Exhortation
Now, notice the form of his address. But we exhort you, brethren. He is addressing the brethren in the form of an exhortation. Now, this word, exhortation, is a very broad word.
As the men were reminded by Mr. Emmerich this morning, it comes from two Greek words. One means to call, and the other one, alongside. Now, when you call someone alongside of you, it can be for a number of reasons.
You may want to remind him that he owes you five bucks and he ought to pay up. And if so, when you see him and he says, hey, Jack, come here, well, I've got to hurry off and go to the barber's or something else. Or he may want to remind you that he owes you five bucks and he ought to pay up. Or he may want to call you alongside to tell you, hey, listen, you know that five dollars I owe you?
I'm ready to give it to you. In that case, you're willing to come when he calls you. Or he may call you alongside to just chat together, to comfort you, to rebuke you. And so the word exhortation has a broad sense of meaning.
Sometimes it means to simply address or to speak to someone. Sometimes it means to beg them, to entreat them. Sometimes to console or comfort or strengthen or teach. But other times, and this is one of the instances, it means to admonish or to charge, to urge to the performance of specific duty and responsibility.
Sometimes it means to urge or charge an individual or group of people to specific duty or responsibility. And that is what Paul is doing here. The form of his address is an authoritative, authoritative charge. As a commissioned apostle of Jesus Christ, he is charging them to a specific duty.
Now, this kind, then, of exhortation, where one is being charged to specific duty, is addressed primarily to the head and to the will, to my thinker and to my willer, to my perceptive and my volitional faculties. If it's to be an intelligent exhortation, I must know what the words mean. But since it's an exhortation, the one who gives it is not content that I merely understand his words. It's not enough that the perceptive faculties are all working properly.
He's addressed it to the will. There must be the compliance of the will. Therefore, if you're one of the brethren, you're going to be exhorted this morning. That is, not comforted, not consoled or merely instructed, but you're going to, you're going to receive, through the word of the Apostle, a specific charge to specific duty.
Therefore, two things must be active as you sit there this morning. Your noggin, your head, your thinker, and your willer, your chooser. And if those two things aren't active, you have heard in vain this morning.
You've heard in vain. Now, if your thinker doesn't sweat a little bit by the time you leave those doors, and you don't have to mop up a little bit, a little perspiration from your thinker, you haven't been doing what you ought to do. And if your willer hasn't worked, so that there's some holy resolve, you haven't heard it right. This is an exhortation.
And it's interesting that throughout Scripture, we find that by means of exhortation, God carries on His work of grace in men. He initiates the work of grace in terms of bringing men into the Christian faith by means of exhortation. And Peter's preached, given out a lot of information in Acts 2. The Holy Spirit convicts these people, and they're pricked in the heart.
They say, what shall we do? And it says in chapter 2 and verse 41 of Acts, And with many other words, He testified and exhorted, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation, than they that gladly received His word were baptized and were added unto them the same day three thousand, seven souls. This is how God continues the work of His grace. Peter says in 2 Peter, chapter 1 in verse 12, I stir up your minds by putting you in remembrance.
Chapter 3, He uses the same word. And that's an interesting word. The same word used in Matthew 1.23 when Joseph was awakened from sleep.
It's the word used in John 6.18 of the sea being stirred up by the wind. Isn't that a good picture? That's what God says.
God's got to do with your mind. Many of you came in this morning, your mind was glassy, like a glassy lake in the calm of the evening. Or out about 4.30 in the morning, just when the sun rises and the mist is coming up off the lake and you're throwing out that lure and you can see it working across the surface.
That's just the way some of your minds were very nice and calm and everything settling to the bottom. Now exhortation comes, you see, like the wind upon a calm lake to stir it up into action. So you think. And then after thinking that you move in the direction of what God says.
Now your response to exhortation has a lot to do with the basis of your assurance of whether or not you're a child of God. If you can face exhortation and not find some sweat up here and some activity in the will, you have no grounds to claim you're a Christian if you can face exhortation over a period of time. For the mark of a true Christian is this, my sheep. Hear my voice and they follow me.
John 10, 27. Isn't that what Christ said? So if you can hear the voice of Christ speaking through the apostolic direction and not find your mind stirred up and find your will, as it were, indifferent to the exhortation, you have no grounds to claim you're one of his sheep. For he said, my sheep hear and they follow.
The Two Halves of Christianity: Truth and Obedience
1 John 2, 3 and 4. Hereby do we know that we know him if we keep his commandments for saving Christ and to ask him that he may be saved. And here we have the gist of it. We must understand that in Christianity we believe in Christ but a body of directives to be obeyed.
For Christ said make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you. Give them the body of truth about sin and grace and redemption that when they repent and believe and confess me openly they are made my disciples. Ah, but he says that's the half of it. The other half is this.
Teaching them to observe. Now you see what liberalism has done by and large. They've said take your body of truth and boot it off the field. Out here where we play Christianity we just want the directives to obey.
We're going to live Christ.
You take the body of truth about Christ and say you don't want that ball on your field. You don't have Christianity. I don't know what you have but you don't have Christianity. Now what have we evangelicals done?
We said oh we'll play ball with the body of truth but we'll take the directives and boot them off the field. So we'll just believe right and if our head is all straight about sin and grace and Christ and salvation everything's alright. If God says to us specific things well you see we don't believe we're saved by works therefore it really isn't important whether or not you do what God says in the home, in the shop in the husband wife relationship in the parent, child, child parent, employer, employee employee, employer, rich to the poor we evangelicals can live very indifferent to these directives and feel comfortable. Why? Because we've been deceived into thinking Christianity can just be played with that ball of the body of truth. True biblical Christianity has these two things inseparably fused together a body of truth believed and a set of directives obeyed and unless you have those two you don't have Christianity. You have a cheap substitute and often a deceptive substitute.
So who is it that's saying look Christ said feed the poor who's the one that is most vocal in this? It's a shame it's been the liberals.
It should never have been. Who's taken the lead in pulling off the terrible mask of racial discrimination within the church? It's been the liberals. It's been the liberals for the most part.
Hasn't it? It's been the liberals.
It should never have been. And it could never have been unless we were deceived into thinking the essence of Christianity is receiving the body of truth. And now lest anyone think I'm soft on liberalism they don't have Christianity either because they've taken the body of truth and thrown that out. But by the grace of God if we will listen to the balanced emphasis of scripture where we have not only directives to the mind to be received as the body of truth but like here we have exhortations strong specific urging to duty then we shall have balanced faith and balanced experience.
The Duty: Abounding in Brotherly Love
Well so much then to the people whom he addresses the brethren the form of his address and exhortation now what duty does he set forth in the address? Here it is. But we exhort you brethren that ye abound more and more. Abound in what?
The thing about which he's been speaking concerning love of the brethren. So then the focus of his exhortation the duty set forth is that the people of God increase and overflow in love to the brethren. The word Paul uses has the connotation that you have this thing but now have it in such an increase that it spills over. Let me use several figures that may help clarify its meaning.
He says now look you're well furnished with brotherly love but I want you to be filthy rich with it.
I want you to be filthy rich. You've got a nice stream of love but I want to see a river that overflows the banks. You've got a harvest of love but I want to see a bumper crop. You've got a nice little trickling spring shower of love but I want to see a deluge.
You get the idea now what he's saying? Oh you're taught of God to love one another. It's not as though there's a dry riverbed. Nice little stream of brotherly love but I want to see a river bursting the banks.
Oh yeah, nice little rain shower coming down day after day but oh I'd love to see a deluge of it. That's the exhortation that there be this increase abounding and overflow. Now why in the world does the apostle make such an exhortation? Are they at one another's throats?
No, he says concerning love of the brethren. You don't need that I write to you like I have to write to that church at college. They aren't. Man, they're at each other's throats.
You people aren't. I don't have that kind of need to write to you. Well why then if they've got a stream doesn't he go on to some areas where perhaps there's nothing but a dry little riverbed? Well you see the whole subject of brotherly love is so vital to the total spectrum of the life of the people of God that the apostle cannot let this thing be pushed into obscurity.
I can't go into the development of this because I would get far afield from the folks of the exhortation but may I just suggest and then you can carry out some of this in your own thinking for their own personal assurance they must abound in love one to another. For in 1 John 3.14 we read hereby do we know that we've passed from death and to life because we love the brethren. Well if my assurance in some measure is deep and abiding because I find love in my heart to the brethren it's only possible and obvious the more love to the brethren I have the more solid and deep my assurance will be.
If I have a measure of assurance I'm the Lord's because I have a stream of love to the brethren what kind of assurance will I have if I have an overflowing river of love to the brethren. So the apostle would want them to have an increased measure of biblical insurance. Assurance in spite of the evidence is presumption for people to say I know I'm saved I'm not going to look at the evidences that's a presumption but lack of assurance in the face of evidence is unbelief.
Now may the Lord keep us from both. Right now I can name out the names of some of you that have this latter problem I wouldn't embarrass some of you whom I fear have the former problem you've got all kinds of assurance but very little evidence at least I haven't seen much in six years.
If I had to bury some of you tomorrow I'd do it with a heavy heart not that I'm God but I haven't seen much evidence and yet you've got all kinds of assurance all kinds of evidence Oh listen if you don't have this abounding love of the brethren you have no right to abounding assurance for hereby do we know that we've passed if we love but some of you got just a little trickle of assurance but I see all kinds of evidence of love to the brethren you've got lack of assurance in spite of evidence and that's terrible unbelief and you ought to start believing God more so I hope that as we unfold the subject some of you will have some assurance taken away from because you're living on stolen goods and some of you will start living on the goods that are rightfully yours and stop living like corporates and then in terms of their corporate life why does he exhort them to let their little stream become a river why because of the strategic place of love of the brethren in the total life of the church he calls this love of the brethren the bond of perfection if we have every other virtue it's like a beautifully shaped body let's take the picture of Michelangelo's David and you take off his fingers and look at him beautifully shaped his muscled arms and his torso and his legs and all the rest but if you stick the head here and the leg over here and the foot over here all about ten feet apart you don't see a beautiful symmetrical body
you see a beautiful arm beautiful leg well Paul says above all things put on love which is the bond of perfectness if we have a measure of truth and understanding and zeal and all the rest what is it that ties it all together and makes the church of God beautiful it's love of the brethren love of the brethren that's why the psalmist says where the brethren are dwelling together in unity there the Lord commandeth spiritual blessing and then of course for the impression that the church makes upon the world we mentioned this several weeks ago by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another now do you see why Paul makes such an exhortation in terms of our own personal assurance in terms of the corporate life of the church in terms of the church's stance before the world there is no virtue more vital than love of the brethren now I hurry on to come to what I trust will be the core of our study this morning how do we increase and abound in love it's alright for Paul to sit there and carnt and write a letter and say increase and abound let your stream become a river let your shower become a deluge but he's not me he doesn't know the problems I have loving people well how in the world do you do this here God's exhorting me and as a child of God my mind wants to understand and my will wants to comply but I say how in the world can I do it well let me suggest first of all
The Nature of Brotherly Love
you can't increase and abound in love to the brethren unless you know what love to the brethren is suppose I said you ought to increase and abound your refrigerator with chapatis you'd say that's nice but now the Indians here they're smiling this morning and some of these semi-Indians like Jerry Starrett who was brought up in India they know what I'm talking about you say how can I increase and abound in chapatis I don't know what chapatis are but some of you Indians know so you'd proceed to get the proper elements I know there's at least some flour and some oil because it was in the back of my car last week and I asked Barber Joe what it was there for and I don't know what else goes into it but you see until you know what the thing is how can you increase and abound in love how can you increase and abound in it how can you increase your supply well unless we know what Paul means by the love of the brethren how can we increase and abound in it and I would suggest and it's so difficult because our thinking has been so warped by the world's philosophy that brotherly love like electricity is more known by what it does and how it acts than by what it is in its essence you ask a man who works in electricity what is electricity isolate it for me put it in a test tube well you see they're far better at telling you how it works and what it accomplishes than what it is right Mr. Paul see this is much easier now when we try to describe brotherly love we must think of it in terms far more
of what it does and how it acts than what it is suffice it to say when we try to isolate for what it is it is not primarily a feeling or an emotion one of my brethren walks by and then one of the nurses here feels my pulse and it goes up from 72 to 87 and I say oh I must love the brethren see what happened now it's not primarily a feeling or an emotion that will register in your pulse count but rather love of the brethren is a vital energy listen carefully now a vital energy that works with intelligence and purpose for the good of my brother not primarily a feeling or an emotion but an energy that works for the good of my brother for the good of my brother now how does it work may I suggest and here one of my good old Puritan divines has helped me I just wrote another letter to England to thank them for sending me those 22 volumes of Manton's complete works I looked up the index in preparation this week on the subject of love of the brethren and after scouring through some pages I came across some very helpful material and Mr. Manton says that love of the brethren is that energy that peculiar quality that works for the good of the brother in the following way number one it produces an esteem and delight in the brethren because there is more of God in them than in others why must we love all men
because no matter how far a man has stooped in his sin there is something of the image of God left in him though he's dead in trespasses and sins he's a creature made in the image of God but now a Christian is one according to Ephesians 4 who is then renewed into the image of God by the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit so that there's more of God in the brethren than in people of the world now if I'm a Christian and I love God whoever has most of God I will love most so to love the brethren then is to esteem them and to delight in them not because they like to put the same amount of seasoning on their food as I do not because we're both interested in the cardinals or the Yankees or the Mets no you see love of the brethren is a love directed toward them a delight in them because there is more of God in them and it's the God in them that responds that causes me to respond to them that's why it overreaches things that would absolutely divide us in the natural world interest pulls apart someone very aesthetic they just see the slightest twinge in the shape of a cloud and they're ready to write three pages of poetry some of you are aesthetically dead you can look at a sunset and all you're thinking about is where are you going to have pancakes or onions for breakfast
just no no aesthetic sense well people like that generally don't hit it off well in the world but lo and behold in the church of Jesus Christ you've got people like that that would die for each other how come well you see it's the fact that God in the one is seen by the other and the reverse is true that's what binds them together so love of the brethren then is that esteem and delight that brethren have in each other because there is more of God in them if I were a parent who had lost a husband who had lost a wife and with her loss all pictures of her had gone I would take most delight in the daughter of mine as far as the picture is concerned that most resembled the mother the one that showed most of the mother in her face would bring the greatest delight to me in a little sense you see that's what's true of the belief his Lord is in heaven he sees him by faith but in some little measure he sees a representation of the Lord Jesus in his people that's what love of the brethren is that esteem and delight in the brethren because there's more of God in them now Paul says you've got that in little measure but I want it to be a mighty strength the second thing love of the brethren is and does it's an affectionate desire for their good and their spiritual happiness even at my own expense
an affectionate desire for their good and their happiness even at my own expense you see this in the life of the apostle Paul Colossians 1.9 Philippians 1.9 through 11 he says I desire I long that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will loving them he longed for their good and their spiritual happiness even at his own expense for he says to the Corinthians I'll love you though the more I love you the less I'd be loved I don't care he said I love you and I long for your good even if it means it cost me something Paul said now you've got that in little measure you Corinthians you Thessalonians but I want you to have it in greater measure that your affectionate desire for each other's well-being spiritual well-being will intensify thirdly love of the brethren is an action actual promotion of the good of the brother as occasion arises 1 Corinthians 12 20 says that you have each member of the body has the same care one of another Romans 12 15 rejoice with them that rejoice weep with them who weep Proverbs 3 27 and 28 withhold not good from him to whom it is due when it is in the power of thine hand to do it say not unto thy brother go and tomorrow I will do it give to thee
love of the brethren is not just this affectionate desire for the brother's good but the promotion of his good as occasion arises is my brother oppressed and does he weep I seek to weep with him is he walking on cloud nine full of hallelujahs I seek to climb up there with him and rejoice with him does he have monetary need do I have an extra ten bucks left after all the needs of the budget are met this week and it's either going to go to find some stupid trinket to put in a box to put under the tree simply because I've got to have a trinket or do I meet his need say to the wife or husband look honey we don't we don't have need of anything let's just declare a moratorium on spending money for foolish nothings this year huh do I have a love of the brethren best well see pastor you left preaching gone to meddling that's right it's a good time to meddle it's a good time to meddle there are people in our own assembly with legitimate needs I'm talking about having adequate food some of us don't want to get too close to them because we might know about that need and it might bother our conscience when we open up that shiny little trinket
Wednesday morning may God help us to have a staffed conscience withhold not good from him to whom it is due when it is in the power of thy hand to do it love of the brethren you see is not only that desire of my brother's good but the promotion of that good fourthly love of the brethren is a delight in their fellowship and conversation about things that mutually edify love of the brethren is a delight in the fellowship of my brethren conversing with them about things that edify it says in Acts 2 42 that these all continued steadfastly in fellowship 44 to 46 of the same chapter said neither said any of the brethren that often he possessed was his own when they came together those that had more in the presence of those that had less said look we don't look upon anything as our own God isn't telling us to imitate their communal life but he certainly is telling us to imitate the affection that led to it right he isn't telling us to throw everything into a common pot necessarily but wouldn't it God we had such love that half a dozen or a dozen you came and said pastor can we just throw everything and it would be wonderful to say God doesn't require that of you wouldn't that be a wonderful problem to have to convince some Christians who loved each other so much that they wanted to put all their bank accounts into a common pot all their savings into a common pot and say to the elders now look at your discretion you draw out of our
common pot of savings when you see me wouldn't that be a wonderful problem to sit down and say no look God doesn't require that of you bless your hearts it's wonderful to have that desire I've never had that problem I think I get on my phone and dial the whole list of clergymen in all of Essex County and I find preachers with all kinds of problems but I doubt I'd be able to ring up one in ten weeks who ever had that problem but that's what love of the brethren does you see it makes us sensitive to our brethren and we long to be together with them not just to sit in the same room but to share a common life Psalm 119 in verse 63 I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy commandments frankly brethren this is why I cannot understand a professing Christian who deliberately for no providential reasons absents himself from the stated meetings of the church there are some who are providentially hindered and I never can say that without thinking of our dear sister Blair here but every time I visit her one of the things she always says and I know she's not just saying is that oh how I miss being with the people of God oh when you're together I'll be thinking of you my heart will be with you there are also of you who just show up here on a Sunday morning occasionally on a Sunday night never at a prayer meeting and I never hear
an expression of pain an expression that you miss being with the people of God don't say it's inconsequential you tell a young woman whose fiance stands her up two out of three appointments and dates and try to convince her oh that's inconsequential you know life's got a lot of problems and you can't expect him to be there every time he says he'll be there well she says look we agreed that we'd be together three times a week and he shows up just once well that's a pretty good average if you bat 333 in the major leagues you might win the batting crown she says hey wait a minute those two times tell me something now would you think a girl unreasonable who reasoned that way come on now would you think a girl unreasonable who reasoned that way well then am I unreasonable when I as a pastor reason some of you who've taken solemn vows to support the work of the Trinity Church in every way possible persistently are absent from the stated services am I wrong to conclude where providential circumstances do not intervene that you don't have a deep affection for us am I wrong to conclude that now you let your conscience judge for love of the brethren will involve
that delight in the fellowship of the people of God not just certain ones about whom or with whom we have common interest outside the circle of the kingdom you see there's fellowship and there's social what we'd call social intercourse and it's possible that because people are professing Christians they may like to get together simply because they have common interest outside the circle of kingdom interest brotherly love is that delight to be with people because of the common kingdom interest the common concerns of the glory of God and the salvation of his dear son well I can't labor this point though I'm tempted to the last indication of brotherly love is that it's that energy that causes us to pass over each other's failures and infirmities first Peter 4 8 above all he says have fervent love among yourselves for love shall cover a multitude of sins when we can be offended at trifles it's because we have at best a little trickle of the stream like Elijah's stream by the brook Kirith just before the Lord told him to get up to Zarephath you know what touchiness is you know what being quote sensitive is it's just a sign that blinks on
I'm not abounding in love that's all oh you said but wait a minute I was born that way my mother was that way and my father yeah that's right because he was a sinner and she was but are you reborn is there new life and stop excusing your hypersensitivity stop excusing feeling you're rejected every time someone doesn't say hello and fall all over you and make you treat you like the Queen of England just back from a world tour now shame on you being so sensitive sensitivity of that nature is sinful why? because if there were love for the brother you wouldn't read into that all kinds of hidden motives no no you wouldn't do that so Peter says have this fervent love for love covers a multitude of sins now Paul says that's the commodity I want you to have in overflowing measures that's love to the brethren I don't know what it is but that's how it works like electricity can't tell you what it is that's how it works and if we have that now someone says pastor you didn't answer one very basic question you told us what it is but where in the world do you get it well that's my last point you see if you're to have it and abound you've got to know what it is and then secondly you've got to know where it comes from I want to send you home with a problem this morning look at this look at verse 12 of chapter 3
The Source and Cultivation of Abounding Love
same words and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one to another the Lord's got to give it to you he's got to do it so let's all sit back and wait till he does it alright Lord do it now he says in chapter 4 I exhort you to abound well who does it me or the Lord all those that vote for me raise your hand all those that vote for the Lord raise your hand who does it who does it the Lord make you to abound you increase and abound you increase and abound well it brings us into that whole area that I think God has been setting before our minds providentially in the past few weeks in the men's class in Mr. Starrett's sermon last Sunday morning and again this morning as we face this passage ultimately the source is God and the energy and might of his own working the fruit of the spirit is love therefore if we're to increase and abound in love we must know what it is to cry to our God for the support and supply of that love for the overflowing measures of that love but listen because it comes as an exhortation I must be active in the development of that love it's not something that comes like water gets into a sponge when you throw it in the water you put a dry sponge throw it in the water it doesn't wiggle
doesn't sweat doesn't work all it does is lay there and get trapped until it's soaked up all the water now is that how you get this overpowering love is it where throw yourself into the ocean of God's love and flop there and wait until your spirit is swelled with this love not on your life if that were true there'd be no exhortation no sir there'd be no exhortation exhortation is addressed to the mind and to the will and he says brethren you must abound in love well how do you do it well you just start doing what love does right here this morning and you stand up in three minutes after the bendiction you dare to stand up and look around and say is there anybody here against whom I've got any grudge love won't hold grudges I'm going to go to them I choose to go to them whether I feel like it or not Lord help me here I go if there's someone else that you're not forgiving you've got a spirit of unforgiveness a spirit of jealousy see that's why jealousy is contrary to love love delights in the advancement of the brother or sister if God gives them more material goods if God gives them more blessing even I rejoice why I rejoice because I want their good even at my expense jealousy can never exist in the same heart with love and I'm confident a group this size there's probably some jealousy
unforgiveness suspicion hurt sensitivity God's exhorting us brethren let's abound in love therefore choose to do the thing that love does set yourself to do what love demands expose yourself to the burden of love to the burdens and the joys of your brethren you see we're afraid of intimate relationships because that exposure makes the demands of love see if my brother's rejoicing I won't know unless I get close enough to him when he is I may not feel like rejoicing but God says rejoice with him if you don't think that demands self-denial to rejoice with somebody who's up on cloud nine when you're down in the dirt you just try it sometime you got to stick your own feelings under your heel and step on them and that's why and then times when you're on cloud nine and God says weep with him you're not in a weepy mood self-denial to push yourself down off the cloud and get down in the valley with him and put your arm around him and weep but now if we're to abound in this love we must force ourselves I use the word purposely force ourselves to make those contacts with our brethren that will bring their needs into our awareness temporal as well as spiritual then we must in the midst of this cry to God for that word with his grace in us that will enable us to abound in love one to another I'm glad
as I close this morning that I can say with Paul brethren of the Trinity Church I have no crisis that leads me to say some things about the subject of brotherly love I'm glad I can say with Paul brethren I have no specific great glaring need that moves me to talk to you but whatever little stream of love we have in the Trinity Church brethren we could sure use a mighty overflowing river whatever little shower we have we sure could use a deluge whatever little harvest we've got we sure could use a bumper crop and so I exhort you this morning on the basis of the words of the apostle to abound in love one to another if there's somebody here that you ought to exhort no longer hate them by fusing to exhort them and that's what God says in Leviticus 19 17 if you hate your brother you show it by refusing to exhort him and if some of you have been pierced and wounded by some of the implications don't go out sulking I say these things this morning because of my love to you it makes me willing to risk your loving me because I'm faithful to your soul some of you have been pierced unless you've hardened your conscience the fact that you probably have lessened in your love to the brethren that's why you can be absent without concern from the fellowship from the assembly
of the people of God that's why you can be indifferent to the needs of your brethren may God grant that you'll let the wound drive you to the Lord and from that posture of brokenness receive fresh mercy and grace that you may abound in love to all the brethren we've got an awful lot in all of us that's not like the Lord but thank God in many of the people of God here there's at least something of the face of Christ reflected in the face of God love that of Christ which you see in them that's the love of the brethren let us pray
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
The sermon focuses on the latter half of this verse, "but we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more," as the direct command for increasing brotherly love.
Texts Expounded
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