Supremacy; Response to the Multitude of Sins

The Indispensable Evidences of Grace: Faith and Love

0:03 In the course of our verse-by-verse study through the letter of Paul to the church at Ephesus, Lord's Day Mornings, we came last week to the beginning of the second major paragraph in chapter 1, in which the Apostle Paul records for us the substance of that for which he prayed on behalf of the Ephesians. And he introduces that paragraph by telling them that he prays for them along certain lines with particular intensity and fervency since he received a report of their continued and growing faith in the Lord Jesus and their love to all the saints, Ephesians 1.15. And in the opening up of that passage of scripture last Lord's Day Morning, I extracted the principle and sought to apply it in various ways that continuous faith in the Lord Jesus and continuous love to the brethren are the two great indispensable evidences of the genuineness of grace received and grace growing and developing. Of all the various gifts and graces of God to the Ephesians,

1:25 the Apostle Paul, singles out these two as standing head and shoulders above all others, their continuous faith in the Lord Jesus, their continuous growing love one to another. We concluded then, in our study last week, by emphasizing the inseparability of these two things. There can be no love to the saints as fruit without faith in the Lord Jesus as root. And the great, the great problem in our day with all the talk about love, and everybody ought to love one another, and what the world needs is love, sweet love, is that men would divorce it from its only root, which is faith in the Lord Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And the Spirit's work is bound up with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But conversely, we need constantly to remind ourselves that if we profess to be growing in the faith, in our understanding of Christ, in our understanding of Him and His work on our behalf, growing in our confidence in Him, the proof of that will be our love to the saints growing and developing.

Pastoral Digression: The Need for Emphasizing Brotherly Love

2:41 Now, in my own contacts with you as an under-shepherd in the past weeks, there has been a growing conviction that we desperately need to have some facets of this biblical concept of brotherly love opened up, enlarged, and applied to our consciences with some degree of particular emphasis in certain areas. And so, since the theme was suggested in our study last week, I'm going to digress from the exposition of the next verses in Ephesians under what I trust is a genuine pastoral sensitivity and pastoral concern. And I say to you, young men, aspiring to the ministry, if time proves that God has equipped you for the ministry, beware of these schemes that map out your preaching for weeks and months ahead and then you commit yourself to it with a rigid inflexibility. You must seek to be sensitive to the present state of the flock of God in which the Holy Ghost has made you an overseer and to bring the strands of emphasis which are needed at any particular time. For there is not only the general ministry of the Word which meets the needs of the Gentiles, nor the general spiritual health of the people of God, but just as one alters his diet in terms of physical illness, in terms of particular physical pressures,

4:07 so there must be that flexibility to alter the diet of the people of God in the light of particular needs. Now, I am not inferring that we have a Corinthian situation on our hands where there are overt expressions of the absence of love or positive expressions of the presence of hatred or bitterness or jealousy. No, but there have been sufficient indications so that I do not feel I am using the pulpit as an excuse to give counsel to one or two. These things have developed to a sufficient degree as to warrant a public treatment from the Scriptures.

4:45 And so we are going to consider over the next few weeks, I do not know how many, some of the leading emphases of Scripture relative to the theme of brotherly love. Now, remember, and I say this particularly for the benefit of visitors amongst us who perhaps would not be aware of this, that whatever is said from this pulpit about brotherly love is couched in the context of the biblical concept of love. Love that is never divorced from truth on the one hand and holiness on the other. Whatever is said about love is said in the Joannine mentality.

The Supremacy of Brotherly Love in Scripture

5:23 And I refer, of course, to John's words, such as we find, in his second epistle, in which he says, So whatever we say of love, it is put in the context of the truth of Scripture by which alone love can be known and within which context love is to be expressed. Now, what I wish to do this morning is first of all, to confront you with the supremacy of the grace of brotherly love. What place should brotherly love hold in the thinking and the experience of the people of God? Well, it ought to hold the place in our thinking and in our experience that it holds in Scripture. And so if we are to know the place that it ought to have in our own lives, we must sense something of the supreme place it has in Scripture as the queen of all creation. If you were to list all of the graces that ought to adorn the Christian standing as head above all the others is the grace of brotherly love. Now, I had a tremendous experience this past week when in trying to figure out how to attack this subject and how to lay out the lines of truth, I speed-read all of the areas in the epistles

6:52 in which there is exhortation to Christian duty. And the impression was a profound one upon my own spirit as in book after book after book, epistle after epistle after epistle, the apostles and the biblical writers come back again and again and again and again to this theme of love of the brethren as the queen of all graces. And so that you might catch something of the impression which I received, I'm going to do something that is rarely done in this program, this pulpit, but it's going to be done for there are no rules against it and I've not received an edict from any powers that be that it cannot be done. I'm going to ask that you buckle your seatbelt and take a quick trip with me as I read, starting in the 13th chapter of John, from many portions in the New Testament without comment. Now, it's going to be difficult, but I'm not going to make any comment. I want you to catch the overriding thrust of one thing. The supernatural, the primacy of the grace of Christian love.

7:59 So that if you don't get anything else this morning, when you go out those doors that you'll be overwhelmed with this tremendous fact, this grace stands head and shoulders above all others. Beginning then in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John, and I will simply announce the passage, give you a moment to turn to it, and read it without comment. And so for the next 10 minutes or so, you'll be hearing nothing but scornful scripture without comment. John 13, verses 34 and 35.

8:34 A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 12, I'm sorry.

9:03 Romans chapter 12, verses 9 and 10.

9:12 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren, be tenderly affectioned one to another.

9:26 In honor, preferring one another. Chapter 13. Verses 8 through 10. O no man anything save to love one another.

9:40 For he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal.

9:49 Thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this one word, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, love therefore is the fulfillment of the law. And then I need not repeat a reading of 1 Corinthians 13.

10:12 I simply remind you of that pivotal chapter which we've read, the supremacy of love over all knowledge, gifts of utterance, gifts of performance. Love stands supreme. Then turning to the epistle to the Galatians. Galatians chapter 5, verses 13 to 15.

10:36 Galatians 5, 13.

10:41 For ye, brethren, were called for freedom. Only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

11:02 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed, one of another. Galatians 6, 1 and 2. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

11:33 Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1.

11:38 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily, of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. Chapter 5, verses 1 and 2.

11:57 Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, and offering and a sacrifice to God for an overbearing, odor of a sweet smell. Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.

12:20 Philippians 2, verse 1.

12:24 If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one, of one mind. Colossians 1, verses 3 and 4.

12:52 Colossians 1, verse 3. We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which he had towards all the saints. Chapter 3, verse 12.

13:14 Put on therefore as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of Christ, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving each other. If any man 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. And now over to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 3, verses 11 through 13.

13:50 1 Thessalonians 3, 11. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way unto you, and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one to another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you, to the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ with all the saints. Chapter 4, verse 9.

14:24 But concerning love of the brethren, 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 toward all the brethren that are in Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more.

14:44 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 3.

14:48 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 3. We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, even as it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each one of you toward one another aboundeth. 1 Timothy 1, verse 5.

15:07 But the end of the charge is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfamed. Philemon, verse 4.

15:21 Philemon, verse 4. I thank my God always, making mention of thee in my prayers, hearing of thy love and of the faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus and towards all the saints. Hebrews, chapter 13, verses 1 and 2.

15:44 Beginning to get the impression that I got? I hope so. Hebrews 13, verses 1 and 2. Let love of the brethren continue.

15:53 Continue. Forget not to show love unto strangers, for thereby some have unentertained angels, unawares.

16:04 James, chapter 2, verses 8 and 9.

16:10 Howbeit if ye fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. But if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, convicted by the law as transgressors. 1 Peter 1, verse 22.

16:31 1 Peter 1, verse 22. 1 Peter 1, verse 22. Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently. Chapter 3, verses 8 and 9.

16:49 Finally be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded, not rendering evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but contrariating, very wise blessing for hereunto were ye called. Chapter 4, verses 7 through 9. The end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore of sound mind and be sober unto prayer above all things.

17:19 The Queen of Graces above all things. Being fervent in your love among yourselves for love covereth a multitude of sins. Using hospitality one to another, without murmuring. And then, of course, into the book of 1 John, chapter 3, beginning with verse 14.

17:42 Chapter 3, verse 14. We know we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

18:00 Hereby know we love because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good and beholdeth his brother in need and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and in truth. Chapter 4, verses 7 and 8.

18:27 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone, that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. Chapter 5, verse 1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God, and whosoever loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.

18:56 In 2 John, verse 5. And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote to thee a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.

Four Conclusions on the Supremacy of Brotherly Love

19:11 Now, in the light of this selective, and it was by no means exhaustive, I deliberately excluded many passages. Now, in the light of this selective reading, what conclusions can we make, just on the surface of things, with reference to the supremacy of the grace of brotherly love? Well, I believe at least four conclusions are warranted. Let me give them to you very briefly.

19:37 Number one.

19:39 He who is not loving his brothers and sisters is guilty of gross and heinous sin.

19:53 If it were known this morning that one of you had picked the pocket of one of your brothers here, you had been guilty of thievery, and this became known to the assembly, you would be looked upon as one who had grievously sinned against your brother. And, I think it would be relatively easy to convince you that you had been guilty of grievous sin. For the Scripture says, let him that stole steal no more. And yet I fear that we do not feel the same sensitivity with reference to the clearly established duty of exercising love one to another.

20:34 When is the last time you were shocked when you found in your heart either the absence, the absence of love to the brother or sister or the presence of a disposition terribly contrary to that? You see, a sin is measured, if we're going to make degrees of sin, by the amount of importance that God attaches to that specific duty. And if God has said that brotherly love is the queen of all graces, then failure to love the brethren is the queen of all sins amongst the people of God. And I believe that conclusion is warranted in the light of the supremacy of this grace as seen in the passages which we have read together. He who is not loving his brothers and sisters is guilty of gross sin. Secondly, he who is not growing in love to his brothers and sisters is not growing in grace.

21:41 A man may think he's growing in grace because, boy, he's really increasing in his knowledge. But remember Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 13? If I had the sum total of all knowledge touching every field of human understanding, he says what? If it's devoid of love, I'm nothing.

22:03 Some of you think you're growing in grace because you're giving out more tracts and more books right with God. But my friend, if you should actually give up your body to be burned and you're not growing, you're not growing in love, you're not growing in grace. For if I give my body to be burned but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. 1 John 4.20 is very clear.

22:27 He that saith, I love God, but loveth not his brother, John says, how can a man say he loves an unseen God when he doesn't love a visible brother? He says impossible. It's a moral and spiritual impossibility. So the second conclusion we draw is this.

22:42 He who is not growing in love to his brothers and sisters, is not growing in grace. Third conclusion. The presence or absence of brotherly love is demonstrated in the concrete realities of my actual dealings with my brethren. Let us not love in word or in tongue, John says, but in what?

23:04 Deed and in truth. All of the descriptions of love. All of the exhortations of love. What is the context?

23:12 In all of these passages, you will notice that love is not commanded or described, in the context of great and astounding deeds. We're not called upon to demonstrate our love by great deeds of heroism. Rather, we're told how love works, and follow closely, in the midst of sinful men and needy sinful brothers and sisters. To quote one careful commentator, Paul does not picture love in ideal surroundings of friendship and affection, where each individual embraces and kisses the other, but rather he describes love in the hard surroundings where distressing influences bring out the positive value and the power of love.

24:06 You see, if love is to suffer long, there's got to be people that make it suffer, and make it suffer long. If it's to bear all things, there's got to be things to be borne. If it is not provoked, there's got to be things that would naturally be, a source of what? A provocation.

24:22 If it speaks no evil, it does not take account of evil, then there must be evil which you could take account of. You see, Paul's description of love is not in the idealistic. It's in the real gutsy level of where you have to live with me and I have to live with you. And we live close enough to see our imperfections and our shortcomings.

24:45 And so the presence or absence of this Queen of Graces is demonstrated in the concrete reality, the concrete realities of how you react to your brethren where they are. Right here. In all of our dealings with one another. In which words pass between us.

25:03 In which actions pass between us. In which there are these dealings with real men, with real imperfections, in the real circumstances of life. I say that's the third conclusion that is warranted from these texts. And the fourth is this.

25:19 The growth and expression of brotherly love do not come automatically. If these things grow like the whiskers on my chin, then there's no need for all these exhortations. I never read an exhortation saying yet, let the whiskers grow on your chin. They just grow.

25:39 Much to the bother of some of us who feel because of our particular circumstances we can't give vent to our desire to grow a beard. Those of you who can, some of us envy you. But no effort. Why?

25:53 Just an actual thing. You see, if this grace of brotherly love just growed like topsy, why all the exhortations? No exhortation is the means by which God stirs up the growth of love. And secondly, there needs to be specific explanation as to what love will do.

26:12 Paul doesn't just say walk in love. He says walk in love. And by that I mean forbear with one another, forgive one another, be patient with one another. So I say the fourth principle is warranted from these passages indicating the supremacy of this grace of love.

26:30 The growth and expression of brotherly love do not come automatically. There must be exhortations stirring us up to the duty of love. And there must be explanation showing us the direction of love. And at the very outset, this should give us to understand very clearly that biblical love has little to do with the emotions, associated with infatuation.

26:57 You can't command the emotions in the realm of infatuation. Tell a young man, you get a crush on Sally. You get a crush on Mary. You get a crush on Henrietta.

27:08 Well, he can't do that. He says, I just can't push a button and get a crush. You see how ridiculous? And yet God says love one another.

27:19 And immediately you see it's out of the realm of that part of us which is captured with infatuation, and it lies primarily in the deliberate choices of a renewed will in Jesus Christ. That's why there can be exhortation directing us to the duty of love. Exhortation is addressed to the will. That's why there can be explanation telling us what love will do, because explanation is addressed to the mind.

Love in the Presence of Sins: The Major Assumption of 1 Peter 4:8

27:53 So the growth and expression of brotherly love has to do primarily with the understanding and the will, not that area of the affections that is caught up with infatuation. Now in the light then of this reading of these many passages, trusting I hope, have given this tremendous impression of the supremacy of brotherly love, the light of these four conclusions, what I wish to do today is begin to focus upon some of the specific areas where I feel as a congregation we need some pointed exhortation and some very pointed explanation as to the duty of brotherly love. This is not arbitrary, it has been deliberate and prayerfully selective, and I want to speak this morning on this first area, love in the presence of my brothers' and sisters' sins. Love in the presence of the sins of my brothers and sisters. And our text is 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 8.

29:09 For this is precisely the circumstance contemplated by Peter in this text. Above all things. Now Peter says, I've told you a lot of things, I've told you a lot of duties, I've set before you a lot of graces, I've set before you goals, but above all of them, above all in importance, above all as a canopy, bending its protective and sheltering influence to every other grace, above all things, he says, being fervent in your love among yourselves, for love covereth a multitude of sins. Now the first thing I want to point out from the text is the major assumption of this text. If you missed that, you missed the whole point. And what is the major assumption of this text? Well, let me illustrate.

30:07 Suppose the coach is in the locker room and he says to the guys in the halftime now, fellas, let's get out there in the second half and hit hard. Let's play good basic football, blocking, tackling. Let's take that ball over the goal line and let's win it for the dear old alma mater in the second half. Well, you see, if he's giving exhortations like that, it's assuming certain things.

30:28 The basic assumption is there's a ball game going on outside the locker room. And that there's going to be a team out there lined up whom they're going to have to block and tackle. That there's a goal line. All that is assumed.

30:40 Take that exhortation of the coach out of that context and it makes no sense. Peter's exhortation, above all things have fervent love among yourselves for love shall cover a multitude of sins, has a basic assumption which, if not clearly understood, makes the meaning of the text fall to the ground. And the basic assumption is this, that in any group of saved men and women, there's going to be a multitude of sins. That's the basic assumption.

31:13 His exhortation is directed to that assumption. Now who's he writing to? An outfit like you had at Corinth with all those problems? No.

31:23 You read the first chapter and he says, these are a people elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father who've come into obedience and sprinkling of the blood and he speaks of their relationship to Christ whom having not seen, he loved. They dearly loved the Savior. Their love to the Savior was actually bringing persecution and so he directs them what to do in suffering. The great theme of 1 Peter is the Christian in the midst of suffering.

31:49 Here are people who dearly love the Savior, who are pressing after holiness. Chapter 1, verses 15 and 16. He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy, redeemed by the blood of Christ. Verse 19 and 20.

32:01 And yet he says, in the midst of that body of God's people, as they share their common life together, there will be a multitude of sins. Because Peter didn't have the higher life definition of sin. He had the biblical definition of sin. Which is most beautifully expressed in the Shorter Catechism.

32:24 What is sin? Any lack of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. Well if that's the standard, perfect conformity to that law which demands perfect love to God and perfect love to my brethren, in any group of believers there's going to be a multitude of sins. Falling short of the standard of perfect love to God, perfect love to the brethren.

32:52 There are my sins as a pastor, as a preacher. My sin of not being perfectly balanced in my applications. Forgetting at times to apply the truth to some of you whose life circumstances aren't mine and it's hard for me to think of how the truth applies to you. And yet, the truth applies to you.

33:10 I'm sure I sin many times when I'm preaching by the imbalance of my application. In the very act of preaching I'm sinning. If I perfectly loved all of you, I would have perfect balance in my application. So I sin even in my preaching.

33:24 There's my sin of perhaps being impartial in my dealings with you. Some of you I allow my natural affinity for you to cut me off from others to whom I don't have a natural affinity. That's sin. If I loved you all perfectly, I would naturally and gladly be as open and free in my counsel and directives.

33:44 That's my sin. I'm sure that I sin in not being as sacrificial in my prayerful concern for all of you as I ought. That's the multitude of my sins. There are your sins.

33:59 Your sins of failure to show balanced appreciation of one another. To be perfectly thoughtful of one another. To be perfectly kind. To be perfectly gracious.

34:09 There are times when I'm not. There are times when in your dealings with one another, there's an edge of sharpness in the words you may speak. There's a sensitivity that is run over roughshod. These are the sins, brethren.

34:20 The multitude of sins that are in our midst. And listen. They'll be there till Christ comes. A multitude of sins is going to be there.

34:35 All those failures, all those mistakes, those weaknesses, those faults. Now is Peter excusing them and calling them something other than sin? No. Where am I?

34:45 What is the standard of holiness set before every Christian? First Peter 1, 15 and 16. As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Look at chapter 4, verses 1 and following.

35:00 He says, look, your time past was enough for you to fill the lust of your flesh. Put them off. You've died with Christ. He that suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.

35:10 No, no. Peter's not excusing sin. He's not saying. Oh, well, we ought to just sit back and say, well, all of us have got a lot of sins.

35:18 Nothing. Don't do that. Peter isn't doing that. He starts out by saying, press after holiness.

35:24 Arm yourselves with this mind that you're going to be done with sin. But Peter knows. Peter knows that as long as we are in this imperfect state of sanctification amongst the most mature, advanced body of believers, there's still going to be a multitude of sins. As long as you accept God's standard of what sin is.

35:47 The sin is not excused. The sin is not overlooked. The sin is not called anything other than sin. But while we are yet in the flesh and not loving God perfectly and not loving one another perfectly, there's going to be a multitude of sins.

36:03 Now, if you don't like that, you go on out and start a church in your own home and live with your own sin. The starry-eyed, unrealistic perspective that's saying, well, I'm going to find a church where everything's perfect. Well, when you find it, don't you get into it, because you'll spoil it. You'll spoil it.

The Wrong and Right Responses to a Multitude of Sins

36:21 You'll spoil it. All right, now, having established this basic assumption of Peter's, here's the question. What do we do while those sins yet remain and when we see them in each other? Suppose you sit there and you feel my sin of not being balanced in my application and you feel excluded.

36:43 You say, pastor's always got something for the married couples and always something for the... But he doesn't have something for me.

36:50 What are you going to do when I sin against you that way? It's not deliberate sin, but it's sin. I acknowledge that's sin. If I'm not balanced in my preaching, it's sin.

36:55 But what are you going to do with my sin? What am I going to do with your sin? When you go out of here week after week and never even say thank you for the ministry of the Word, when I've literally labored and burned sometimes the midnight oil to try to have sermons that are structured clearly and have freshness and are true to the Word, and I never so much as even get a thank you from you, that's your sin of ingratitude. What am I going to do with it?

37:21 What are we going to do with one another's sins? That's the question. Well, the wrong thing to do is intimated in this text. In the absence of fervent love we can see each other's sins.

37:35 And then we can begin to mark them in our minds. Let them cause distance between us and our brethren. Let them be the father and mother of suspicion, of hurt, of friction, of hostility, and a host of other things. . . . . . . . . which in turn...

37:50 will grieve and quench the Holy Spirit. In the absence of fervent love, we'll look carefully to discover the sins of one another, then we'll mark those sins, then we'll broadcast those sins. And what's the result? Well, I want you to look at two texts in the book of Proverbs.

38:10 Proverbs 10.12 and Proverbs 17.9. What do we do with this multitude of sins?

38:18 Well, the wrong thing to do is what we're describing. And when we do that wrong thing, look at the tragic results. Proverbs 10.12.

38:28 Hatred stirreth up strifes, but love covereth all transgressions. You see, where the sins are not covered, then hatred begins to do its work and strife begins to be the result. One of the things that has been most precious in the fellowship of this assembly in the nine plus years that I have been with you has been the absence of strife. Ah, but listen, unless we have fervent love among ourselves, as our family grows and the multitude of our sins becomes bigger, there's more potential aggravation.

39:07 Now we can allow hatred to be the result and its child will be strife. Look at another result in chapter 17 and verse 9.

39:19 Chapter 17 and verse 9. He that covereth a transgression, seeketh love, but he that harpeth on the matter, separateth chief friends. What happens? Some brethren have been dwelling together in unity.

39:35 They've had the love that has covered their faults, but someone comes along who's zeroed in on the fault and just like the man plunking on one string on the heart, they keep plunking on it, plunking, plunking, plunking, plunking, plunking until what happens? The mind of that brother or sister is disaffected to the other brother and sister and chief friends are separated. Chief friends. Friends are separated.

39:59 Chief friends are separated. What are we going to do with this multitude of sins that we see in one another? Well, the thing we don't do is to mark them, broadcast them, harp upon them. The right thing to do, Peter says, is this.

40:16 Have fervent love among yourselves. The word fervent means earnest and constant. It's the word used in Acts 12.5.

40:25 Peter's in prison and it says church, prayer was made of the church fervently, continuously. That's the word in the original. It was prayer that was earnest, prayer that was persistent. Peter says, have fervent love among yourselves.

40:41 Love is an active, abounding, growing, constant principle. Have fervent love. And then he uses that word agape. That love which is utterly impossible apart from union with Christ.

40:56 A love that lies, as we indicated earlier, far more in the judgments of the mind and the dispositions of the will. As Lenski, the Lutheran commentator, emphasizes again and again wherever this word occurs, it's a love of intelligence and a love of purpose. It sees the need. It sees the sin.

41:17 It sees the failure. But it says, that's my brother. And the same Christ who has forgiven and received me and bears with me has forgiven and received him and bears with him. Therefore, I purpose that I shall not speak evil of him.

41:33 I purpose that I shall not mark his sin. That I shall not broadcast his sin. That I shall not read in motives to his sin. I purpose that I shall not harp on this matter.

41:48 Have fervent love among yourselves. Why? Peter says, here's the great activity of love in the face of my brothers. Love covereth a multitude of sins.

42:02 Now it's interesting that that word cover in its noun form is the word translated in 2 Corinthians 3. Moses had a veil upon his face. What does love do? It casts a veil over the sins of my brother.

42:19 I begin to get close to him and I start seeing his ethical and spiritual warts and whens and moles. And what does love do? Instead of going over and rubbing them and picking on them until they fester and begin to bleed and irritate. What does love do?

42:36 It casts a veil over them. That's what love does. It casts a veil. Love covereth.

42:44 It's the same verb used when it says that the waves came and inundated. They covered the ship. There as it was tossed about in the Sea of Galilee, Matthew 8, in verse 24. So fervent love will we, leave a mantle to cast over the multitude of the sins and failures and shortcomings of my brothers and my sisters.

How Love Covers Sins: Mind, Affections, Tongue, and Actions

43:07 And notice, that's an operation primarily in me. I have no power to remove the sin as far as its guilt is concerned. Only God can do that. And He does that by the blood of His Son when my brother or sister confesses his sins.

43:23 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. My disposition to cover my brother's sins does not remove their guilt. If he's an unconverted person, I can't justify him by seeking to cover them. If he's a brother, I cannot restore any ruptured fellowship that may be there because of sins that he is not dealing with.

43:49 So that the covering is basically something that is done in my mind and in my attitude to my brother. Let me illustrate this way.

43:59 One of the reasons I'm longing for that first snow and I do each year is that I always see the things that I could have done out in the backyard that I didn't get done in the fall. I see some of the weeds still there in the garden area that I should have pulled up. They're ugly looking because they're, you know, weeds can be pretty when at least they're green. But when they're all brown and dead and drooping over.

44:19 And then I see some stakes that were put out there by some of the fellas to mark out a football playing area that never got pulled up. And I see some leaves that didn't get raked up. And what's lovely with that first good, a blanket of snow is it covers a multitude of the imperfections in my backyard. Now, it doesn't remove them.

44:38 They're still there. And unless someone's hand goes out and pulls up the stakes and pulls up the weeds. But as far as I look upon them, they're covered. They're put out of sight.

44:48 That's what Peter's saying. Have fervent love for love will do what? It will cast that mantle of white over the sins of my brothers and my sisters. Love has that peculiar capacity to cover a multitude of sin.

45:08 So that when I see my brother, I don't think of that sharp word that sticks out like an ugly weed. Love has covered it. I don't remember perhaps his careless reaction to my little signals about my need. I don't remember his lack of sympathy to me.

45:24 I see him as my brother in Christ on his way to glory, struggling with the world, the flesh, and the devil. And we're going together and we need one another and we want to love one another so the world will know that we're his disciples. Above all things, have fervent love among yourselves for love shall cover a multitude of sins. Let me break this down a bit and show how love will cover the sins in my mind, in my affections, in my tongue, and in my actions.

45:58 In my mind, I've already hinted at it. When I see my brother or sister, I do not bring into account all of those wrongs that I've noticed. I refuse to let my mind retain them. We'll study that, God willing, next week.

46:13 Love taketh no account of evil. It's a legal term from the accounting world. Love doesn't go around with its ledger saying, now what can I put in the debit side? And every time I meet the brother, oh yes, M-A, oh yes, oh yes, there's this, this, this.

46:27 Some of you are doing this. God have mercy on you. You're remembering little picky, oom things that somebody did to you. And you're nursing your wounds.

46:39 Oh, my dear sister, my dear brother, may God make you feel as unclean and wicked as though you'd gone out and butchered someone in brutal murder because it's gross sin, grieving and quenching the spirit. In the mind, it works so that the mind does not retain my brother's failings.

47:04 Secondly, it will work in the realm of your affections. What I feel when I see the brother or sister, I'll not allow rancor and bitterness and suspicion to rise up in the realm of my affections. No, no. Love will cover the multitude of sins so that I'll be conscious of my attachment to him in the bonds of Christian love.

47:27 It will express itself in my tongue, what I say about the brother more often in what I refuse to say about him. My tongue will reflect that I've covered the multitude of sins. I won't be harping on the matter. And when someone speaks a praiseworthy word, what a subtle thing.

47:43 And we say, ah, yes, that's true, but love has not covered the multitude of faults.

47:52 No, no, love hasn't covered the multitude of faults. When someone speaks well of the brother or sister and instead of saying, yes, thank God for those graces, we have to say, yes, but! And then the imperfections are drawn out. Love will cover a multitude of sins.

48:09 The covering will be shown in the tongue as well as the affections in the mind and it will be shown in the actions.

Matthew 18:15 as an Amplification, Not Contradiction, of Love's Covering

48:17 And if there seems to be clear evidence that my brother has wronged me, I'm not going to wrong him. I'm going to act towards him as though the wrong were never done. I'm going to love him for Christ's sake. Ah, but someone says, Pastor, what about Matthew 15?

48:33 Matthew 18, 15. It says, if thy brother sinned against thee, go tell him his fault between thee and him alone. That fits into this framework. It fits into this framework.

48:41 Follow me now. If it's the kind of sin that demands specific reproof, the reason you go to your brother is not to retaliate within the framework of a scriptural justification.

48:55 The reason you go is you know that that sin is of such a nature it's hindering his fellowship with God. And you love him enough to go and point out his fault that he might deal with the sin that he might know fellowship with God once again. And what do you do? The scripture says you go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.

49:16 Why? You want to keep it covered. You don't want it dragged out before others. You don't go to another brother or sister and say, you know that so-and-so did this to me or so-and-so didn't do this to me and I think we ought to pray for him.

49:28 That's an abomination. It's open disobedience. And some of you are guilty of this because I get it. You come to me and say, Pastor, so-and-so did this and I wish you never told me.

49:42 Now I have to deal with that thing and pray for fervent love that will hide it. You should have gone to them, dear ones. If they sinned against you, go to your brother and sister and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. Don't come to your pastor.

49:59 Feed my mind with your complaints. Go to your brother. Go to your sister. And if it's not of a sufficient nature, then cry to God for the love that will blot it out of your mind.

50:16 It's no easy thing. To have to look out into the faces of people. Someone's told you this and someone's told you that. Beloved, no.

50:24 No. You go. You go. Go in love.

50:28 If they're older than you, entreat them as a father, as a mother. But go. Go to them. You say, but I'm not perfect.

50:34 Yes, I know that and they know it. But go to them. If they've sinned against you, go in love. Go with the motive that they might be restored.

50:43 And if they won't hear you, then you come to the pastor and the elders. Nobody else. Take with thee two or three, Matthew 18 says. And you disclose it to us.

50:53 Uncover it only as much as is necessary and as far as is necessary to deal with it. So Matthew 18 is not a contradiction of 1 Peter 4. It's just an amplification of how this disposition of love will work.

Practical Cultivation of Fervent Love

51:11 In closing, let me exhort you this morning to some very practical things as to how this can be done by God's grace. The first thing you must remember is this fervent love that covers a multitude of sins is a fruit that never grows on unblessed Adamic stock. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And my dear friend, perhaps the biggest revelation that some of you have never been born of the Spirit is your inability to love.

51:48 I don't know. It could be. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Love.

51:53 And there are many careful commentators who believe that all the other things that are mentioned are but aspects of love's working in relationship to other men. So you must be born of the Spirit before you can have this love. That's why Peter says,

52:10 having fervent love among yourselves, he says, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. He says, unless you're acquainted with the power of the new birth, you'll never know the presence of this kind, of love. But assuming that I'm speaking primarily to those who are born of the Spirit, may I give you three suggestions to help you to have this fervent love that will cover the multitude of sins. The first one is this.

52:39 Live with a constant sense of your own sins and failures.

52:46 What is one of the integral parts of our daily prayer life? Jesus said, after this manner pray ye. And we're not to live a day without crying out, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. You know what I'd like to do with some of you who are so hypercritical of others?

53:05 I'd like to bring you right up to the front of the church and say, now will you just please tell everybody how wonderful and how perfect you are?

53:12 Because you seem to assume such a degree of perfection that you can become chief critic of all the saints of God and all their imperfections. You must really have attained a place of tremendous stature and grace. You wouldn't do that, would you? No.

53:28 But, oh, oh, dear ones, how easy it is to forget the man who carries around in his own bosom the sense of his own failure and sins is the one who will find it not easy, but will find most grace to have fervent love that covers a multitude of sin. When you know a little part of the multitude of your own sins, you're neither shocked nor hurt when you see part of the multitude made up by someone else's.

54:01 Remember, it's the Pharisee who draws his robes around him and says, I, my friend, when you get to the place where you've attained such degrees of holiness and perfection that you don't need the patient forbearance of the people of God, then you let us know, and we'll put you in a glass case and take you around to all the churches in the world as a museum piece, something that's never appeared on the scene before. You say, Pastor, you're being facetious. No, I trust I'm, I trust it's a sanctity and a sanctified use of irony to make some of you feel the sting of the terrible sin of an attitude that marks the sins of your brethren instead of covering them. Remember your own sins and failures. Secondly, remember the magnitude of God's forgiveness to you. Matthew 18, you remember the parable?

54:58 Here's the man, the master forgave him a great debt. He goes around and finds his servant who owed him a little bit and grabs him by the throat and says, come on, Buster, pay up. Where else do you have it? And when the master heard about him, he says, you take that wicked servant and you bring judgment on him.

55:15 And Jesus said, so shall my father do to every one of you if he forgive not every man his brother from the what? From the heart. Why? Because any man who's drunk of the spirit of divine forgiveness must have a forgiving spirit to his brethren.

55:34 And if you don't, it's evidence that you're a stranger if not to the reality that God's forgiveness is present awareness of the magnitude of God's forgiveness. And then thirdly,

55:46 remember how you wish to be treated with all of your imperfections. Matthew 7, 12, as ye would that others do unto you, even so do unto them. For this is the law of the prophets.

56:02 When you're guilty of the sins of infirmity and weakness in which you don't show the proper measure of love in the tone of your voice and the rest, what do you want others to do? Do you want them to mark that in their ledger and every time they look at you to bring it? No, what do you want? You want them to say, well, they haven't quite made it but neither have I.

56:24 Isn't that what you want your brethren to do? Isn't that what you want them to do? Isn't it? As you would that others do unto you, even so do ye also unto them.

56:37 So the next time you're ready to mark the sins of your brothers and sisters and begin to try to keep account of the multitude of those sins, you just ask, is this what I want at the hands of my brethren?

Concluding Exhortation: The Necessity of Love for the Church's Health

56:51 Personally, I find these three things most helpful. I didn't get these out of a book. I've dug them up out of my own heart and I make no apologies for that because the more one stands in a place of leadership and in the public eye, the more he's exposed to all kinds of crosswinds. And if he doesn't learn how to deal with injustices and sins and failures of others because he touches many more others, his spirit will become sour and the fragrance and the freshness will be gone.

57:22 Well then, what does love do in the presence of the sins of its brothers and sisters? It doesn't excuse them. It doesn't call them virtues, but it has fervent love which covers the multitude of sins. And where the sins are of such a nature that in your judgment they demand a confrontation, you go to your brothers or sister alone.

57:50 You don't come to your pastor. You don't go to another believer. And I know in this place today there's some of you who've got some confessing to do to God and to others because you've blabbered the faults and sins of your brothers, the people, and you haven't gone to them. You are the one who's harping on a matter that is going to cause division among chief friends.

58:12 Oh, dear ones, I'm not pushing panic buttons. No. But I'm seeking to administer a statement and a stiff dose of spring tonic that God may keep us from the crippling effects that will be our portion unless we have fervent love among ourselves, that love that covers a multitude of sins.

58:39 I know, as I indicated and I started with myself, there isn't a Sunday I stand before you that there is not some measure of sin in my very ministry. I trust you have love that will cover those sins. I trust that God will give to me, to all of us, fervent love among ourselves that covers a multitude of sins. Oh, may God help us to cry to Him for this love and then subject ourselves to the disciplines by which that love may be cultivated and increased.

59:14 For without it, should all of us attain to such measures of knowledge that we would make John Owen envious? Should we attain to such degrees of eloquence and fervency in gospel witness that Whitefield would envy us? Should we attain such degrees of self-sacrifice in the spread of the gospel that martyrs would envy us and attain all of these things and have not love? It would profit us.

59:48 Oh, may this queen of all graces be the dominant characteristic of this body of believers so that by this all men shall know that we are not but His disciples. Throwing out truth? No. Loving one another?

60:07 In the truth. Throwing out holiness? No. For love is the fulfilling of the law.

60:12 And what is holiness but conformity to that divine law? So may God help us in that context to press on and by His grace to be marked as a people who love one another not in word but in deed and in truth. Love that is constantly weaving a veil that is constantly weaving a veil that is constantly weaving a veil to cast over the multitude of the sins of our brothers and our sisters. Brethren, until we get to heaven and we are like Him we are a bunch of imperfectly sanctified sinners going in the same direction.

60:44 It will make the journey a lot happier if we love one another. Let us pray.