Response to Material Needs

Introduction: Love's Response to Sin vs. Material Needs

0:04 We have been working our way through at a snail's pace in the first chapter of Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. And in the course of that very slow, painstaking, verse-by-verse, word-by-word study, we came to the first statement of the second major paragraph, verse 15, in which the Apostle Paul records his reaction to the report he received of the growing faith and love of the Ephesian believers. And so having expounded that verse, and then thinking of a number of situations which have arisen in my pastoral dealings with you as a congregation, I felt it to be the part of wisdom to amplify the theme introduced by Paul's words, concerning the love of the brethren. And so we have spent some four or five weeks treating the basic theme of love to the brethren, and we've been very exclusive in our consideration of that love, namely, how that love acts and reacts in the presence of the sins of the saints. One of the hard realities of the Christian life,

1:24 which must be faced by every individual believer, and by the cornerstone, and by the corporate fellowship of God's people, is that though as a body of regenerate people there is this basic release from the dominion of sin, and this pursuit of entire conformity to Jesus Christ, none of us has yet attained, and there are varying degrees of remaining corruption left in all of us, as James says, in many things we all offend. And if a man say he have no sin, he deceives himself and the truth is not in him. Therefore, one of the great demands made upon the love of the brethren is in this very area, how does love react in the presence of the sins of the saints? And more church fusses and more occasions to grieve and quench the Holy Spirit have come to pass in evangelical churches through a failure to know how love reacts in the face of sin that have ever come to pass, True, such things as gross heresy and gross immorality. And so we spent a good bit of time considering love's response to the sins of the brothers all the way from Peter's directive, fervent love that covers the multitude of faults, to the directive of Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 in which love will actually excommunicate a man

2:51 and give him up to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, and everything in between. The biblical directives to how we treat sin amongst the people of God are couched in the context of love. But love needs directive. As an old Puritan has said, Law is love's eyes, and without it love is blind.

3:13 And these many passages which we have studied tell us how love is to react in the face of the sins of the saints. Now today I wish to focus on a second major aspect, the aspect of brotherly love, namely the response of brotherly love to the tangible material needs of the saints. And I've actually used my Rogers or Roger's thesaurus in trying to find some better words than tangible and material, and I've drawn a blank. And I'm using those words in contrast to what we would naturally call more spiritual needs.

3:56 We've dealt. We've dealt with what love does when it sees sin in a brother. It rebukes him if the sin is of the nature that demands rebuke. It will exhort him.

4:05 It will seek to restore the brother that is overtaken in the fault. If the sin will not be faced, love takes the two or three witnesses. And then if the sin is still not dealt with, love will go to that final thing, even church discipline and excommunication. But we are thinking then of those things that we might call for the sake of clarification, though not technically, the more spiritual needs of the saints.

4:29 But now in contrast to that, we want to deal today with those tangible material needs of the saints and how does love respond in that context. And what I wish to do is to be selective in the passages that I expound this morning because the scriptures are so full, old and New Testament, of positive, detailed directives that this would go on for months if I tried to expound even the major passages. But I want to focus upon two pivotal passages convinced if we can lay hold of the substance of these two passages, we have the framework of everything else that scripture teaches on the subject. The first passage is 1 John chapter 3.

1 John 3:14-19: Love as Evidence of Life

5:12 Now remember, all we're attempting to do this morning is to get some light on this basic issue, how does love respond to the tangible, material, visible needs of the saints. 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3, beginning with verse 14. And I shall conclude with the reading of verse 19.

5:40 We know that 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. Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

6:08 But whoso hath the world's goods, 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. Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before him. Now as we think our way through the passage and giving a brief exegesis of the mind of the Spirit found in this particular portion of Scripture, we should do so in the following way.

6:48 First of all, we see John states a principle, and then he anticipates and answers a question, and then he gives an exhortation, and then he draws a conclusion. So you have a principle stated, a question anticipated, and answered, an exhortation given, and a conclusion drawn. All right? First of all, what is the principle that John states?

7:11 Verse 14. We know we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. One of John's purposes in writing this epistle is clearly stated in 1 John 5, verses 12 and 13, in which he says, These things have I written, unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.

7:39 He wrote in order to strengthen the assurance of believers. Now the things he gives them, by which their assurance is to be strengthened, are these tests of life. How can I know that I've passed from death unto life? Well, in this passage, John says, If there is this love to the brethren resident in our hearts and exemplified in our lives, we can have assurance that we are those who have passed from a state of spiritual death into a state of spiritual life.

8:14 And so the principle stated is that love of the brethren is the evidence of spiritual life. He states it positively in the first part of verse 14. In the last part of verse 14 and verse 15, he states it negatively. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer, hath eternal life abiding in him.

8:35 So there's the principle stated very simply. The youngest child amongst us, if he is paying attention, can understand it. If you love the brethren, an evidence of life. If you don't love the brethren, an evidence of death.

1 John 3:16-17: How Love is Discerned

8:48 Now then, John anticipates a question, and he answers that question which he anticipates. And the question he anticipates is this. All right, John, I'll accept your principle. The presence of love, evidence of life.

9:01 Absence of love, evidence of life. Evidence of death. But John, I have a problem. How can I tell if I have that love?

9:08 I agree with you. All right, I'll accept the statement. If I love, I have life. If I don't love, I don't have life.

9:14 But how can I know if I have love? If I want to know if I've gained weight, I get on the scales. Whether I like it or not, the scales don't buy if they're anywhere near accurate. If I want to know if I'm six feet tall, I get by an accurate measurement.

9:26 If I want to know if I've got TB, I go and have some x-rays. But now, how do you know if you love the brethren? Is there some kind of a love-ometer that I can pull out of my brain? That I can pull out from under the pulpit and go around and put it on the heart of everyone?

9:38 How can you tell if you love the brethren? Well, John anticipates that question. Sure, it's as though the readers say, John, that's wonderful. I want to know that I have life.

9:48 I want to make sure that I'm not just some religious goat who says he's one of the Lord's sheep. And I see, John, that if I'm joined to Christ, I'll love all who are joined to Him. But how can I tell if I have love? John anticipates the question and then he answers it in this way.

10:03 Hereby know we love because... And he says, all right, now how do we discern God's love?

10:11 If you get hold of that, then you can get hold of the principle how you discern your own love. Hereby know we love because He laid down His life for us. How do we know God loves us? And I say it reverently, but for the sake of illustration, not because God has made a love-ometer and put it upon His own heart and then sent the results down to us.

10:34 And put them in a museum in every hamlet. No, no. The cross of His dear Son is the monument, the demonstration of His love. Hereby know we love because He laid down His life for us.

10:53 We know God's love, particularly in this passage, we know the love of Christ because of His tangible, sacrificial response to our tangible, tangible and tragic need as sinners.

11:09 God beholding us wallowing in the filth of our sin and uncleanness knew that there was no way that we ever could be made acceptable to Him except through the mediation of His Son. And so His love moved Him to respond to that very tangible need at great personal cost. And now John says, and if that love is in us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. See the parallel?

11:41 How do we read God's love? By that disposition to lay down His life for us. How do we know if we have love? By that disposition to give, if necessary, even our most precious possession, life itself, we will give it on behalf of our brethren.

12:02 Love is discerned not by putting it on the table, putting some kind of a love-ometer upon the heart, but by the willingness to respond at great cost to tangible need by tangible deeds of love.

12:19 But, in John's day and in ours, very few were called upon to make that supreme evidence of love. So John goes on to say, but even though love in the heart of a believer for other believers, which is an evidence, will move him to make that supreme sacrifice, few were called upon to do that. But whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him?

13:01 If you have some material substance which will meet your brother's evident need and you shut up your heart, John's question is, how does God's love abide in you? The very love which, if abiding in you, will move you to give your most precious possession, life itself, if it doesn't move you to open up your hand a little bit, how can it be in you? It's like some guy coming into town, bragging that he's the strongest man on the East Coast. He says, you put an elephant on the platform and put some chains around it and get a neck brace and I can lift it 18 inches off.

13:35 Then he's bragging all the time. So one day, you're out walking your dog and your dog happens to fall into a ditch and that man's walking by and he says, mister, will you please pick me up? Will you pick my dog up? And he bends over to pick your dog up and he's grunting and he's groaning and he walks away and says, I can't do it.

13:52 Well, immediately you say, wait a minute. You're the guy that says you can pick up an elephant and you can't pick up my dog? You're just a lot of hot air.

14:04 That's what John is saying. That's what John is saying. John is saying in answer to the question, how do we know if we have love dwelling in us? We know God's love by the giving of His very life for us.

14:19 And if that love is in us, it will move us if necessary to give our very lives for our brethren. Now then, here's a man who claims to be a Christian in whom this kind of love is dwelling and he sees the dog in the ditch and he has no strength to lift the dog. Can he lift an elephant?

14:38 If he won't give something that is external to him, his world's goods, he won't reach into his pocket and take out of his substance. Will he allow someone to reach into his veins and take out his blood? That's John's argument.

14:54 When that love is there by the implantation of divine life, he says it will express itself if necessary in the highest sacrifice, but certainly in the lesser. And so in anticipation of the question, John's answer is, how do you know if love is there? You'll know it by its response to the tangible needs of your brethren. You see your brother in need.

15:22 You have wherewith to meet it and you don't. How does the love of God dwell in you? God didn't act that way. His love saw us in our need.

1 John 3:18-19: Exhortation to Love in Deed and Truth

15:31 His love poured itself out to meet that need. So then we've looked at the principles stated, verse 14 and 15, positive, negative. The question anticipated and answered in verses 16 and 17, that leads us to an exhortation given in verse 18. My little children, in the light of the principles, we've established, the question we've anticipated and answered, here's my exhortation.

15:57 My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and in truth. Now this is a figure of speech. We touched on it in the adult class this morning. It is an absolute for a relative.

16:15 In other words, John is not condemning the verbal exchanges of affection amongst brethren. If so, he broke his own commandment time after time. When he introduces his second epistle, how does he do it? The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love.

16:34 He's loving in word. Third John. The elder unto Gaius the beloved, whom I love. He's loving in word.

16:43 So what is John saying here? In his exhortation is he saying, now you Christians, I don't want any verbalizing of your affection for one another. No, that would both be unnatural and it would be cruel. We need to verbalize our love, just as a husband and wife need to.

17:01 And no amount of the acts of love will substitute for those whisperings of those little sweet nothings. And if you don't think that's so, some of you husbands ought to ask your wife. Some of them would just feel that, well, I don't know what they'd feel if you just sat down, looked them in the eye, and took them by the cheeks and said you loved them. You love them for washing all your dirty underwear, day after day, week after week, and stuffing them back in your drawer, with dirty socks of yours, and cleaning up the shaving cream that you leave all over the kitchen, and all over the bathroom sink, and picking up your smelly shoes from under the bed and sticking them back in the closet.

17:40 How long has it been since you've told her, dear, I love you for all the things you do? And then when she doesn't do them, just tell her you love her for what she is. Sure, we need this in any human relationship. And we need it amongst the brethren.

17:54 John, John is not forbidding the verbalizing of our love, but he's speaking as God spoke to Israel in Jeremiah 7.22. He says, look, when I called you out of Egypt, I didn't talk to you about sacrifices and offerings. I talked to you about obedience.

18:09 Well, he did talk to you about sacrifices and offerings. If you don't believe it, work your way through Leviticus, as I've done recently in my own devotions. He said an awful lot about sacrifices, and oblations, and washings, and all the rest. But what he's saying is, look, the main thing I was after was not that you could come at the right time in the right place and bring the right offering in the right way.

18:29 The whole thrust of all of this was to bring you into covenant relationship to myself, a relationship of love and obedience. Now, that's the figure of speech that John is using here. His exhortation is, brethren, let's not be concerned primarily about the verbal expressions of our love. Talk is cheap.

18:51 But let our love be, and he says two things. Indeed, that is, in the tangible response to tangible need. Hungry tummies are not filled with words, but with food. James chapter 2, where James is showing the emptiness of faith without works, he uses an illustration that underscores that point.

19:13 He says, if a brother comes to you destitute and hungry, and you say, hello brother, I love you in the Lord, be filled. Does he go away filled with the hot air that's come out of your mouth? That's James' argument. No, he goes away hungry, he says, unless you give him that which is made for the tummy.

19:31 And words aren't made for the tummy. Food's made for the tummy.

19:35 Cold bodies are not warmed by the breath of a mouth pouring out profuse expressions of love, but they're warmed by clothing. In other words, John is saying, look, if your tongue were ripped out, would you still be proclaiming love to your brethren? Let us not love in word only, but in deed, in those things that, can be read, and tangibly seen. And he says, in truth, that is, from the heart.

20:03 Here he's dealing with sincerity. For 1 Corinthians 13 indicates, you can even give your body to be burned and not do it in truth. You can do it without love. So Paul's exhortation in Romans 12, 9-13, is an excellent commentary on John's exhortation.

20:20 Let us not love in word only, but in deed and in truth. What's that mean? Listen to Paul. Let love be without hypocrisy, don't let it be play-acting.

20:29 I'm going around doing my good deed for the day to the brethren. No, no. He says, let it be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cleave to that which is good.

20:39 In love of the brethren, be tenderly affectioned one to another. In honor, preferring one another. Verse 13, communicating to the necessities of the saints. That's it.

20:51 Let us not love in word, but in deed, in the tangible expressions of love, in meeting the tangible needs of the saints, and let's do it in truth. Let your action and your attitude be expressions of love, in reality and in sincerity. That's his exhortation. Now, what's the conclusion he draws?

21:13 Verse 19, Hereby we shall know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before it. He brings us around full circle from his principle to the conclusion. And he says, as you see yourself demonstrating love in the tangible expressions of that love, you shall assure your own heart that indeed, you've got something more than a notion that you're a child of God. You will know that the very quality of love that moved the Savior to lay down his life is operative in you because it's enabling you to pick up puppy dogs.

21:49 And if the time comes, it'll give you grace to pick up elephants. But no puppy dogs, no elephants. It's easy for us to say, oh sure, I've laid down my life, well, that's pretty clever because you know quite surely that that pressure will never come to bear upon you. But what are you doing about those other needs of your brethren that you can and should and ought to meet?

Matthew 25:31-46: The Setting of Final Judgment

22:11 John says, let us not love in word, but in deed and in truth. So, in summary then, before we move from this passage, we see that the thrust of John's word is that love is one of the indispensable evidences of divine life and the proof that we have that, that love is its genuine response to the real needs of real saints, even as God's love was evidenced in his response to our need. Now, without any further exhortation, I want us to move very quickly to the 25th chapter of Matthew for the second pivotal passage in which the principles that John enunciates are fleshed out and form the basis then of some very pointed exhortation. What is love's response to the tangible needs of the brethren? Well, we've had John's answer to the question. Now, let's listen to our Lord's answer in Matthew 25, beginning with verse 31.

23:15 The first thing we shall do as we work through this passage very quickly is to consider the setting of the passage. But when the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory and before Him, before Him shall be gathered all the nations and He shall separate them one from another as the shepherd separated the sheep from the goats and He shall set the sheep on His right hand and the goats on the left. What is the setting? All of the fanciful, strained commentary of dispensationalists notwithstanding the setting of this passage is the judgment of the last day.

23:59 It is a parallel passage to Revelation, chapter 20, verses 11 through 15, in which we have the picture of all the nations standing before God upon the return of our Lord in power and in glory. And so it is just one of the many passages dealing with the judgment of the last day. And the whole setting is the setting of a legal court. It will be the formal declaration of men's eternal destiny and a public vindication of the righteous judgment of God in the pronouncements that He makes.

24:40 This is not a passage telling a man how he becomes righteous. It is God's formal declaration to the world of who the righteous are, not how they became that way. If you want to find out how a man becomes righteous, you go to Romans. You go to Galatians.

24:56 And so this passage is not teaching salvation by works. It is simply teaching a salvation that works. And that is exactly what John taught. This is not telling us the grounds of a man's acceptance, but the evidence that he is accepted.

25:12 These works that our Lord uses as the basis upon which He consigns some to the pit and others are brought into heaven, these are not meritorious works, but they are evidential works. The works of faith. Now that is the setting of the passage. Now then, consider first of all the King's word to the righteous.

Matthew 25:34-40: The King's Word to the Righteous

25:34 Verse 34. It's first of all a word of welcome. Then shall the King say to them on His right hand, Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then He vindicates that welcome.

25:51 Verses 35 and 36. For, here's the welcome, come. Now, the reason for which the welcome is given, vindicating that pronouncement to all the myriads of men and angels and all intelligent creatures, for I was hungry and ye gave Me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me drink.

26:13 I was a stranger and you took Me in. Naked and ye clothed Me. I was sick and ye visited Me. I was in prison and ye came to Me.

26:23 Jesus said, I had need of food, for I was hungry. Tangible need. I had need of drink, for I was thirsty. I had need of lodging.

26:33 I was a stranger. I had need of clothing. I was naked. I had need to be visited and nursed.

26:38 I was sick. I had need of companionship and provision. I was in prison. And He says, you responded to these needs.

26:47 He vindicates His pronouncement that they are the righteous by saying these things about them. This is what you did to Me. Now, you'll notice that they, immediately propound a question to our Lord, beginning with verse 37. The question is not, Lord, when did we do these things?

27:11 But the question is, Lord, when saw we Thee hungry and fed Thee? And when saw we Thee sick or in prison and came unto Thee? That's their question. Not that they did these deeds of mercy.

27:28 They were very conscious that they had given food to some hungry people and drink to the thirsty and lodging to the stranger, clothing to the naked, nursed the sick, and provided companionship for the imprisoned. But their question is, Lord, when did we ever see You in that state? Lord, we never saw You sick. We've seen sick people, but not You.

27:50 That's their question. Where did Christ enter in to all of this? And then notice the answer of our Lord. Verse 40.

27:57 And the King shall answer and say to them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even the least ye did it unto me. Jesus says, In doing this to my brethren you did it to me. Great question. Who are Christ's brethren?

28:19 And to say that Christ's brethren are apostate Jews,

28:24 or to even say that they are necessarily converted Jews, is to read into the Word that which is not watered, warranted by the text and by cross-referencing our Lord's description of who His brethren are. For He answers that question in a very explicit, clear manner in Matthew chapter 12, verses 46 to 50. Some people are standing around Him who have a blood relationship to Him.

28:53 While He was yet speaking to the multitudes, His mother and His brethren stood without seeking to speak to Him. And one said unto Him, Matthew 12, 47, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without speaking, not seeking to speak to thee. But He answered and said unto them that told Him, Who is my mother? And who are my brethren?

29:13 And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples and said, Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, He is my brother and my sister and my mother. And what is the will of the Father? Well, the first facet of that will is that we believe on Him whom He hath sent. For Jesus said, This is the work of God that you believe on Him whom He hath sent.

29:35 He said, These are my brethren who receive me for what I claim to be sent of the Father, the Messiah, the only Savior of sinners. These are my brethren. I bear a relationship to them far more intimate than the relationship of a common gene pool and chromosomes. No, no.

29:57 No, no. These are my brethren. So when our Lord answers the righteous and says, In treating my brethren even the least, what is He saying? He says to the question of these who are puzzled by the words, You did it to me.

30:12 Yes, you did it to me. In the person of my disciples even, the most insignificant despise of those disciples. Those regarded as the off-scouring of all things and shut up in prison as some kind of pest to society, you saw in them that which caused you to draw near to God. You were ignorant and ministered to them.

Matthew 25:41-45: The King's Word to the Unrighteous

30:38 And in ministering to them who bore my likeness, who claimed attachment to me, you ministered even unto me. So much for a basic exposition of our Lord's words to the righteous, the question of the righteous, the answer of our Lord. Notice the same pattern in His words to the unrighteous. Verses 41 and 42 and 3, it's a word of rejection.

31:04 Verse 41, Then shall He say to them in the left hand, Depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Then the reason for that rejection, verse 42, I was hungry, you did not give me to eat. Thirsty, you gave me no drink. Stranger, you took me not in.

31:23 Naked, you clothed me not. Sick and in prison, you visited me not. There He vindicates that pronouncement. Depart from me into everlasting fire.

31:32 Floor. Here's the reason. You saw me, you saw me in need and you didn't respond to me. If you were mine, by faith, you would have responded in love to my evident need.

31:47 Well, this provokes a question on their part, just as our Lord's words provoked a question on the part of the righteous. And what is their question? Then shall they answer, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry or a thirst or a stranger or naked or sick and did not minister unto thee? Lord, if we'd ever seen you, we'd have responded to you.

32:07 Lord, we never saw you. We never saw you in a prison. We never saw you famished. What is the answer of Christ?

32:16 Verse 45.

32:18 Then shall He answer, saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as He did it not unto one of these least, He did it not unto me. Our Lord says, Your failure to respond to the needs of my own, even the despised, the insignificant ones, that indifference to their tangible need was indifference to me. Now, so much for the basic exposition. Now I would move to some application and exhortation based upon it.

Application: Our Treatment of Brethren is Treatment of Christ

32:52 And the first is this. Our treatment of our brethren in their tangible, visible needs is reckoned by Christ to be our treatment of Him.

33:04 May I repeat that? Our response Our response Our response Our response to our brethren in their tangible, visible needs is reckoned by Christ to be our treatment of Him.

33:20 Ye did it unto me, He says to the righteous. He says to the wicked, Ye did it not unto me. And if this is true,

33:31 there's an awful lot of people who think they are Christ's friends who aren't. Oh, they love the Lord in their closets. And they love the Lord sitting isolated in the pew.

33:43 They don't love the Lord in the person of that brother or sister whose personality just grates against them. They don't love the Lord in the screaming need of another brother or sister which need could be at least in part met by some kindness, by some benevolence, by the investment of some time or some money. But the Lord cuts through all that sham and says, Your treatment of the brethren, even the least of them, is your treatment of me.

34:14 That brethren, that brings us right smack into the center of one of the most precious truths in all of Scripture, the union of Christ with His people. We are the body of Christ and we are joined to the living head so that when the Apostle Paul is going around breathing out threatenings and slaughters and laying hands upon Christians and the Lord Jesus arrests him on the road to Damascus, what words does he use? Soul, soul, why persecutest thou me? You touch that little saint, you touch me, that saint is joined to me in a living bond of life and fellowship.

34:51 You touch me, Paul, why do you persecute me? You think your hands are just on some despised people following this heretical teacher who came out of Nazareth? Oh no, Saul, you're touching me, your Messiah and your Sovereign.

35:11 If that really grips us, what a profound effect it has upon what we do and what we don't do to our brethren.

35:22 They are joined to Christ and my treatment of them is my treatment of Him. That's the first great principle that's here in the text. Notice what the Lord says. He didn't say, you had it in your hearts to visit me.

35:38 He said, I was in prison and you visited me. He didn't say, you had it in your hearts to feed me. He said, you fed me. He didn't say, you had it in your hearts to clothe me.

35:49 You put some material on my back.

35:53 Oh, how clever we are. Well, the Lord knows it was in my heart. Yeah, the Lord knows it all right.

36:01 And who so trusteth in his own heart as a fool? The Lord says that.

36:06 Well, it was in my heart to go. Yes, I know it was in your heart to go. But did you go?

36:13 I was in prison and it was in your heart to visit me? No, you visited me. I was sick. You came to me.

36:23 Hungry, you fed me. Thirsty, you gave me to drink.

36:31 Oh, may God help us to see that Christ comes to us again and again in the person of our fellow saints and displays his needs.

36:43 And John says, let us not love in word only but in deed and in truth. And I thank God for the measure to which this is evident in our assembly. I thank God I can say with Paul concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that I write unto you. But then he says immediately I exhort you to abound yet more and more.

37:05 I said, I don't need to write you but I do. And I don't need to write you. I don't need to preach to you people about this and yet I do.

37:12 You see,

37:13 as our family has grown and the diversity of our needs has been increased, we need to cry to God for renewed sensitivity and that reflex response of love to the tangible needs of the people of God always remembering the most despised amongst us, that brother in our midst, that sister who's not so very comfortable to be around. Maybe has some queer ways about it. Maybe a little body odor and bad manners and it's just so easy to just avoid them.

37:49 Put ourselves comfortably out of reach where we can't discern his or her needs. That's our treatment of Christ. That's our treatment of Christ.

Application: Tangible Deeds as Indicators of Spiritual State

38:03 And the character of the wicked is described not in terms of lechery and dishonesty and any of these gross sins but in terms of their failure to respond to the needs of God. The needs of the people of God which was a failure to respond to Christ himself. Well, the second thing that I see in the text that we've looked at, our treatment of Christ in our dealings with the brethren is a most telling indication of our true spiritual state.

38:38 See, we can sit there saying, oh, I just feel so good when I have my devotions and I love the Lord and the Lord's so precious to me and when I send the hymns, oh my Jesus, yeah, that sounds all running but you know, you can just see it. You can just see it. You can just see it. You can just perceive yourself.

38:52 Do you really love Christ? What's the true indicator of your spiritual state? Here it is. He did it unto these.

39:00 He did it unto these. There it is. Could it be that Christ has often been a visitor amongst us, needing a welcome, needing a meal, the warmth of Christian hospitality but your plans were made and you know, you must not upset your plans.

39:19 Could it be that Christ has been hard pressed sitting in our midst that we have to do something but we had that little bit salted away and we had that vacation all planned and all the rest so we couldn't respond to that need that Christ had in one of his brethren amongst us? It's a tremendous text in Proverbs 19.17. It says, He that lendeth unto the poor lendeth unto Jehovah.

39:46 That's a pretty strong statement, isn't it?

39:51 Could it be that Christ often sits lonely in the person of some of the widows amongst us while some of you sit home watching your television two or three nights a week and never take one of those evenings to go out and spend it with one of these widows just for companionship's sake?

40:12 I'd love to be able to spend an afternoon a week with the widows amongst us but I can't do it. The time that I must invest to be able to feed a flock of 150 people, I can't do it. But there are a number of you that could invest an evening to just go and sit. You don't need to be a spiritual giant nor a physical one or anything else.

40:31 You just come through the door and sit down and you'd make a little bit of heaven. Could it be that Christ has come to you and some of these widows and their prison is the haunting of those four walls now stripped of the echo of a husband's voice, the sound of a husband's feet?

40:54 Only a widow knows something of the emptiness of that. Could it be that Christ is saying,

41:02 I'm there in the person of that widow? It's easy to say we love the Lord, we're growing in grace, but my Bible says pure religion and undefiled. Is what? To visit the fatherless and the widows and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

41:18 Pure religion is not sitting at home with your love-o-meter on your heart saying, oh boy, look how high up it's going.

41:25 No, no.

41:28 Third principle that I see in the text relates to these needs and how they apply to us. Will you notice three things about all these needs to which the saints responded? They were all tangible. They could be seen by the naked eye.

41:45 Hunger, hunger, hunger, nakedness, sickness, in prison. In other words, you didn't need to be an advanced saint with unusual perception that you must be to deal with many of the spiritual problems of the people of God. Paul says in Romans 15, 14, I myself am convinced of you, brethren, that you are full of goodness, full of knowledge, able to admonish. And until you have some reason to believe you're full of goodness and full of knowledge, you better keep your admonishing at a minimum.

42:17 I don't care if you've read Competence, the Council, 20 times.

42:22 All kinds of harm can be done by spiritual quackery, by immature people assuming the role of spiritual counselors. But you don't need to be a spiritual giant to pack a Scrabble game in your back pocket and go on off and spend an evening with someone who's lonely and have some fellowship and read a chapter of the Word and pray. Huh? You need to be a spiritual giant to do that?

42:45 You see, these needs were tangible. They could be seen. Secondly, they were all basically in what we would call the temporal. That is, of a non-spiritual nature.

42:54 Food, companionship, clothing. Nothing very spiritual about that. And yet, it's these things that Christ said proved the love of His people to Him. And the third thing I want you to notice about Him is all those needs can be met by the average disciple.

43:11 Now, He didn't say, I was in prison and you secured my release. You need to be an influential magistrate to do that or a Philadelphia lawyer and a crooked one probably too.

43:22 He didn't say, I was in poverty and you made me wealthy. Only the wealthy could do that. He didn't say, I was in sickness and you healed me. You need to be a miracle worker for that.

43:33 But He says, I was sick and you visited me. You see? I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. The average disciple could meet all of those needs.

43:44 The needs of immediate provision, visitation, sympathy, the alleviation of present distress. And there's hardly one of us here who could not on any occasion put a little more soup, put a little more water in the soup and stretch it a little more. I don't mean just your literal soup. I mean the soup of your time and your responsibilities.

44:07 Who amongst us is just sitting around twiddling his thumbs with nothing to do? Sure we're busy. Sure we're busy. Sure we're busy.

Example of Onesiphorus

44:18 But are we so busy that we cannot make the efforts to meet the needs of the saints of God? In this area? There's a beautiful example of this in 2 Timothy 1. Will you turn to it please for a moment?

44:34 2 Timothy chapter 1. We're going to read about a man whose name has not gone down in church history as a great preacher, great apostle, founder of churches or anything like that.

44:49 But what a precious thing is said about him. 2 Timothy 1.16 The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus.

44:58 Any statues built to Onesiphorus? I've heard of St. Paul's, St. John's, St. Andrew's, St. John's church and all the rest. You ever hear of St. Onesiphorus's?

45:10 No. Just out of kindness for people's speech apparatus they shouldn't name anyone St. Onesiphorus. But no one's named Onesiphorus.

45:18 But listen to what Paul says about it. For he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome he sought me diligently and found me. The Lord grant unto him, to find mercy of the Lord in that day. I think Paul had reference to the very words of Christ that we've expounded.

45:42 And in how many things he ministered at Ephesus, thou knowest very well. What did he do? Did he come to Rome and say, anybody know where Paul is? Not. Never heard of him.

45:49 All right. Well, well, I'll give...

45:50 No, he said he sought me out. What? Diligently. No evidence that he was used to found churches, to preach sermons, to write epistles.

46:00 But he says, here was the indication of his character. What he could do was to seek out an imprisoned apostle. Oh, you say, apostles are so spiritual. They don't need human fellowship.

46:10 They've got the Lord who said so.

46:14 Paul often unzips his heart and lets us peek in and he says, oh, he said, I have nobody of like mind except this man.

46:25 He says, the Lord who comforts us in all our trials comforted us.

46:31 By the coming of... You mean a man of Paul's stature needs to have the comfort of Christ mediated through the Lord?

46:40 Through the loving visit of a brother? Exactly. Exactly. So it's not a matter of being unspiritual that we need one another.

46:52 Christ ministers to us through one another. That's the way he's ordained to do it. And so this man on a syphilis seeks out Paul. How long has it been since you've sought out a lonely one in our midst and spent an evening with him?

47:07 How long has it been since you've sought out a distressed one and took the place of Paul? The place of being your brother's keeper. Got close enough to find out what the need was that you might meet that need.

Qualifications and Governing Principles for Love

47:21 Well, I see then that third area of truth in the passage and now I come to the fourth and last. All of the things we've considered this morning are to be couched in the larger context of Scripture. Keeping the balance of truth in any area is no simple thing. Remember, first of all, that it's treatment of the brethren, not the world.

47:44 If you sit here this morning, as one who is not attached to the visible community of God's people and yet you expect people to respond to your needs, you've got the welfare mentality and that's not the mentality of a child of God. The church provided for her own widows, Acts 6, and in 1 Timothy 5, 8-9, Paul gave some pretty clear reasons as to why they need to be careful in spending their money for the widows. He said, in fact, don't enroll one unless she's at least 60 years old, unless she's already got a reputation for being an advanced, advanced saint. He says, if you do otherwise and start taking in any old widows, you know what's going to happen?

48:19 So you're going to have pouring your money down a bottomless pit. He says, for after a while they'll show their true colors and they'll wax wanton and leave their first faith. Ooh, there's some pretty strong stuff in there. There's a guarding of the benevolence of the people of God.

48:33 And so we need to remember that we're dealing this morning with love to the brethren and response to the brethren's needs. Secondly, this kind of response is to be qualified by the other people and the other principles such as we find in 2 Thessalonians 3 where Paul says, if a man won't work, don't let him eat. And if he comes to you saying, oh, look, I'm Christ coming to you with my hungry tummy, you say, all right, I'm Christ coming to you in the words of Paul saying, if you won't work, you don't eat.

49:03 Now, I'm not being facetious. That's exactly how you meet such a presumptuous, ignorant person. If they come to you spouting the words of Matthew 25, you lovingly quote to them the words of 2 Thessalonians 3. The man will not work, don't let him eat.

49:18 If he cannot work, then you better provide his food. If he cannot, then you and I must respond. And then the third principle, I would say, is that all of our expression of this kind of tangible love to the tangible needs of the saints is to be governed by our present ability. And here I take great consolation in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, it is accounted as a man hath, not that he hath not.

49:46 How many times my wife and I have sat and said, oh, just somehow 2 or 3,000 would drop out of the sky. There's so many places we'd love to put it. Right now, and I can honestly say it doesn't have any reference to our needs. But we see the needs of God's people.

50:00 And then I come back to this. It's accounted that a man hath, not that he hath not. And then I must ask myself, but now wait a minute, Buster, are you kidding yourself? You say if the Lord gave you 3,000, you'd do this with it.

50:10 What are you doing with the $5 you've got left over?

50:14 Nah, that's a different story then. Then I back myself in the corner and say, am I really being honest? And if I'm not clothing and feeding and giving to drink with the $5, or take my time, oh, I'm so busy, so busy, yes. Yeah, so busy.

50:30 If only I had one or two days a week, nothing to do. I'd visit the widows. I would do that. What are you doing with that evening you've got?

50:38 How are you investing that? There's the test.

Conclusion: Pray for Love and Practice Self-Forgetfulness

50:43 Unless some tender soul feel utterly swallowed up and discouraged, let me remind you, God reads the heart of these things. And our treatment of others is to be governed by our present ability. So then, I would admonish you as God's people that you pray for this love, the love that will be sensitive to and responsive to the needs of the saints of God. What a little bit of heaven we'll have in this place.

51:16 Continually. Thank God for the measure we already have. But it'll get gooder and gooder as the little kid said. If by God's grace we not only have that love that covers a multitude of sins, that rebukes specific sins and will even lead to biblical segregation or excommunication when necessary, and then coupled with that kind of love in the midst of our many sins, this kind of love that responds to the tangible needs of the people of God.

51:48 That day, we shall join the ranks of all true believers who shall hear this love. We shall hear the Lord say, Enter that kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world for I was hungry and you fed me. Naked and you clothed me. And because a true saint knows that he's accepted not by his own works or his own righteousness, he doesn't keep a little notebook with all his deeds and say, Oh yes, Lord, I remember that back there on March 22nd I went to so and so.

52:13 That's right, Lord. And Lord, you forgot. No, no. You see, there was none of that.

52:17 There was a self-forgetfulness. Why? Because they were occupied with the Christ who saved them, conscious of their own unworthiness and yet continually meeting the needs of his insignificant ones so that it comes as surprise when the judge says, This is what you did. Well, Lord, when did we see you?

52:36 When you did it to the least of my brethren. Oh, may God give us the self-forgetfulness of genuine love to Christ, of vibrant faith in Christ that becomes the great taproot of all the people and all the fruits of Christian kindness and response to the needs of the saints. One of our brethren is still sick. I hope we continue to visit him.

53:03 You've been so faithful. Let me urge you to continue on, not grow weary and well-deemed. There are widows amongst us who need to be visited. If you don't know who they are, come to the elders and ask us and we'll tell you and give you their address and their phone number.

53:17 Some of you need to start visiting. There are others in other needs. Let's start where we are. And learn, should the time come when we are put into a situation where we know what real privation is, perhaps we will have learned these lessons to some degree that we will be instruments of grace and mercy one to another.

53:37 Let us pray.

53:48 Lord Jesus Christ, we confess to you this day.