Christian Fellowship (3) What is Love?

Introduction: The Necessity of Understanding Biblical Love

0:02 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, October 10, 1993, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:14 Now will you follow with me in your Bibles, please, as I read two brief portions of the Word of God. First of all, from the Gospel of John, chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. Our Lord Jesus, speaking to the eleven in the intimacy of the upper room just a few hours before His crucifixion, said,

0:56 A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another. Even. 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.

1:21 And over to the book of Romans, and chapter 13, Paul's letter to Romans, chapter 13, verses 8 and 10.

1:38 Romans. Romans 13, verse 8.

1:42 O no man anything save to love one another. For he that loveth his neighbor, or better rendered, he that loveth the other, hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet. And if there be any...

2:09 And if there be any... And if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

2:21 Love worketh no ill or evil thing to his neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. And brethren, as we have sung in our hymn, that God would, in this very graphic image, as a mighty warrior, come forth and do conflict with error, we have asked him to smite the lies that vex thy groaning earth, and then that that battle would be done in our own hearts, and that all falsehood would there be slain,

3:04 if ever there were a legitimate application of that sentiment expressed in that graphic imagery, it is when we come to the subject of love as it relates to the fellowship and the interaction of the people of God, and so let us plead with God to do effective warfare in smiting the lies of the earth and the falsehood in our own hearts. Let us pray. Our Father, we come to you as the God of truth, the God whose very throne is established in truth, the God who is light,

3:48 and in whom there is no darkness. And we come to you pleading again, as we have done in the language of the hymn we have just sung, that you will come forth as a mighty warrior with the word of your truth, and smite the lies that curse the earth. And yet, O Lord, we would not pray that that truth be realized only in the earth around us, but, O God, you know the remaining falsehood within our own breasts. Do warfare there, we pray, and sanctify our hearts more fully in the truth,

4:33 even your word, which is truth. Lord, hear our cry and visit us in this hour together, we plead, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

The Problem of Misunderstanding Love

4:58 Say the word, and all will say, and all who hear it find their ears instinctively eager and attentive.

5:08 Love. Say the word, and you're using a word which has scarcely a rival in universal interest and concern.

5:20 Love. Say the word, and you are using one of the most grossly twisted and misunderstood words in all of the English language. However, since the word love is foundational to the truth and religion revealed in the scriptures, we dare not be careless in seeking to understand its God-intended meaning and significance. At this point in our ongoing consideration of the ninth affirmation of the manifesto of our congregation, we are hedged up to,

6:04 grappling with this word, love, and its true meaning and significance in the life of the people of God. Having stated our determination to maintain a balanced doctrine of the Christian life, we're presently concerned with establishing the fact that such a doctrine demands a recognition of the principle that living the Christian life is, living a life in which there are no effective substitutes for the God-ordained means of grace.

6:47 And while examining the biblical teaching relative to those disciplines, relationships, and activities ordained by God to serve as a means to strengthen the spiritual life imparted to us in our conversion, we find that, in fact, we are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone.

7:05 We have come to a consideration of the second major corporate means of grace, namely, continuance in the manifold expressions of church fellowship. And we have identified that corporate means of grace as it is set before us in Acts 2 and verse 42, where, concerning the Jerusalem church, we read, these all continued steadfastly in the apostleship, teaching, and in the fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.

7:46 In taking up this matter, we first of all sought to establish the basic biblical concept of distinctive Christian fellowship. We then proceeded to look at the basic biblical context of distinctively Christian fellowship, and then last week we began to examine together the basic biblical content of distinct Christian fellowship. And in opening up that third aspect, the content of distinctive Christian fellowship,

8:24 we saw from Romans 15 and verse 7 that such fellowship begins with an unfeigned and unreserved activity, the acceptance of one another based upon that which God has made us in Christ. There can never be distinctively Christian fellowship within the orbit of God's institution, the church, unless such fellowship has as its beginning building block within the general orbit of saving truth, this unfeigned,

9:06 and unreserved acceptance of one another, an acceptance based upon that which God has made us in Christ. As the apostle commanded the Romans, wherefore receive ye one another, even as Christ received you to the glory of God. We then went on to begin to establish that this distinctive Christian fellowship, we then went on to begin to establish that this distinctive Christian fellowship, we then went on to begin to establish that this distinctive Christian fellowship, which has unfeigned and unreserved acceptance of one another as its fundamental building block,

9:46 can only grow and flourish in a climate where those peculiar graces of the spirit which contribute to true fellowship are present and manifested. And I said according to my present light And I said according to my present light, We perceive in the New Testament that the graces that are set forth as the dominant graces essential for that fellowship are mutual love and brotherly affection, mutual submission and humble deference, and mutual forgiveness and gracious forbearance.

10:29 Last Lord's Day, we began to consider the first of these graces, namely mutual love and brotherly affection. And all I attempted to do in our study last week was to set before you what I call the abundant witness concerning the necessity for this grace for the maintenance of distinctive Christian fellowship in the Church of Christ. Beginning with the passage read in your hearing again this morning, John 13 and verses 34 and 35, and continuing on to 1 John 4, 7 and 8,

11:13 we looked at ten categories of the witness of the New Testament with reference to the necessity of mutual love and brotherly affection as that grace, without which there can be no genuine koinonia, no genuine shared life within the assembly of God's people. And the inescapable conclusion of those ten groups of witnesses brought before you is that the New Testament envisions the shared life of the people of God

11:55 as a life of pervasive, intense, all-embracing mutual love and brotherly affection. Well, having set before you the abundant witness concerning the necessity for the grace of mutual love and brotherly affection, the next issue of vital concern is this. What is the precise nature of that mutual love and brotherly affection, so, central to the climate of distinctive Christian fellowship? And my goal today, and God willing, next Lord's Day morning,

12:39 is to set before you what I'm calling the objective standard by which to assess and guide the presence and actings of the grace of brotherly love, I'm sorry, the grace of mutual love and brotherly affection. The objective standard by which to assess and guide the presence and actings of this grace of mutual love and brotherly affection. Now, this aspect of our examination of the subject is especially needed for two reasons.

13:22 First of all, because of the constant danger of self-deception. Again and again the scriptures tell us, be not deceived, let no man deceive himself. And with reference to this matter of mutual love and brotherly affection, the text in Proverbs 28 and 26 is of particular importance to us. In Proverbs 28 and verse 26 we read, He that trusteth in his own heart, is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely,

14:04 he shall be delivered. Now, if any word takes us to the realm of the heart, it's the word love. All of us perceive to one degree or another that love and the heart are words that are often found together. You never said to someone, I love you with all of my ear, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge, or I love you with all of my knowledge.

14:33 You say, I love him with all of my heart. I love it with all of my heart. Heart and love are words that it's almost impossible to find in use, one without the other. But you see the problem is that whoso trusteth in his own heart is a fool.

14:55 And if you're prepared to sit back and say, well, this is all very kindergartenish. Everybody knows, knows what mutual love and brotherly affection is and why in the world is Pastor Martin treating us like a bunch of dunces who need to go back. My friend, hear me! If you simply trust your own heart that you both know and are exercising mutual love and brotherly affection without bringing that assumption to an objective criteria, God calls you a fool. Now if you want to be

15:28 a fool, then just pull down the shade over your mind, say this is elementary, Pastor Martin must have been pressed by other duties and couldn't go into the deep things of God and so he's giving us pamphlet. God calls you a fool! Doesn't call me a fool, calls you one. Whoso trusteth in his own heart is a fool! Don't be a fool this morning. Respect

15:55 to this matter of what constitutes mutual love and true brotherly affection. But we, one who will be delivered, the one who walks wisely, the one who walks in the light of the objective standard of the word of the living God. And so we need to address this issue because of the constant danger of self-deception, but secondly because of the current climate of widespread confusion and opposition. Subtitles by the Amara.org community

The Current Climate of Confusion Regarding Love

16:32 unbiblical thinking on the subject of love. It must be addressed because of the current climate of widespread confusion and unbiblical thinking on the subject of love. Many of us no doubt have seen great crowds of people, hundreds or thousands, holding hands, all colors and all clothes and all backgrounds, holding hands and swaying and singing with smiling faces, what the world needs is love, sweet love. What the world needs is...

17:15 You say, oh, isn't that... Ah, but the problem is what is sweet love that the world needs.

17:23 And the majority of those who stand in great public display and hold hands and sway and seek to praise, to project this great love orgy, they would say it is love to give unqualified approval to sexual perverts, allowing self-confessed homosexuals and lesbians, not only their civil protection of the law, to live their life the way they live it, but to have, as one of their rights, unqualified approval upon their alternate lifestyle. And if we read this, if we really love them, that's what we'll give them.

18:08 Love means that we give a woman unqualified, quote, rights over her reproductive organs, as though the baby in her womb is part of her reproductive organs and not a life formed by God. Love is the unqualified right that if someone gets the hots for someone else, we need to judge them. If they say there is a meaningful commitment of heart and they have the full right to live together in marital intimacy and have sexual union at will without any permanent commitment of a duly recognized covenant of marriage. You see, when they stand with held hands

18:53 and sway and sing, what the world needs is love, sweet love. They don't have a clue of what the Bible means by love. And as one considers the glut of materials cranked off the presses of Christian publishers, and so much of it has to do with what every husband wishes his wife knew and what every wife wishes her husband knew and relational books on love, the kindest thing we can say about the vast majority of it is that it's nothing but sentimental gibberish at best and wicked heresy at worst.

19:37 So you see, dear people, we must take up our subject. It's not enough for us to have established from the Scriptures and those ten categories of New Testament witness the supremacy of the grace of mutual love and brotherly affection as the very climate within which New Testament koinonia, shared life is carried out as a means of grace among God's people. We must go to that object as the objective standard by which to assess and guide the presence and actings of this grace of mutual love

The Objective Standard for Assessing Christian Love: An Overview

20:19 and brotherly affection. And what is that standard? Again, according to my present life, there are three aspects that form the dominant elements of that standard. Two we shall address today, God willing, and the third, next Lord's Day morning.

20:39 They are, number one, the precepts of the law, secondly, the pattern of Christ, and thirdly, the principles of 1 Corinthians 13, 4-7. The precepts of the law, the pattern of Christ, and the principles of 1 Corinthians 13, 4-7. Would you know if you are exercising biblical mutual love and brotherly affection within this assembly? Would you know how to express mutual love and brotherly affection with the confidence that every such expression

21:24 will be well pleasing to God? Then you and I together must come to this objective standard with its three strands of biblical material, the precepts of the law, the pattern of Christ, and the principles of 1 Corinthians 13, 4-7. They should be to us with respect to this issue what a thermometer is with respect to the question, what is my present bodily temperature? It's not enough to say, I feel flushed, I believe, I have a temperature.

22:06 You may feel that way and your temperature may be subnormal. But once a bona fide functioning thermometer is placed in your mouth and kept there properly for five minutes, no longer is it a subjective judgment. You will know what your temperature is. Well, in precisely the same way we come to this objective standard of the Word of God with the question, do I really have and am I exercising mutual love and brotherly affection within this assembly?

Standard 1: The Precepts of the Law (Romans 13:8-10)

22:43 And assuming that I have a heart moved with spirit wrought, brotherly affection and love, how shall those graces find conduits of expression that are well-pleasing to God? I say here is the objective standard. First of all, then, the precepts of the law. And our basic passage of consideration is Romans 13, 8 to 10, the portion read in your hearing.

23:13 Turn, please, to Romans chapter 13, verses 8 to 10. As I indicated very quickly in passing last Lord's Day when bringing in the witness of the Apostle Paul in chapter 12 concerning this distinctive mutual love within the family of God and brotherly affection, we looked at Romans 12, 9 and 10. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil.

23:49 Cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another in honor preferring one another. And I said I was passing over the paragraph on love in chapter 13 because its primary reference there was a directive concerning love as the people of God relate to the world in general. And I do believe that that is the context of verses 8 through 10 in Romans 13, for Paul has given explicit directives to the people of God with reference to their relationship to the civil powers

24:34 in 13, 1 through 7. Verses 8 through 10 he gives directives concerning believers in their general relationship to all men. And then in verse 11 to the end of the chapter he gives this intense call to alertness and spiritual wakefulness to a life of holiness culminating in that wonderful statement of putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. However, within Paul's argument of the subject of the believer and his relationship in love to all men, believers and non-believers,

25:18 he states perhaps more clearly than in any other place in the full corpus of the Pauline literature the principles that I trust we will find helpful in seeking to understand the objective standard by which to assess and guide the presence and actings of mutual love and brotherly affection. Verse 8 Owe no man anything save to love one another have no unjust debts to any man with the exception of the continual debt

26:00 that you owe to one another. Whether believers or non-believers we have a continual debt we wait with it every morning and it is the debt the obligation to discharge in all of our horizontal relationships namely to love one another and to buttress that statement that this is a continual obligation laid upon us the apostle then states for he that loveth his neighbor or loveth the other heteros loveth the other

26:42 hath fulfilled the law after affirming our daily continual debt of love to one another Paul does not say that this love dispenses with the law notice he does not say that for he that loveth his neighbor dispenses with the law nor does he say that if you do this then love is the law he doesn't say love one another for he that loveth his neighbor is equating love with law

27:26 no he does not say that love dispenses with the law that love is the law rather when they are truly loving the other such ones are filling up the very demands of the law he that loves his neighbor hath fulfilled the law he has filled up the demands of the law now we know from the analogy of scripture he has not done it perfectly but he has done it sincerely in evangelical obedience in the strength and power of the holy spirit

28:09 but he hath fulfilled the law indicating at the very outset that if in our minds we have any irreconcilable conflict between love and law we are outside the orbit of the thinking of the word of God in the very context of telling believers they have a perpetually unfilled indebtedness to love in that very context so whatever the standard of love is you must not think in terms of an antithesis

28:52 an irreconcilable warfare between love and law for the apostle had no such mentality he takes love and places it down into the very center of law he is able to think of law as inseparably joined to love there is the fundamental assertion of verse eight now verse nine for this thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not covet and if there be any other commandment it is summed up in this word namely thou shalt love thy neighbor

29:37 as thyself in verse nine Paul lists four of the three ten commandments and he lists them in the way they are found in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament most of you know called the Septuagint and in Deuteronomy chapter five in that particular version which was Paul's working version of the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures out of Hebrew and into Greek that's the way those four commandments are found listed and he is saying if all the individual precepts of the law respecting our relationship to our fellow men

30:21 are reduced to their basic common denominator it is this love your neighbor as yourself or this thou shalt not commit adultery a specific commandment of God thou shalt not kill another thou shalt not steal another thou shalt not covet if there be any other commandment any other revelation of the mind and will of God in a positive or prohibitive precept it is summed up now notice it's not cancelled it's not negated it's not replaced it is summed up in this word namely thou shalt love thy neighbor as yourself

31:05 there is no commandment of God touching interpersonal horizontal relationships that cannot be summed up that cannot be subsumed under this statement thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself one of the contemporary commentators writing on this text is very perceptively written as follows at this point Paul's teaching is the direct opposite to much religious teaching being given in our day it's clear that he regards the moral laws being binding on the believer no one is saved by it as we've seen from the earlier parts

31:50 of the epistle to Romans but right is still right and the fact that we are saved by God's grace cannot alter that standard Paul is certainly teaching that law and love are not opposites how could they be seeing our Lord Jesus Christ summarize the whole law in terms of love in Matthew 22 37 to 40 and in the parallel passage in Mark 12 28 to 34 when our Lord was asked by that young lawyer tempting him what's the great commandment he says the first and great commandment is love to God with all your being and the second is like unto it love thy neighbor as thyself yet there are some people who say

32:34 if you have love you don't need the rules to tell you what to do others say rules cut out spontaneity and reduce our behavior to mere legalism and cold duty which is the opposite to love the inspired apostle is declaring that the only way to love your neighbor properly and to show it is to obey the God given rules why refrain from adultery if I love my neighbor I would not dream of stealing his wife or daughter if I love my wife I would not betray her or give her unnecessary heartache through infidelity the same sort of thing can be said about the other laws which Paul quotes

33:19 love is the seeking of the greatest possible good for my neighbor even at the greatest possible cost to myself where such love exists it will inevitably refrain from murder stealing and setting my heart on my neighbor's possessions if my love is genuine it will be worked out in right action I will treat others as I would like them to treat me the observance of God's law is the fullest display of love and so in verse 9 the apostle tells us that all of the specific commandments which are not negated

34:02 which have not been suspended which have not been obliterated which have not been buried as being inferior to the guiding of the conscience of believers under the new covenant he makes no such suggestion but he says all of the commandments which are eternally binding which are eternally unchangeable those commandments are summed up in this word thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself then as he comes to his summary statement in verse 10 love worketh no ill to his neighbor love therefore

34:47 is the fulfillment of the law the word used hekos translated ill could be better rendered evil bad wrong or injury love works no injury to his neighbor well what is evil or injurious to my neighbor by what standard do I judge what is in my neighbor best interest by what standard do I define what is evil or bad or wrong or injurious my neighbor says it would be in my best interest that you get together with me in some kind of an economic scam

35:30 whereby we can make a lot of bucks at the expense of some gullible people according to my neighbor that would not be injurious to him that would be being a friend to him you see so it can't be my neighbor's wishes that determine the good or the ill it says love works no evil no bad no wrong your neighbor might be a woman who wants to seduce you and she says the kindest thing you can do for me is go to bed with me no for a standard of good and evil love works no evil to his neighbor love therefore here's the answer is the fulfillment

36:15 of the law love works no evil to his neighbor love therefore is the answer is the fulfillment of the law this suggestion comes from professor murray picture the law like a vessel picture it like a big clay pot sitting up here on the corner of the pulpit it has specific dimensions and texture and size it's eighteen inches across fifteen inches high the opening is eight inches it swells out to the eighteen and comes down to ten that's the vessel it has form it has limits it has dimensions it has a purpose it has a purpose

36:58 then I go to the back and I get a big bucket fill it full of water and then I come and pour it into that vessel and that water fills up the vessel to the full the water is the fulfilling or the filling up to the full of that vessel now here's the picture God's law establishes the contours the dimensions the size and shape of right and wrong so love works all it's fixed by God now when with my heart I have no desire to work ill to my neighbor out of love to Christ and a Christ

37:43 given love to my neighbor whether that neighbor is a brother or sister in the church or the unconverted person who lives to me next door when that love expresses itself consistent with God's commands what has happened love has filled up the vessel of law from bottom to top so it is no dead galling letter it is God's gracious way of letting me know how to love my neighbor in a way that is in my neighbor's best interest and his pleasing unto God love works

38:28 no ill to his neighbor ill to his neighbor in a way that is consistent with God's law therefore love is the filling to the full of the law someone has used another illustration and I found it helpful for a bullet to hit a target you must have both an explosive to propel it and you guys that know something about rifles and hand guns so many grains of powder you must have an explosive to propel the bullet out of the shell toward its target whether that target is a deer or an elk

39:12 or some target at a shooting range but then this particular writer goes on to say there must also be a barrel to direct it so you have an explosive to propel it but it if you have no barrel to direct it the bullet will never find its mark so this author says in the same way the explosive on its own would be dangerous and the barrel on its own would be useless you might be able to use it for a pea shooter but you

39:57 wouldn't bring down an elk you couldn't bring down an elk to make it find its mark and penetrate the vitals of that animal just as the explosive on its own would be dangerous and a barrel on its own useless in society the target at which I aim is that of not doing any harm to those who are around me love propels the bullet but God's law the law needs to be filled with love and love needs to be directed by the

40:41 law that's the teaching of the passage according to this passage the commandments of God's law are the norms by which biblical love operates one of the old Puritans stated it this way is love's eyes, and without it, love.

41:12 See the picture? If I'm a child of God, regenerated by the Spirit, indwelt with the Spirit of adoption, he that is begotten of God loveth him also that is begotten of him. And the Spirit of God is placed within my heart, a love to my brethren. But now that love, as powerful a motive as it is, is like a blind man groping in the dark.

41:36 How shall I express that love to my brethren? Love is not a self-interpreting guide. Love is motivational. Law is direction.

41:50 The law is love's eyes, and without it, love is blind.

42:01 And I follow that with a couplet of my own. Love is law's breath, and without it, law is dead.

42:11 Love is law. Love is law's breath, and without it, law is dead. So you see, all the commandments can be there. Do no violence to the sanctity of your marital commitments.

42:25 Do no violence to the sanctity of another's property. Thou shalt not steal. Do no violence to another's reputation. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

42:36 Do no violence to God's claims over your own heart and the possessions of others. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, his car, his house, his position, or anything else. But you see, it's not enough.

42:54 The precepts are there. If I don't have a heart that has been freed from the dominion of self-preoccupation, self-centeredness, and self-will, I will trample over those sanctions in the pursuit of my own selfishness. Selfishness. Selfishness.

43:16 Selfishness. Selfishness. Selfishness. Selfishness.

43:16 Selfishness. Selfishness. Selfishness. Selfishness.

43:17 There will be no breath of life to keep those laws. When I am born of the Spirit of God and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then I have implanted within me as the fruit of the Spirit the grace of love, that love which now counts in its joy not to violate the sanctity of marital commitments, the sanctity of property, the sanctity of life, life, etc. You see, law is love's breath, and without it, law is dead. But the law is

The Law as Love's Eyes and God's Love-o-meter

43:56 love's eyes, and without it, love is blind. So I say to you sitting here this morning, do you want to know if you possess this mutual love and brotherly affection so absolutely crucial to the climate of true biblical church fellowship to true biblical koinonia? What is God's loveometer? It is His law. Do you want an objective standard by which to evaluate

44:34 whether you are expressing mutual love to the brethren? Whether you are expressing brotherly affection? You go to the law with the prayer searching. CHAPTER 11 Try me, and know my thoughts.

44:51 Take down the old shorter and larger catechism sections of the meaning of the commandments. What is forbidden in the fifth commandment? What is commanded? What is forbidden in the sixth? What is commanded? What is forbidden? What is commanded? And with that full opening

45:12 up of the law of God, be searched into the depths of your brethren, and with full proof of righteousness, God will make that clear. If you want an objective standard to know if indeed you are truly loving the brethren and expressing brotherly affection. God's law is God's divinely inspired love-o-meter. Do you want to know how to demonstrate your mutual love and brotherly affection?

45:40 It is the law of God which gives light and direction to us. It's very interesting that when we tie together Matthew 22.40 and Matthew 7.12, we have as one of our most helpful distillations of all the demands of the law in these words of the Lord Jesus.

46:03 In Matthew chapter 22, our Lord said in verse 40,

46:11 Having been asked the question, What is the great commandment in the law? Our Lord answers, The great commandment is whole-souled love to the Lord our God. This is the first and great commandment. Verse 39, The second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

46:31 Now notice, on these two commandments, the whole law hangeth and the prophets. All that God has required of man. Man, in the Old Testament revelation, hangs on these two commandments. Supreme love to God and love to our neighbor measured by our native natural self-love.

46:57 There is no third command to love yourself. The assumption is we all have altogether a sufficient amount of self-love. The command is, the second is like unto it, love thy neighbor as you already do love yourself. Both with the legitimate aspects of self-love and hopefully mortifying the illegitimate aspects of it.

47:21 What caused that man last week? I don't know if you heard about it in the news. He had had some association with the medical profession and it seemed limbs amputated. He was crushed and in a position where he perhaps would have died and bled to death.

47:39 He amputated his own leg. He crawled to a place where he was able. He was then taken to get medical help and the last I heard, he survived. It was self-love that enabled him to cut off his own leg.

47:58 The desire to preserve his life. A legitimate expression of self-love. He didn't have to be taught that.

48:05 The Lord Jesus assumes we all natively love ourselves. So he says, the second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands hang all the law and the prophets. Now turn over to Matthew 7.12.

The Golden Rule and the Law's Enduring Authority

48:18 The field is narrowed here.

48:27 All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them, for this is the law and the prophets. Now obviously, the reference here is to the law and the prophets as they touch our horizontal interpersonal relationships. The issue in view is not the first and great commandment to love God. But the second commandment.

48:57 And our Lord says that can be reduced to this that has been called the golden rule. As you would that men should do unto you. What's the assumption? I have a natural regard for my own well-being.

49:12 Paul states it in Ephesians 5 in clear language. No man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. That's what the spirit of God says through Paul. And our Lord.

49:25 Assumes that each of us by nature has a natural self-interest that causes us to desire that only good be done unto us. All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them. Now notice, it doesn't say for this replaces the law and the prophets. This supersedes the law and the prophets.

49:51 This jettisons us into a realm above the law and the prophets. This makes the law and the prophets unnecessary. He says no such thing. It's another way of saying this is the fulfillment of the law revealed in the law.

50:10 Dear people, in a day when people hold their hands and sing, what the world needs is love, sweet love. God have mercy on us if we don't have clear views as to the objective standard by which we are to live. And the objective standard by which to assess and guide the presence and actings of the grace of mutual love and brotherly affection. Love never goes into a mother's womb and destroys God's handiwork.

50:45 Love never does it except in those instances where it is truly a case where that baby in the womb has forfeited the right to live because it's become a potential murderer to its mother. Where it is clearly medically established that a woman, if she carries that child, will die. Those instances are rare indeed. But I'm prepared to acknowledge such instances have existed, do exist, and will exist.

51:20 Take just for example an ectopic pregnancy in which a little one does not fasten itself to the side of the mother's uterus but takes up its residence in the fallopian tube. If allowed, to develop, and if not aborted, it can take the life of that mother. It will take the mother's life. That is not murder, terminate that pregnancy.

51:44 But to use the wanton slaughter of one and a half million babies year after year as a convenient cover-up for promiscuous sex, and to call that an expression of love, is to call good evil and evil good, and to turn the moral universe of God on its head, no dear people, it is God's law that ever has, and does, and ever will determine what is a bona fide expression of love. Law is love's eyes,

52:27 and without it love is blind. Therefore the objective standard by which you and I are to assess our mutual love to each other, our brotherly affection, must never, never, never, get detached from the precepts of God's holy law. Never. You young people remember that?

52:56 You girls, when some Christian guy, you have devotions with him, you pray with him, and he's told you he loves you, you've allowed the physical to go too far, and your hormones are stirred, and he tells you, ah, that I love you so much, and I want to show it in the ultimate way, and if you really love me, God knows this is not lust, our love is founded on Christ, and he'll try to sweep talk you into fornicating, but you remember the word of God which says, fornication, let it not be once named among you as becoming saints. That's the law of God. And all of the hot breath,

53:41 and all of the turbulent hormones will not change that law of God. Fornication, that's the law of God. You apply that to all of God's commandments, you won't be left vulnerable to being shoved out on a shoreless ocean of subjectivism, tossed to and fro by the currents of a society that calls evil good and good evil, and by your own remaining sin, and by the pressures from others, that you will be able to walk securely, and certainly, with God's holy word,

Standard 2: The Pattern of Christ

54:26 including his law, as a lamp unto your feet, and a light. Then I want to touch more briefly on the second element of that objective standard, and that is the pattern of Christ. The pattern of Christ. And I wrestled with this order.

54:47 I said, well, as a minister of the gospel, shouldn't I start with the pattern of Christ and then go to the law of God? You say, well, you do wrestle with those. Well, yes. You'd be surprised all the things any responsible preacher wrestles with at his desk.

55:02 Which head goes first and why? Sometimes the logical order may not be the order that represents the biblical perspective. But I've deliberately chosen this order, not because I'm a sub-Christian gospel minister who's got too much of Moses breathing over my shoulder, but because the pattern of Christ makes no sense apart from the law of God, because he came to fulfill all righteousness. And you cannot know the Christ of Scripture apart from the recognition that he took as the canons for his behavior, the law of his own Father.

55:35 And that Christ is now set before us as our pattern. Now the New Testament repeatedly sets Christ before his people as their perfect pattern in all things. He is not only the sole object of trust for life and salvation, Acts 4.12, neither is there salvation in any other.

55:57 John 14.6, I am the way, the truth, the light, no man comes to the Father but by me. Christ is not only set before us as the sole object of trust and confidence for life and salvation, he is also set before us repeatedly as the supreme object of conscious moral imitation. John 13.15,

56:21 I've given you an example that you should do as I have done unto you. 1 John 2.6, He that saith he abideth in him ought to walk even as he walked. 1 Peter 2.21,

56:36 For hereunto you were called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. So Christ is set before us, I repeat, not only as the sole object of our trust and confidence for life and salvation, but as the supreme object of conscious moral imitation. But in a very focused way, he is our pattern with respect to mutual love and brotherly affection. Those very graces we are to manifest one to another according to the New Testament in no other area

57:21 is Christ in a more focused way set before us as our pattern and example for moral imitation. First in the supreme manifestation of his love to us. Very quickly look at these texts. John 15.12 and 13.

57:43 In the supreme manifestation of his love to us, not only was he procuring our salvation, he was setting the framework for our mutual love. And brotherly affection. John 15.12 and 13.

58:03 This is my commandment that ye love one another cathos equal, even as I have loved you. You are to love one another even as I have loved you. And it's not hanging there in a generic concept. Look at the next verse.

58:25 Greater love hath no man than this. That a man lay down his life for his friends, ye are my friend. Love one another even as I have loved you. And under the pressure and in pursuit of fulfilling that love, I take love to its highest expression.

58:50 I lay down my life for my friend. Ephesians 5.1 and 2. Similar emphasis.

59:00 Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. Be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love. What's that mean? Even as, cathos again, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell.

59:29 But fornication and uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be named among you, as become saints. You see the relationship between love and law? Amazing how those two things are put together. Love with the love that moved the Son of God to give himself up a sacrifice unto God on our behalf.

59:53 That love will never, never, never move a person to fornicate for that love will always have as its contour the law of God. That love will never lead to uncleanness or covetousness. Why? Because those things are forbidden in the law of God.

60:15 So when we say that Christ is our pattern, we are not taken outside the orbit of law. Law is filled up with all of the glorious light and the heat and the dynamics of redemptive love in the self-giving of the Son of God. We find another clear statement in 1 John 3 and verse 16. Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us and we ought, we stand under solemn obligation to lay down our lives for the brethren.

60:58 Why? Why are we under solemn obligation if duty demanded it and the providence of God hedged us up to circumstances that made this the only bona fide expression of love? We stand under obligation to lay down our lives. Why?

61:18 Because Christ is the pattern and His love caused Him to lay down His life on behalf of the objects of that power. We know His love, according to John, not because He gave us reams and reams and thirty-five foot scrolls of love poetry. John says, Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life. We know His love as exegeted by His love.

61:59 And he says, we are under solemn obligations to manifest our love by our deeds, even if it meant giving our lives for our brethren. The supreme manifestation of His love to us, the pattern of our love to one another, is self-giving to its ultimate expression. And as we'll see in a closer study of this passage in a subsequent exposition, that's why it's incongruous that a man who truly loves will not be willing to part with his second coat or with a few shekels if he's a true child of God

62:43 who has been brought into the orbit of God's redemptive grace and mercy through the laying down of the life of the Son of God. He's under obligation to be prepared to lay down his life for his brethren, his greatest, most precious possession, life itself. And if a true Christian is prepared to do that, then what is it for him to part with his jacket or some of his shekels? And he says, then if you see your brother have need and you shut up the bowels of your compassion and you won't even give something external to yourself to meet his need, you're so greedy and selfish.

63:19 What makes you think you'd give yourself in the climactic expression of willing to forfeit your life for him? Dear people, who so trust in his own heart as a fool, you can flop around this place giving a sweet smile and a handshake convinced you really love the brethren. You're really activated by brotherly affection, objective standard, the pattern of crying to deny yourself and lay down yourself for your brethren. What else are you prepared to give for their benefit?

63:58 In prayer, in loving service, in selfless preoccupation with their needs as opposed to self-centered preoccupation. What are you doing that indicates that anything of your life, time, and energy, and money is joyfully, voluntarily being laid out for the well-being of your brethren? Christ is our brother. We cannot point to specific things that we don't know about him.

64:24 We cannot point to specific things that we know about him. We cannot point to specific things that are clear indications that we are being moved and actuated by that kind of love. We'd better have dealings with God as to whether or not we're self-deceived about him. Not a gushy feeling.

Christ's Sustained Love and Its Implications for Believers

64:50 Not a sentimental twitch. It is a principled commitment to seek the well-being of others at any cost to myself. Hereby know we love because he laid down his life but he not only did it in that supreme manifestation of his love, he does it in the sustained manifestations of his love. And that's your leisure.

65:19 Just compare Ephesians 5.25 with 5.29 and 30. He not only once for all loved and gave himself for us.

65:29 The scripture tells us he continually nourishes and cherishes the church which is his body. Think of the selfless life of love he lives even today. And now ever living to do what? Not to suck up selfishly the adoration and the worship of the seraphim and cherubim and angels and the host of the redeemed.

65:55 Though he is the object of their worship what does he ever live to do? My Bible says wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession. The understanding disciplines of the Christian life anyone who's been a Christian longer than a year knows it is the labor of intercession. Supplication for personal needs that's not so hard but intercession where it's not your needs and your concerns but the needs and concerns of your brethren and you stand between them and their needs and the living God and are willing to pour out

66:40 time and energy to plead on their behalf. Intercession he ever lives he ever lives in the language of Hebrews 2 to succor to come to the aid and tenderly minister to those who are tempted. He's beyond this pale of temptation and tears and heartache and bloodshed and brutality he's gone to glory but he's carried with him the reservoir all of that felt experience when he lived in our battered torn world and he gives himself an empathetic

67:22 if any man sin we have an advocate we have a 24 hour advocate in the glory and when we sin we go to the advocate to plead our cause. Dear people how can we gaze upon such a saint and live a self centered life he's our pattern the scripture says we all with open face the glory of this Lord selfless Lord who manifested his love in the supreme manifestation of the once for all death upon

68:07 the cross and in the sustained manifestations of his selfless life of intercession and advocacy and sympathetic suffering how can we gaze upon him not be transformed into that image from one stage to the next that is the experience of the people of God 2 Corinthians 3.18 so I urge you as I bring the message to a close this morning dear people of God having seen from those ten boxes of witnesses last week the centrality of the grace of mutual love

68:51 and brotherly affection as the air to flourish what is the objective standard by which to assess and guide that mutual love and brotherly affection it is the law of God and it is the pattern of Christ therefore as the true people of God we are those described in Galatians 2.20 we live by faith in the son of God and gave himself for me and if I live by faith in a self giving savior I will become a self

69:34 giving saint it is impossible to live by faith in a self giving savior and to be a self centered saint one will replace the other the true people of God live by virtue of the constant succoring self giving intercession of Christ so we are to manifest our love in the presence of God the way we are to serve Christ eat and be holy

70:19 and free from sin and sin on the earth the earth and expand in the grace of the law By the law, you stand ready to give your life as Christ did.

70:52 I'm not asking if you do these things perfectly, but do you pursue them purposely? I'm not asking if you do them sinlessly, but really and sincerely? If you're devoid of these things, my friend, face it, you're not Christian. But 1 John 4, 7 and 8 clearly tells us God is love.

71:13 And he that loveth is begotten of God. 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.

71:27 If you're utterly devoid of these things, then it's because you're devoid of the grace of God. And you need to be converted. You need to repent and flee to Christ. You need to have a new heart.

Pastoral Commendation and Exhortation

71:42 Having asked that searching personal question, I want to give a sincere pastoral commendation. When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, he could say in chapter 1, I thank God for the grace of love along with their faith and hope. And then he could say further on in that epistle concerning love of the brethren, we need not write anything to you, for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And your love to one another, measured by the law of God, is indeed commendable to our knowledge.

72:15 To our knowledge as elders, there are no factions in this assembly today. And we bless God for that.

72:25 To our knowledge, many of you are manifesting a disposition of willingness to lay down your life for one another, because though not called upon to do that, you are dispensing with the time and the energy and the money and the interest and the concern which are the needs of your brethren, which stand ready at hand to share with them.

72:49 Your preparation for the pastor's conference is a marvelous display of this. You want to get blessed? I may be just put together in a strange way. You say, oh, you've finally come to realize that.

73:00 Yes.

73:02 But I just stood down there and looked at the bulletin board that has all of the service things laid out and all the different suits and who's been served. And I got blessed. Because here is a tangible manifestation of love that's laying down money, laying down time and interest to serve the Christ's servants, seeking nothing in return. And I've blessed God in its right to boast and glory in God's people.

73:36 Paul did it repeatedly with certain individuals in churches. Second Corinthians 8.24 is a clear example. And dear people of God, I want to give that sincere pastoral commendation that you have not robbed us as your spiritual guides of solid grounds to glory in the grace of God that has produced Christ-like law, keeping love in your relationships one to another.

74:07 Thank God our life has not been shattered with shameful, adulterous relationships coming to the surface. Our life has not been crippled and covered with a dark shroud of shame because one brother has embezzled funds from another. Continue to keep the law of God as the conduit of love one to another. And then I close.

74:35 With a practical pastoral exhortation. And it is this. Keep close to the divinely inspired, objected standard of love. Don't spend much time away from honing your conscience by God's law and continually feeding the eyes of your soul with the self-giving love of the Son of God.

75:01 Live near to the cross. But don't think it's sub-Christian. To have some of the light and the lines of beauty that come from Sinai surround the cross. For there at the cross they are stripped of all their condemning thunder and all of their threatening lightning and all of the other manifestations that cause terror.

75:30 That law now comes to you, throbbing and pulsing with all of the glorious privileges and realities of an accomplished redemption in the Lord Jesus. It's not a terror to the child of God.

75:46 Oh, may the Lord help us, dear people, that we as a congregation shall indeed be such as continue steadfastly not only in the apostles' doctrine, maintaining the centrality of the reading and teaching and preaching of the Word of God and the integrity of revealed truth as central to our life. But may we continue steadfastly in fellowship, fellowship that has as its native air this grace of mutual love, brotherly affection, assessed, judged, guided and directed by the objective standard

76:28 of the law of God and the pattern of our Lord Jesus. May I urge you to at least meditate a little bit on 1 Corinthians 13, 4-7 in preparation for our study. Our Father, we thank you for your holy word. How we praise you that you have given us a sure and a certain and a changeless word.

77:02 We thank you for these portions that we've been privileged to examine this morning. And we do earnestly pray that you will indeed wage irreconcilable warfare with all of the erroneous thinking that may yet be in our hearts, that you may be able to do so. We thank you, love and law, as enemies of each other. Gracious God, may we not drink at the fountains of this world's poisonous views of these things, but give us the drink of the pure water of life that flows out from under your throne and the throne of the Lamb comes to us in the scriptures.

77:43 Oh God, help us, help us we pray, that in a day where there is such mass confusion, where there is unprincipled sentiment, where there is downright deviousness calling light darkness and darkness light, may we not be carried away by the error of the wicked. May we remain in your truth. Have mercy upon those who know nothing of this love to which your law directs us and to which the example of your Son, the Son points us. May they see their lostness and feel so keenly they have no capacity so to love

78:25 until they've been given a new heart and made new creatures in Christ. Lord, use your word to awaken the lost, to stir up and instruct your own. Seal it to our hearts, to our profit and to your glory. We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.