Christian Fellowship (4) What is Love? (1)

Introduction to the Sermon Series and 1 Corinthians 13

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, October 17, 1993, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:14 Now may I urge you to turn with me in your own Bibles and to follow as I read in your hearing a very familiar portion of the Word of God, and yet one that is crucial at the point of our present expositions in our Lord's Day morning series of studies, and I refer to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, 1 Corinthians chapter 13,

0:52 follow as I read the entirety of this relatively brief chapter of the Word of God. If I speak with the tongues of men, men and of angels that have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains that have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed, the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind. Love envies not. Love wants not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not, is not provoked, takes not account of evil, rejoices not in or upon the occasion of unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth,

2:21 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there be problems, prophecies, they shall be done away. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease.

2:46 Whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, that when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I felt as a child.

3:08 I thought as a child. But now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. But now we see in a mirror darkly. But then face to face.

3:23 Now I know in part. But then shall I know fully, even as also I was fully known. But now abide faith, hope, love. These three.

3:40 And the greatest of these is love. Now let us again seek the face of God in prayer for the blessing of the Spirit of God upon the ministry of his word. Our Father, we thank you for the wonderful imagery of your blessed son as a triumphant king going forth to ride upon his charger on behalf of truth and of righteousness. And with the psalmist, we too would pray, gird your sword upon your thigh, oh mighty one. And ride forth on the behalf of truth and of righteousness. May your arrows be sharp in the heart of your enemies. May your sword conquer every thought that would rise up against the knowledge of your soul.

4:44 We pray that your word will run and have free course and will sweep before it all that would be resistant to yourself. Oh God, send your Holy Spirit in conjunction with the ministry of the word this morning that the proud may be humbled, that the discouraged and downcast may be lifted up, that the confused may find light on their path, that each of us may know in his own heart of hearts that you have come and spoken a suitable word to us in our time of need. Hear us, we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Now as I'm sure all of you sitting here this morning are fully aware, this day marks the beginning of our tenth annual pastors conference here at Trinity Church. And since the major theme of the conference lectures will be taken up with matters related to how preachers ought to seek to become better preachers, perhaps few passages in all of the word of God

6:12 would form a more suitable introduction to our week of conference than the passage read in your hearing. For in this passage we are told at the very outset of love's supremacy above all gifts including the highest order of the gifts of utterance, even tongues and prophecy and the ability to speak in the language of angels. However, I have not chosen to read this portion of the word of God because this is the first day of the pastors conference, but because these verses were to be in the regular course of our meditation, the verses that we would seek to address at least initially in the exposition of the word of God this morning. We are continuing for the sake of our visitors this series of messages entitled A Manifesto of the Word of God. The Manifesto of the Word of God is the first chapter of the Trinity Baptist Church. And as I tried to wrestle with how best to condense into 15 minutes the essence of 90 expositions in the Manifesto, I kind of felt like someone might feel were he engaged in throwing

Overview of the Trinity Baptist Church Manifesto

7:39 a multi-day oriental feast that went on for days and people had enjoyed the various courses day after day and on the last day of the feast someone showed up and said what's been going on here? Well, you could not go back and reconstruct the feast and re-establish every course and set it before them, but perhaps you could at least tell them what had gone on before and perhaps some leftovers that were there that they might smell or taste. And so for 50 minutes we're going to have a very quick smell and taste overview of where we have been so that as we come to the ministry of the Word of God you will not feel hopelessly lost. The purpose for this series of sermons entitled A Manifesto of Trinity Church was occasioned by the approach of our 25th anniversary and we judged it would be wise to announce and to read and to clarify to all who desire to know what we are all about. What is it that makes us tick as a congregation? And since what we are doing we are not doing in a corner, we are seeking to do in obedience to the revelation of God in Scripture,

9:06 we felt it would be good for us on the occasion of that 25th anniversary to openly declare what we are all about, in terms of the structural principles of our life and ministry. Furthermore, it was our purpose to articulate to our long-standing members their spiritual birthright and heritage and to call us all back to a renewed commitment and implementation of these biblical norms. With the passing of time there is an inevitable temptation to spiritual erosion, both at the level of the understanding, at the level of the affections, and at the level of the commitment of our wills to the truth of God. And then we have had a third purpose in this series and that is to instruct the new spiritual generation in a focused, concentrated way concerning those things which they have received, but which they must understand and intelligently love in order to clearly and passionately preserve them and pass them on to the generations yet to come. And so, in a series of 90 sermons,

10:34 we have considered nine affirmations or tenets in the manifesto. They have been as follows. Number one, we are determined that Jesus Christ shall have his rightful place in the totality of our life and ministry. Number two, we are determined that all of our life and doctrine shall be continually molded by the scriptures.

11:07 Third, we are determined that we shall maintain a God-centered, God-centered climate in the totality of our life and ministry. Number four, we are determined that our life and ministry will unquestionably confirm the unique place assigned to the church in the purpose of God. Number five, we are determined to strive for a membership composed only of truly regenerated and genuinely convinced converted men and women. Number six, we are determined to pursue a biblically established standard for church officers, both with respect to their qualifications and their functions. Number seven, we are determined to validate in our corporate experience the life-out-of-death principle essential to true vital Christianity. And I am tempted to digress and expound, but I must not. Number eight, we are determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in every facet of our life and ministry.

12:34 And then the affirmation which for the past year and a half has received an ever-increasing measure of development is this, we are determined to maintain a balanced New Testament perspective in our teaching and expectations concerning conversion, the Christian life, and the mission of the church. And in the opening up of that ninth affirmation, the current focus of our study is upon our determination to maintain a balanced New Testament perspective in our teaching and expectations relative to the Christian life. And I've sought to articulate the major biblical teachings on the Christian life in terms of specific principles, and we are now highlighting a fifth principle, and it is this, that there are no effective substitutes for the God-ordained means of grace in living the Christian life. I've defined the means of grace as an activity, a relationship, in which God has chosen to deposit those means, those influences,

The Means of Grace and the Centrality of Fellowship

14:01 which will develop the life of His people, the life imparted in their conversion. And having considered the private or individual means of grace, we have taken Acts 2.42 as an outline of the major, not an exclusive list, but an outline of the major corporate means of grace that were clearly operative in the Jerusalem church, and by means of which that church was kept in a state of spiritual health and vigor. And in that text we read, they continue, steadfastly in the apostles' teaching, and in the fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. And from this text, we have highlighted that among the public means of grace, there is first of all, continuous, steadfast adherence to the apostles' teaching, which is translated in our experience into the centrality of the reading, teaching, and preaching of the Word of God in the corporate gatherings of the people of God.

15:27 When that Jerusalem church gathered at the head of the list of their common corporate activities was their adherence to the teaching of the apostles. And for us, the teaching of the apostles is experienced when the Word of God is read, when it is taught, and when it is preached in our public gatherings. And then we have seen, secondly, that continuous, steadfast adherence to fellowship is equivalent to a principled commitment to the manifold dimensions of shared life within the church. And having settled down now upon this second major means of grace, we sought to grasp the basic Biblical concept of fellowship, and it is that of shared life. We considered the basic Biblical context of distinctive Christian fellowship, and that context is the fact that those who are involved in the shared life have, first of all, embraced the one Lord and Savior in all the vigor of the New Testament teaching of the uniqueness of His person and work. The bond of their shared life

16:57 is their adherence to their common Lord and Savior. Further, the context is one in which they have been incorporated into one body by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12, 13, Thirdly, they have been made members of the same family, Galatians 3 and Mark chapter 3. And, according to the New Testament, Christians are found in some specific manifestation of the family and body of Christ in a local church.

17:35 And that is the context within which fellowship is set before us in the New Testament. And therefore, if we would avail ourselves of this means of grace, it can only be known so long as that context is maintained as the basis of that fellowship. But then someone asked, well, what is the specific content of that fellowship? Of what is it comprised?

18:08 And we sought to answer the question, by saying it begins with the truth highlighted in Romans 15, 7. It begins with an unfeigned and unreserved acceptance of one another based upon that which God has made us in Christ. True, distinctive Christian fellowship has nothing to do with commonality of race, commonality of ethnicity, nothing to do with commonality of social standing, educational background, cultural eliteness, or non-eliteness. It has nothing to do with those issues. It has everything to do with our unfeigned and unreserved acceptance of one another for that which God has made us in Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another even as Christ has received you to the glory of God.

19:25 But with that as its foundational and most elementary building block, true shared life can only grow and flourish in the climate of those graces essential to its existence. The graces of mutual love and brotherly affection, mutual submission and humble deference, mutual forgiveness, and gracious forbearance. Now we've just about completed our fifteen minute overview of all the previous courses. Over the last two Lord's Days we've been concerned now with this grace of mutual love and brotherly affection. We took an entire message simply to consider the abundant witness of the New Testament concerning the necessity of this grace of mutual love and brotherly affection if we are to maintain distinctively Christian fellowship. Our survey of ten categories of New Testament witness drew us to the conclusion that according to the scriptures the shared life of the people of God is to be a life of pervasive, intense, all-embracing love and brotherly affection.

Objective Standards for Assessing Love

20:53 According to the Lord Jesus it will be the badge of our identity as his disciples. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if ye have love one to another. Then last Lord's Day we began to consider the objective standard by which to assess the presence and guide the actings of mutual love and brotherly affection. We have this love one to another how will it manifest itself?

21:29 How ought it to manifest itself? If I say I have this love how can I know that I am not self-deceived? If I have that which I judge to be genuine spirit wrought mutual love for my brethren and brotherly affection how can I know I am not under a spirit of deception that I have just some gushy, unprincipled feeling? Is there an objective standard by which to assess the presence and guide the actings of mutual love and brotherly affection?

22:07 And the answer of the Bible is yes there is. And we looked at two of the three strands of the Bible's major emphasis on that issue. First, the precepts of the law Romans 13, 8 through 10. The precepts of the law the law is love's eyes and without it love is blind.

22:31 Secondly, we looked at the pattern of Christ John 15, 12 and 13 in Ephesians 5, 1 and 2 the new commandment is new in this sense that it draws to itself the realities of an accomplished redemption in space-time history a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another kapos even as I have loved you. Now today we begin to take up the third component the third strand of this three-fold cord of the objective standard by which to assess whether or not we do indeed have brotherly love and by which to guide that brotherly love into appropriate channels. We add to the precepts of the law and the pattern of Christ the principles of 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7. 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7. So we have the precepts of the law the pattern of Christ and the principles of 1 Corinthians 13, 4 to 7.

Overview of 1 Corinthians 13: Supremacy, Permanence, and Practical Manifestations of Love

23:49 Would you and I assess accurately whether or not we love one another whether or not we are expressing brotherly affection then let us dare to take up these verses in which love is personified and graphically described in her actions. Would you and I be kept from self-deception on so critical an issue even an issue of life and death for according to 1 John 4, 7 and 8 since God is love and all who are born of God will love and he who does not love is not of God would we be kept from self-deception on a life and death issue then let us dare to bring our deeds to the touchstone of 1 Corinthians 13, 4 to 7. And in the time that remains this morning with that unusually lengthy overview which love constrained me to give particularly for the sake of our visitors consider with me first of all a brief overview of this entire chapter and then secondly some introductory observations concerning the verses that are before us. A brief overview of the entire chapter. I think with just a little coaching

25:17 children from ages probably 7 or 8 and onward would if properly questioned be able to see that there is a very natural three-fold division of 1 Corinthians 13. In the opening three verses Paul celebrates by the guidance of the Spirit the supremacy of love. He shows that love is supreme over all gifts of utterance all gifts of understanding all gifts of miraculous faith over all acts of benevolence and even acts of personal sacrifice unto martyrdom. He says supreme over all of these things is love. So that without love whatever a man may possess of any one of these things whatever he may do in any one of these areas God says he is nothing. Now I don't know how the self-esteem fellows would react when they read Paul writing to a church and telling certain people they're a bunch of nothings and bruising their poor fragile self-esteem but it's the truth. Bruised or unbruised the supremacy of love.

26:38 Of love. Verses 1 to 3. Then you have in verses 8 to 13 the permanence and the priority of love. Look at the text.

26:48 Love never fails. Prophecies? They'll be done away. Tongues?

26:53 Cease. Knowledge as we now have it. It too will pass. None of these things are permanent.

27:00 But there is not only a permanence of love along with faith and hope but there is a priority. See how the passage closes. But now abide it. Faith, hope, love.

27:10 These three and the greatest of these is love. So if I may liken it without being irreverent to a sandwich 1 Corinthians 13 has as the top slice on the sandwich this statement on the supremacy of love. The bottom slice is the statement on the permanence and the priority of love. Well what forms the stuff the filling in between?

27:39 Well it is according to verses 4 through 7 Paul's description of the practical manifestations of love. The practical manifestations of love. Love suffers long. Love is kind.

27:58 Love envies not. Love wants not itself. Etc. So there's the basic structure of 1 Corinthians 13.

28:07 And we're plunging right into the heart of the sandwich. We're not going to take time to expound what Paul says about the supremacy of love. Nor will we pause or linger to concentrate on what he says about the permanence and priority of love. Our concern with reference to this series of sermons is this.

28:31 If koinonia if shared life the shared life that begins with untrained unqualified acceptance of one another for that which God has made us impressed can only exist in a climate where there is genuine mutual love and brotherly affection we must know how does mutual love manifest itself? How does spirit wrought brotherly affection in concrete ways show its face its hands its feet and its heart? And that is precisely the issue that is addressed in verses 4 through 7. And I want you with me this morning to make these three simple introductory observations about these verses. And I hope they will whet your appetite to get into this passage throughout the coming week to pray over it to pray the prayer of Psalm 139 search me oh God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts having spent many hours tracking down the meanings of these words I tell you I have lived in the midst of a house of polished mirrors with intense light and all of them pointing upon the nerve centers

Love as Exclusively Practical

30:00 of my own heart and I trust God will bring us all into such an experience in the days to come. But introductory observations concerning the verses themselves. Number one the grace of love is set before us in these verses in an exclusively practical way. The grace of love is set before us in these verses in an exclusively practical way.

30:34 In this most significant point of all of the scriptures Old and New Testaments written to extol and describe the virtue of love there is no attempt at formal definition none whatsoever. No effort to state as some of us have tried to do in coming up with a formal definition of agape that it is the principled affection which intelligible love intelligently assesses its object and wills and seeks to confer good upon that object according to its need at any cost to oneself. That's something of what agape is by way of definition. But that leaves you as cold as it leaves me. And what the Apostle Paul by the Spirit of God does in this passage is to bypass any effort to define love but rather love is personified into a living creature that acts and reacts that relates and responds to other living creatures and to the circumstances involved in that interaction.

31:51 That's how love is set before us in this passage in an exclusively practical way. And in taking up one's Greek New Testament one is struck with the fact that verses four to seven contains fifteen present indicative active verbs. Not all indicative active you've got a couple of middles and a couple of passes but they are all present active verbs. And those of you who may use an analytical Greek Testament and some of us admit that we use them without shame we find that we can't hold all the forms in our heads and so we try to use the tools and in that linguistic key that is found in Freiberg's analytical Greek Testament you'll circle in pencil fifteen V.I.P.'s.

32:46 V.I.P.'s verb indicative present.

32:52 What's that mean? It means that fifteen things are said about love in terms of what it continually does or what it continually does not. These verses four to seven set the grace of love before us in an exclusively practical way as one modern writer has expressed it. Instead of attempting a definition Paul gives us a rich description.

33:28 By being placed before our eyes in what it does and does not do it is to be made known to us. When we see love in this manner its value appears anew but from a different angle namely that of its own distinguishing features. Now you say of what practical application is that to me? Well just this.

34:01 Just this. As we seek to know what God has for us in our lives we are bound together by that grace called by Paul in Colossians 3 14 the bond of perfectness. Discern if we love one another especially in a generation of the world we are prepared to come to a touchstone of what love really is in action and bring our into the light of this portion of the word of God in all of its intense exclusive practicality. Many of God's people have the ability to love one another and is ready to meet it according to one's ability at any cost to one's self. That goes beyond them. But when

35:29 they read love envy's not and they are told if you give them thirty forty more thousand dollars for the down payment they get in a much nicer home than they had ever hoped to get into and you can go over and be the first one to weep with joy and put your arms around them and not have one thousandth of a gram stick in rebuilt transmission and even then with bubble gum and rubber bands you wonder if you're going to make it to church and just as you're turning in the driveway that fellow that started off his career at the same time yours did he drives in with that brand it doesn't end it doesn't seek its own things it doesn't think in every situation how does this affect me how does this affect me me me me me

36:58 you want a church fracture a church full of fissures get a bunch of people who really the elders in wrestling with this have tried to think of the whole body children young people young couples older couples the retired people and as they've wrestled these are matters of judgment not matters of divine revelation and a decision has to be made that affects the corporate life of the church whether you're going to change the world or not but the first thought is looking always upon the things of myself you have tension grumbling dissatisfaction you don't have a climate for true shared life because you don't have a climate marked by the love that seeks not the things of itself now you see brethren I want to go in and talk to you about what love does and what love does not do not a word about what it feels or doesn't feel not a word of how to construct

Love as Intensely Realistic

38:28 a feelometer at current and have the elders go around and check everyone with their feelometer to see if they love one another having extolled the supremacy of love we are then thrust into a crucible of verses in which the grace of love is set before us in an exclusively practical way but then secondly by way of overview I want you to notice I never saw this as clearly I've been seeing it along the way but it struck me with tremendous force in the preparation of these verses the grace of love is set before us in these verses in an intensely realistic way of all the various ways in which love acts reacts which Paul could have chosen to describe there's a common context for each manifestation of love it's the context of the realism of the presence of remaining

39:56 sin and corruption in the hearts of God's people and the acting of that sin and corruption especially in social or interpersonal relationships in other words Paul is not describing the man made perfect but he's describing the principles and actings of love among the saints yet imperfect he's not describing the actings of love in the new humanity in the new age in the new earth he's describing the actings of love upon the renewed earth and in the new world and in the new world and in the new world I believe and we believe in the truth of love and the truth of that

41:22 evils and trials of a fallen world. Paul does not describe love to us in the role of performing great, wonderful, and astounding deeds. He prefers to show us how the inner heart of love looks when it is placed among sinful men and weak and needy brethren. He doesn't picture love in ideal surroundings of friendship and affection where each individual embraces and kisses the other but in the hard surroundings of a bad world in a faulty church where distressing influences bring out the positive power and the value of love.

42:06 Now some commentators have gone to seed with the notion that all 15 of Paul's selections of the verbs saying what love does and does not do have a distinct and unique reference to a problem at Corinth. I think it's forced exegesis However, there are certain of these that obviously have strong overtones from certain problems that were there at Corinth and I hope to highlight them when we come to expound these 15 verbs one by one but the immediate context certainly does not confine them. The grace of love is set before us in an intensely realistic way the Spirit of God and peace dissipating all of the exigencies all of the difficult pressures that will be made upon love in a context where you have imperfectly sanctified saints who must be relating one to another in shared life. You see, it's the very pressure of shared life that forces us to cry to God for a love that bears all things. Why do you need a love that bears all things if there's nothing about you that needs bearing with?

43:27 Nothing about me that needs bearing with. If I was just the sweetest, most lovable, likable guy in all the world you wouldn't need to love me to bear with me. But if you're going to bear with me you need love that bears all things.

43:41 And if there were no tendency to that vicious, horrible, green-eyed monster to come up out of the depths of our own being and influence our spirits when God blesses our brothers or sisters with gifts or things or endowments that we wish we ourselves had or their enjoyment of which we cannot enter into why would God have to say love envies not? If we were not vulnerable to the wretched sin of envy it's easier to get someone to admit that he lusts after another man's wife than that he lusts after his brother's new car or new home. Who wants to admit to so churlish and foul a sin as envy?

44:28 But Paul assumed envy was at work at Corinth. Envy even in the matter of gifts.

44:37 And the tongue speakers parading and puffed up. Love is not puffed up. You see there's many, many nuances in the descriptions that it's this intensely realistic setting in which love is described. And dear people we ought to thank God for that.

44:55 This is not describing what love will do in heaven. But what it will do right here and now in Trinity Church with all of our remaining sin and all of our potential for the absence of the spirit of oneness and those graces that will mark us out as the disciples of Christ. But then thirdly not only would I ask you to note in this overview of the verses that the grace of love is set before us in an exclusively practical way the grace of love is set before us in an intensely realistic way. But the grace of love is set before us in these verses in a wonderfully balanced way.

Love as Wonderfully Balanced (Positives and Negatives)

45:40 The grace of love is set before us in a wonderfully balanced way. And what do I mean by that? Simply this. In giving moral and ethical directives God continually employs the negative and the positive perceptual motif.

45:58 That is God says don't do this do this do this but don't do that. In the Ten Commandments there are eight negatives and two positives. Again, the people who say that every preacher ought to major on the positive under all circumstances and do anything other is psychologically unsound. He's got problems with being an image bearer of God my friend because when God gives us the distillation of his moral requirements eight of them are couched in the negatives.

46:31 And therefore if the negative is inherently ungodly I say that's tantamount to blasphemy to make such an assertion.

46:45 In the Pauline Corpus you have the Apostle saying put off therefore Colossians chapter 3 and then put on therefore. Romans 6 we're to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Well, when we come to these four verses 1 Corinthians 13 4 to 7 we have eight negatives and seven positives. You greet students you've got eight negative particles ooh before the verbs.

47:24 Then you have seven positives. What does this tell us? It is telling us that as Paul by the inspiration of the Spirit of God sat down to write what love does. Not to theorize in philosophical terms not to indulge in philological gymnastics trying to give us formal definitions but personifies love into a living creature.

47:51 Here, watch love see what she does. There's this beautiful balance this is what she does this is what she does not do. And in that balance of the eight negatives and the seven positives there is this beautiful composite picture of what love indeed looks like when it is operative in the heart of an individual when it is operative in the interaction of the people of God as the native climate of their shared life in the church.

48:27 Paul's frontal attack upon those who have no place for negation in their Christian thought or experience is found in this very love chapter because he gives us eight negatives. And if you and I again have questions am I truly loving my brethren? You come to this passage and say well if I am then I will not do what love does not do. And if I'm loving my brethren I will do in the strength of Christ and in the grace of the Spirit as I pray that I will be filled with the Spirit the fruit of whose indwelling and powerful operation is love.

49:10 This is what I will do by the grace of God. And so between the positives and the negatives we have this beautiful composite balanced picture of what love actually looks like in the midst of the realism of a congregation with imperfectly sanctified saints who are on their way to the celestial city seeking to experience in their corporate life the reality that they are indeed the new humanity. They're not just a religious club with a little different set of rules and entrance requirements and beliefs and bylaws. They are the living temple of God. They are the body of Christ. The family of Christ. The living validation that Christ has a people here on earth.

50:04 For by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have the power of God. If ye have love one to another. You know what that means? Let me give it to you in these verses.

50:14 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if you suffer long with one another. If you are kind one to another. If you and here come our negatives if you do not envy one another. If you do not want yourself in the presence of one another.

50:36 If you are not coughed up as windbills and bags. If you do not behave yourself unseemly in your interaction one with another. If you do not seek your own things as you relate to one another. If you are not easily provoked and touchy and quick to take offense in your interactions with one another.

51:01 If you keep no ledger book of the evils that others do to you. If you do not rejoice when unrighteousness is manifested in the life of another. But you rejoice when truth conquers the life and produces a life of holiness.

51:21 You will be known as my disciples when you have a love that bears all things as you relate to one another. Believe all things as you hopefully encourage and strengthen one another in your earthly pilgrimage. And when you endure all things at one another's hands by this shall all men know that you are my disciples. Take John 13.35 read it into this passage because that's exactly what the Lord is talking about when he says if ye have love one to another. Not love assessed and judged and evaluated by some subjective notion that I feel gushy when I sit in this building with my brother and my brethren I must therefore love them. No my friend you love them if you do what love does and you don't do what love does not do.

Conclusion and Call to Prayer and Repentance

52:21 And therefore we should bless God that he has given us this portion of his word that is exclusively practical that is intensely realistic and is wonderfully balanced. Now we come around full circle to where we began as we bring our meditation to a conclusion this morning if we as a congregation are to know the blessedness of God's grace being continually communicated to us and among us in our corporate life what must we have? We must not only have the baseline of a continual unfeigned and unreserved acceptance of one another for that which God has made us in Christ. But we must have a native air we must have a climate that is marked by genuine spirit wrought mutual love and brotherly affection and that mutual love and brotherly affection is both to be evaluated and guided by the precepts of the law the pattern of Christ and the principles of 1 Corinthians 13 4 to 7 and so my appeal to you as the people of God is will you not earnestly pray over these four verses

53:49 in the next couple of weeks plead with God that he would show you anything and everything in your interaction with your brethren that is contrary to this description of love will you dare to bring your life not your feelings your life your words the description of love the description of love the description of love the description of love the description of love the exposition of your heart and your reactions and actions and interactions under the scrutiny of this passage with the prayer search me oh God and know my heart I plead with you dear members and friends of this assembly that plead that God would bring this passage home with power into the deepest chambers of your own heart and for you who sit among us who are strangers to the grace of God you can't even begin to know this kind of love you so bow down to the idol of your own cursed self that you're not free to love anything or anyone but yourself that's why when Jesus issues his call to discipleship he starts with the most fundamental problem he says if any man would come after me let him repudiate deny say no to him self you're never free either to love God

55:18 or man while you worship at the shrine of your own unblessed cursed fallen self my unconverted friend you may have some lovely feelings and in God's common grace may even do some noble things to your wife and kids I'm not denying that God in common grace imparts to people dispositions and attitudes and even enables them to perform actions that are in the best interest of others but in terms of truly loving loving as the principle of the soul deeply embedded and rooted in what you are you cannot know such love until you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit for the fruit of the Spirit is love and you will never know the indwelling of the Spirit until you go as a helper as a helpless guilty needy sinner to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith and call upon Him for mercy and in laying hold of the offered Savior in Christ God has promised to give you His Spirit to place His own Spirit within you so that you might begin to know what it is truly to love and then as you become a part of the fellowship of His people you are able then to experience this true

56:46 shared life why? because by the one Spirit having been placed into the one body and come under the one Lord and Savior and now a part of the one family you have those dynamics of grace at work to create in you the love that suffers long and is kind and envies not wants not itself is not puffed up doesn't behave itself unseemly seeks not its own is not provoked takes not itself that account of evil rejoices not in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things may God grant that whatever our basic need is this day we shall find ourselves having heart dealings with God in Christ that that need may be met let us pray our Father we thank You for Your Holy Word we thank You that You have given to us this very portion in which by the Spirit the Apostle was guided to describe love in her actings and reactings and we pray that You would bless us as in the coming days we park here and seek

58:15 to assimilate what You have said in Your Word we plead with You our Father that more and more the love described in these verses will be manifested in our dealings one with another that in the midst of all of the realism of our remaining sin and potential for those thoughts and actions and words so contrary to love that we may nonetheless be found a people held together in this grace that is the bond of perfection seal then Your Word to our hearts and may Your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place bless our afternoon hours bring us back together again in Your good providence to worship You to praise You to sit again unto Your Word hear our cry and answer us we plead in Jesus' name Amen