DM 620445

Well, here we are. Well, here we are. Well, here, we'll just leave that there. Yep, we're here. And we're doing church at your house. What do you think?

Is that pretty great? Yeah, that's pretty great. So if you turn your Bible to Galatians 6, we are going to take a break from our normal routine. because I thought contextually with the fact that we are, we've changed everything about our church day basically. I wanted to sort of talk about why it came about and kind of how it came about and why, in fact, everything we did we think is obedience to Christ in the Scripture.

In Galatians 6, verse 7, we read, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. And so what I wanted to focus on was this, really the last verse of what I just read. as you have opportunity do good to everyone and it says especially to those who are of the household of faith and there is a principle in scripture that we all understand which is that God is love and we have some idea of what that means when I say we understand it but it means we all know this and we all believe it and in fact God being love is something that literally almost everyone in the world would say they believe. Okay?

If you go up to almost anybody that's a non-Christian and you ask them, well, is God love? Most of them would say, yeah. Now, they might not be thinking of our God, or they might have a completely different definition of love than the one God provides in Scripture. But everyone has this idea, like, love is a good thing, it's a real thing. even the Gentiles love those who love them and greet one another and things of that sort.

And so when we try to define what love is as Christians, we have to be diligent to define it the way God would define it. So if you define love as never having to say you're sorry, that's the famous line from some movie, I don't remember what movie at this point, it's before my time. There's a famous line that says, love means never having to say you're sorry.

And the idea is that we're just so loving and we're so tolerant that people can sin against us and we can sin against others. You don't even have to say you're sorry. People just forgive you and you move on. Well, if that's how you define love, then you're going to have a problem repenting, confessing your sins before a holy God, and actually receiving the forgiveness promised when you do that.

And so we have to watch how we define love. So you don't get love definitions from Hallmark movies and romantic comedies and things like that. You know, Alexander and I, we like to watch the Christmas movies where it's always a happy ending and the couple falls in love, you know. But it's never really real, you know. It's always kind of just sentimental.

And so God says that love is defined with Jesus Christ. We wouldn't know what love is apart from seeing what Jesus Christ did. Hi, Lauren. Thanks for letting us be here. We wouldn't know what love is apart from Jesus Christ coming and laying down his life for others. And we're told there's greater love has no man than this, than somebody would lay down his life for his friends.

And Jesus, of course, came, laid down his life for his enemies, that they might become his friends. And so when we think about what love is, we want to make sure we define it through Scripture. and we always want to center it on the love that Jesus Christ displays for his people. But what God tells us is that if we love Jesus, and if we say we love Jesus, one of the ways we'll actually know that that's true and one of the ways other people will know that's true is that we will love others, especially the ones Jesus loves, his people.

And we will love people. And how do we know we love people? Well, we have to look through the scriptures to see how it's defined. So it's easy to say, I love someone, and then not do anything, practically speaking, that's loving toward them, but say, well, I love them. And James deals with that and says, don't just look at your brother who's hungry and needy and say, be warm and filled.

Give him your coat. Give him a meal. so we have to realize that love although it comes from our heart and although it is in a sense intangible you can't touch it, it's not like a thing you can hold in your hand, right I can't just hand you a love, here here's some love, add it to the bread next week, you know, I can't really do that but what we can do is we can see love in our actions and you can see in your actions whether or not you're loving. And everybody knows this practically, because when somebody's actions towards you aren't loving, you recognize it.

You recognize it fast, right? And you think, that wasn't very loving. I don't think that person loves me. Or maybe you call your sister or your brother or somebody in your family that got a bad boyfriend or girlfriend And you say hey I don think that person really loves you Well why do you think that He says he loves me Well, because he did this and that.

Well, it's always about action. That's how we measure these things. So, I have some verses here. Let me back up. One of the reasons I wanted to bring this up is that the fact that we're meeting right now in somebody's home instead of our church building and at a different time, all stems from love. It all stems from the fact that I didn't want people that are part of my church, and when I say my church, I mean I'm a member of the church, not my church like I own the church.

I didn't want people in my church to have to try to trudge home in what's predicted to be one of the worst storms we've seen in a while at least, right? I didn't want people to even be sitting in church nervous about it because maybe it started snowing when they got to church and they weren't sure how bad it would be. I wanted people to be able to worship freely and all together.

But I also didn't want people to miss church because we moved it earlier. Or I didn't want them to miss it because we left it later in the weather thing. And, you know, we're trying to manage a situation that's unpredictable. You know, the same people that, you know, told us about COVID and we shouldn't have church might be the same people that made up to the storms coming.

I don't know for sure, right? This is one of the things we're dealing with here. But we're trusting right now that there's legitimately going to be difficulty with driving. I don't want my friends stuck in the snow. You know, I just don't. I don't want people even nervous about it.

And so we had a meeting this morning to figure out, well, when can we try to have church? And I even talked to the people that own our building about it and tried to work things out with them and all this stuff. And we went back and forth between, well, what if we do it at this time? And what I saw was that there were people in the church who were saying, well, don't rearrange things just on account of me. you know, do it do it if it makes sense but I'd rather suffer and let one of my brothers or sisters actually enjoy having church at the convenient time for them today or not changing it if that makes sense and I'm over it, I was kind of playing the middle man where I was just trying to see if I could make everyone happy and I was really impressed that pretty much everyone was trying to say well I'll accommodate others and so I actually had to pressure some people to say can we get an answer here because they were trying to be too accommodating it's almost like when you say where do you want to eat and the person's like oh whatever's fine and you're like well whatever's fine for me somebody has to start narrowing it down but so the reason why we ended up here is that people decided they wanted to be loving towards their brothers and sisters and in our case because we love the Lord Jesus we prioritize attending worship together on the Sabbath and doing it in a way where we can have communion physically.

Because one of my ideas was, well, if it's going to be that bad, maybe we try to do a thing together on a Zoom meeting so we can at least have a spiritual thing together. But it'd be better to do that with everyone than just two families have church maybe is what I was thinking as well. So it's trying to be thoughtful. So I'm very impressed right now and I hope we continue to be a church that loves one another.

And so I have some verses I printed for consideration. I'm big on evangelism. I'm big on being anti-abortion. I'm big on preaching hard truths and things like that. And pressuring people to do better and getting up and talking to kids and trying to get kids to interact and think about the Lord and all these things. but something we do need to remember is that our Lord is the Lord of love and love isn't only telling people the truth that's part of being loving, but love is caring about others legitimately and wanting what's best for them, and so Jesus says in John 13, you can turn there if you want, I've got a lot of verses so it would be hard to turn to all of them, but he said a new commandment I give to you in 1334, he says that you love one another He's speaking to his disciples here.

He says, just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. Okay, so he's not, this isn't saying, make sure you send each other valentines. Okay, February's coming. Jesus is saying, just as I have loved you. Jesus humbled himself and self-sacrificially did everything necessary without any goal of his own glory, but only the glory of God and the benefit of others. that's how he loved his people and that's what he actually calls you to that's impossible for you to actually do it perfectly but it doesn't change that's what you're called to do and in some of our cases we're going to live long healthy lives and we're never actually going to have to really suffer anywhere near like some people have you know most of us are willing to say yeah I'd die for Christ you know or I'd die for my wife you know are you willing to live for her for 15 minutes once in a while, you know?

Do you love your wife that much? It's easy to say I take a bullet for her. Sometimes it's hard to love her daily and give her the things that she really wants and needs, you know, and we have to be challenged. But Jesus did it. So Jesus says, by all this, all people will know that you are my disciples. He said, if you have love for one another.

So it's actually a proclamation that this is part of how people will recognize the church. Right? So, you know, when you remember Christians Christians that are imprisoned. When you take care of missionaries. There's things that we are supposed to do, and I think hopefully as our church grows we add what we call ministries that we actually are able to partake in better But there ways that we actually show to the world we love one another And that one of the big disappointments with basically social media and the fighting that goes on between Christians, some of which are fights that need to happen, debates that need to happen, I might say.

But some of it, I think, looks really bad to the rest of the world. There's a lot of clubs in the world that have better unity. of mind than Christians have. And so we have to be able to find a way to show, hey, I really care about this brother while I maybe disagree with you about modes of baptism. Right? And so we need to be able to do that. Jesus says in John 15, 12 and 17, He says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

He says, these things I command you so that you will love one another. love is a command from God. Most of you are sitting around waiting to feel loving so that then you'll be loving. But God doesn't expect you to sit and wait until you feel like it. He commands you to love one another. In this context, one another is the household of faith. That's who we are expected to do more good to.

We should be known by that. And we live far apart, some of us, but we should be known as people that care about one another and want to do things for one another. I'm sitting here thinking about how when aunts and uncles get together with your kids for events, and grandparents and some people, there's usually family relations where your kids are very comfortable around them.

And I thought, you know, that's how we should feel about each other in the church. you know? When I come to your house, when you come to my house it should be no different than when your brother or sister shows up and your kids say hey Uncle Joe's here or whatever or Aunt Hannah's here. It should be the same with your church friends. We should have that kind of relationship we try to build.

And who else would you want influencing your kids than the people who you've covenanted that say they believe the same thing as you in church, right? So we want that kind of relationship. part of the reason I have all these verses for you is I want to show you the breadth of this teaching in scripture this isn't like hey I found a verse in Galatians that says love people so now here we are Romans 12 10 love one another with brotherly affection outdo one another in showing honor it's a command again love one another with brotherly affection this is Romans 12 at the culmination of 11 chapters of Paul describing to the Romans, this is how you get saved. The very next chapter is that here's everything that you should be doing now if you truly are saved.

Brotherly affection. Sometimes brotherly affection means giving a guy a punch in the arm. It happens. If you had a brother, you know what I mean. But at the same time, if anybody you have, brothers or sisters, that you had a decent relationship with, sometimes you could fight a little, but at the end, you really loved each other. And wow, if anybody else hit your brother like that, you'd be defending him, right?

Romans 13, owe no one anything except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. How do we know how to love people, you know? They ask for a cigarette, is it loving to give them one necessarily? You know? If somebody says, hey, I want to marry my boyfriend, and it turns out they're a guy also, is it loving to say, well, go ahead?

No, love fulfills the law. so how do you know how to love people contextually you have to figure out what's going on and part of the whole point is you have to obey God's law and you're encouraging them to so you need to know God's law you need to know the effect that God's law is supposed to have on people's lives and what the implications of honor your father and mother are and do not murder and do not commit adultery and do not steal and do not lie and not to covet but you have to know how to apply those things to other people's lives so that you can love them. Love isn't just tolerating what other people want to say or do. It's also not non-stop rebuke probably either, but when we love people, we're trying to actually obey God's law and we're trying to encourage them to, and you need to know it to do that.

You need to know it well enough to teach it to them. If somebody legitimately wants to do something contrary to God's law, you need to be able to explain to them and help them understand 2 Corinthians 13 so now another book another letter finally brothers rejoice aim for restoration comfort one another agree with one another live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you the God of love is with you when you do these things a lot of times you see things like aim for restoration comfort one another agree with one another live in peace and it's all these different commands, but what I'll tell you is those commands all help you see this is how to love somebody. A lot of the commands of Scripture are ways to love others.

If you think about them that way, it helps you see because love is hard to define. What is love? Well, love is patient, kind, it bears with one another. Love doesn't boast, it doesn't insist on its own way, it's not arrogant or rude. well, those are just all other ways that are describing love, because love's kind of like its own concept, but you can only describe it with other ideas.

Galatians 5.13 says, For you were called the freedom brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. It says, but through love serve one another. That's a command that as a Christian, you are to avoid certain freedoms you actually have in Christ in order to love people, maybe those freedoms would cause them to stumble This is a big one for parents I think There probably some stuff you shouldn watch or shouldn talk about or shouldn have in your home that your kids aren't ready in their flesh yet to battle.

And so sometimes you have to be a little stricter than you want to be with things in your life if it helps somebody you love to be able to be straight also. Ephesians 4, another book, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. That's Ephesians 4, 2. Bearing with one another in love. Loving somebody might mean you have to tell them, hey, I think you're wrong about this.

I think you're violating God. I think you're in sin. But it doesn't mean you cut off the relationship in that moment. Bearing with one another in love. Later in the same chapter, Paul's going to say, forgiving one another. You know, being tender-hearted and kind to one another.

So we when we love people, and we're trying to love people the way Jesus said to love people, which is how he loved people, it requires us to actually be very patient, and to often bear with sin for a long time. And another person, sin that personally insults us and hurts us, but we're willing to take that insult because Jesus took our insults and forgave us anyway, and I can bet that you all have at least one time in your life that you knew you were in sin and you stuck in it longer than you should have. And Jesus still stayed with you that whole time.

And He didn't love you any less at the beginning or at the end. He didn't love you more when all of a sudden you got over the sin that was besetting. He didn't love you more. He loved you the same from all eternity. 1 Thessalonians 3, another book. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another, Paul says, He says, and for all, and then he says, as we do for you.

Paul, the apostle, example of loving people. 1 Thessalonians 4.9, he says, Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. So even Thessalonians, Paul expected them to just almost in some way implicitly understand it. Which is true. You go to any culture that doesn't have the Bible, and there's elements of this is how you love people.

I mean, I don't want to spoil movies for you, but pretty much every movie, somebody self-sacrificially does something to love another person toward the end of the movie, and that's the guy that's the champion or the hero. They're almost all like messiah figures in some way. I'm not going to start exegeting Iron Man for you here, but I don't want to spoil it. but a lot of these movies guys they just do things and and what they're doing is they're they're loving other people by caring for them more than they care for even their own life they're just doing what's self-evident to most of the world which is what jesus came and did hebrews 10 24 let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works and that's a nice verse if you keep going, basically says meeting together.

And that's what we did today. That's what the morning was spent trying to figure out, was considering how we can get everybody to get together, to not forsake the assembly of the saints, which is the habit of some, so that we might all get the benefit of the gathering, which we think even a shortened service is better than a Zoom meeting. First Peter, having purified your souls by your beings to the truth, for a sincere brotherly love.

He says, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Now's where it really gets difficult. Because it's real easy to say, hey, I love Elijah and he wants to borrow my car because he lost his keys again, so here buddy, borrow my car. It's easy to outwardly let people do stuff, right? It's easy to have somebody you got something against and you don't like something he did and maybe even talk to him about it and it doesn't get resolved and you're unhappy about it and you think they're wrong and it's easy to say, well, I'm going to love them and I'll just be patient about it and you know, whatever.

But it's difficult to have a pure heart and to actually love them in a way where if God opened you up and looked, He'd know it was true. Because I can fool everybody in here and you can fool me. And we can all say what we want to say. But what God sees is your heart. And it's not going to help you on the day of judgment if you fooled everybody in this world into thinking you were a loving brother.

But deep down inside, you were nothing but a Jew. So you inspect your own heart on your own. You examine your heart before we go take communion here. And you beg God to purify it and to wash it clean. Even if you know you've been saved, you beg Him to keep doing that kind of thing. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.

That's Peter still. 1 John has a lot to say about love. He just repeats what John said. Or it's the same John. It's the letter that John wrote. He repeats a lot of the same things in 1 John that he said in John 13 and 15.

So as we finish the sermon part and I want to move right into communion that's what the consideration today is is are you loving people from a pure heart this particularly applies to Christians it is amplified in the relationship of a husband supposed to love his wife wives you ought to love your husbands too you're not commanded to I think God kind of knew wives would maybe not struggle with it as much as men do, I guess. I don't know. But you're also commanded to love your husbands.

And it should be out of the pure heart, children. You should love your and your inability to consistently and purely love your parents is actually the thing at a young age that should drive you to Christ I doubt any of you have robbed a bank or murdered anybody hopefully you haven't stolen much but you probably have and you only realize it but at a little young age you realizing that you can't even will yourself to obey your parents regularly and when you do you know in your heart you're grumbling that should drive you to Christ and that should make you want him to save you right now and to free you from some of the bondage to the difficulty of this that the rest of us, some of us, faced for years and still have to fight anyway. So as we come to communion, I want you to be excited though.

Everything's got to be convicting, I know. I want you to be excited. I want you to be excited that even though you can't love, Jesus did. That Jesus Christ came into the world and he loved his parents. He loved his friends. He loved those that he was going to save enough that he was willing to suffer and die for them.

And because his sacrifice was perfect, he died and went in the grave and rose again. Death couldn't hold him. The punishment for sin that Jesus endured couldn't hold him in death because he wasn't a sinner. And so today, you who are unloving by nature, you who even after being purified by Christ and made a holy person and sanctified in the Spirit and called a saint by God, you who still can't love the way you know you ought to, are forgiven and you going to heaven And you get that joy We get to hope for His return and so that why we celebrate the Lord Supper and I going to break the bread because on the night he was betrayed he broke the bread and he gave it to his disciples and he said take this and eat it he said this is my body which will be given up for you for the forgiveness of sins and he took the cup and he gave thanks for it and he said this is my blood of a new covenant which will be shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

And so, you have the forgiveness of sins today. And if your love for Christ is growing, your love for others will grow. So as you find it difficult to love others, recognize, well, I just don't love Christ much. I need more of that. And the people that you're going to find it difficult to love, are going to be the people that are hard to love. The people who are doing something that offends you right now.

The people that are making things difficult in your life right now. The people that are making you not feel good right now. Those are the ones that are difficult. A guy shows up at your door and says, hey, here's $100. I did not want it. He gives it to you.

He's easy to love. It's also very conditional. So when you find you're in a struggle, just turn to Christ and say, God, give me more love for Christ. give me more love for you, and that will manifest itself properly toward others. And just rest in His saving grace. Rest in it. Don't condemn yourself.

He doesn't condemn you anymore. So I'm going to go over to the table now.