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Eric Lutter

The Witness of Brotherly Love

John 15:17
Eric Lutter August, 30 2022 Audio
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John

In his sermon titled "The Witness of Brotherly Love," Eric Lutter addresses the central theological doctrine of Christian love as a witness of faith, particularly focusing on John 15:17. He emphasizes that genuine love for one another among believers is a hallmark of discipleship and indicative of their relationship with Christ. Lutter articulates that this love serves as a testimony to both the believers themselves and the surrounding world, confirming their identity as friends of Christ, as highlighted in passages like John 13:34-35. He underlines the importance of fostering brotherly love in the face of human conflicts and misunderstandings, asserting that such love, rooted in the sacrificial love of Christ, stands in stark contrast to the hatred of the world. This practical application of love is significant for believers as it reflects their transformed nature and witness to God's mercy and compassion.

Key Quotes

“The love that you have for your brethren is very much indeed a witness that you are a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“If you would come to God in your own works, you shall have the law witness and testify against you, and you shall die in your sins.”

“Remember what Christ has done for us when we were enemies… the Lamb of God, doing for us what we do not deserve.”

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.”

Sermon Transcript

Auto-generated transcript • May contain errors

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Good evening. Let's all stand
and sing out of your soft back 105. He surrendered all 105. It's been a while since we sang this
one. All for me Christ did surrender,
All for me He freely gave. Holy One, made sin for sinners,
By His death my soul He saved. He surrendered all, He surrendered all. All to be my blessed Saviour,
He surrendered all. Coming from his throne in heaven,
Jesus laid his glory by. Thus this sinner is forgiven
and shall soon be glorified. He surrendered all. He surrendered all. All to be my blessed Saviour,
He surrendered all. Into death Christ did surrender,
even death upon the cross. All to save the worst offender,
mind the gain is all the loss. He surrendered all. He surrendered all. All to me, my blessed Saviour,
He surrendered all. At the cross, the Father's pleasure
prospered well in Jesus' hands. Now He's honored without measure,
so the Father's will demands. He surrendered all. He surrendered all. All to be my blessed Savior,
He surrendered all. Thank you. That was a nice piano
playing, though. I'll be reading from 1 Corinthians
chapter 13. I'm going to read the last verse of chapter
12 also to start. but covet earnestly the best
gifts, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way. Though
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love,
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though
I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and
all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove
mountains and have not charity, or love, I am nothing. And though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my
body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth
not itself, is not puffed up. doth not behave itself unseemly,
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinking no evil, rejoiceth
not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth, but whether
there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues,
they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it
shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy
in part. But when that which is perfect
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When
I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought
as a child. But when I became a man, I put
away childish things. For now we see through a glass
darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then
shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith,
hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for your love, for your mercy and compassion
that you show to us. For we are sinners, unworthy
of the least of your kindnesses, but Lord, you have purposed it
in eternity that we should find grace in your eyes and that you
would be merciful to us. Lord, we thank you for gathering
us, for not leaving us to ourselves, not leaving us to our flesh and
our own devices, but Lord, that you delivered us from darkness,
that you continue to teach us and feed us, that you not only
sustain us but preserve us and are doing all things well. We
thank you, Lord. Father, we ask that you would
indeed watch over this little flock, that you would remember
us, Lord, and work all things according to your purpose here,
that you would bless this city, this people here, that you would
cause your people to hear of us and to come and join with
us. that they would hear the gospel
of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that they would rejoice in him,
not for a short time, but until you return and receive us to
yourselves. Lord, we pray that you bless
your word to us tonight, that you would be in our presence,
that you would be in our hearts, that you would be filling our
minds and our thoughts with the blessings of our Savior,
of what you've done, of the comfort that you give us and bear witness
to us in all things. Lord, help us, for we are weak.
We are easily distracted and easily forget. But Lord, we do
know that there is nothing to be compared to our Savior. We
pray that you would exalt him in our hearts this night. Remember
those of us who are sick, those of us who are troubled and afraid,
those of us who are weak and worried. Father, you know all
things, and you know our struggles, you know our difficulties, and
you've given them to us according to purpose. And we pray, Lord,
that more and more, we would see our Savior, and more and
more, by the spirit of adoption, we would cry out to you for mercy
and for understanding and for peace in our Lord. It's in his
name we pray and give thanks. Amen. This next hymn, I'm sure we all
know it. We haven't sung it yet as a group, but it's that handout
I gave you. How deep the father's love for
us. should be right in under the
cover. Deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure That He should give His only Son To
make a wretch His treasure How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns his face away, As wounds which mar the chosen
ones, Bring many sons to glory. Behold the man upon the cross,
My sin upon his shoulders, Ashamed I hear my mocking voice Call
out among the scoffers It was my sin that held him there Until
it was accomplished His dying breath has brought me life I
know that it is finished. Will not boast in anything. No gifts, no power, no wisdom. But I will boast in Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection. Why should I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all my heart. His wounds have paid my ransom. Thank you. Good evening, brethren. Turn in your Bibles to John chapter
15. Put a marker around verse 17
through 19. That's our text, Lord willing,
at least verse 17 tonight. Once you've gotten there and
put a marker there, then turn over to Deuteronomy chapter 31. We're gonna begin there. Because
there we see that under the law, our God gave to his people Israel,
he gave them a witness against them. In the law, he gave them
a witness against themselves. So in Deuteronomy chapter 31, God had told Moses that his time
was up, that he was going to be buried and sleep with his
fathers. And he told Moses that when he
was gone, that the people of Israel were going to rebel. They were going to go into idolatry. They were going to seek after
and worship the false gods of the nations around them. And the Lord told Moses that
he was going to punish them. that his law would be a witness
against them. Look at verse 19. Deuteronomy
31, 19. So God said to Moses here, now
therefore write ye this song for you and teach it the children
of Israel. Put it in their mouths that this
song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. And then look down on verse 22.
We're told there that Moses therefore wrote this song the same day
and taught it to the children of Israel. So, so far we have
this song which the Lord gave which is a witness against the
children of Israel. And then he gave Moses instruction
about the law. It says in verse 26, Deuteronomy
31, 26, he said, take this book of the law and put it in the
side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it
may be there for a witness against thee. Against thee. So God instructed Moses and Moses
told the people, you take this law, which the Lord your God
has given to you and you put it in the ark and it's going
to be a witness against you. And what the Lord is showing
us here in the Old Testament, what He's teaching us there is
that if we would come to God in the law, if we would try to
come to God in the righteousness of the law, according to our
flesh, in the works of our flesh, we are going to meet a holy God
who will deal with us in righteous vengeance. He will take righteous
vengeance against us because that law shall prove to be a
witness against us. The law is perfect. The law is
holy and just. But I'm not. I'm not. I'm the sinner. I'm the lawbreaker. And if I think that I'm going
to come to God in my own works and in my righteousness according
to the law, thinking that what I've done is acceptable and good
enough for God, I shall meet him and be dealt with in righteous
vengeance by holy God, because the law shall witness and testify
against me. Now I say this because in Jesus
Christ, The Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Father hath sent, our
God, deals with us in grace, and in mercy, and in compassion. If you would come to God in your
own works, you shall have the law witness and testify against
you, and you shall die in your sins. But you that come to the
Father through Jesus Christ the righteous, the righteousness
of God, God deals with you in grace and mercy. In grace and
mercy. He's purposed it that way. He's
purposed that all his people come to him in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's where God shows mercy
to his people. That's where the Lord shows compassion
to whom he will show compassion. He brings them through the Lord
Jesus Christ. He teaches them Christ. Now in
our text tonight, turn back to John 15. In our text tonight, the Lord
had just said something quite amazing. When men have been fellowshipping
for some time and there is a falling out or disagreement between them,
they go from calling one another brethren to friend. They begin
to call them friend, because they're backing off. They're
thinking, I don't know about you anymore. And so they try
to be nice, and they say the word friend often. It's an insult
in that sense. But here the Lord lifts up his
people. And he says there in verse 15,
henceforth, going forward, I call you not servants. For the servant
knoweth not what his Lord doeth. But I have called you friends.
I have lifted you up. You are no longer a servant,
you are a friend. For all things that I have heard of my Father
I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I
have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go forth
and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that
whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give
it you." The people didn't know God as
a friend. They were unfriendly to God. Under the law, when they labored,
they were laboring in fear, they were laboring in worry, they
were laboring in doubt. Even Moses, we're told that Moses
spoke to God face to face. It says in Exodus 33, 12 that
the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto
his friend. That's how he spoke to Moses,
because Moses also found grace in the sight of God. But when
Moses was there with the people before that time on Mount Sinai,
when the Lord gave him the law, And he heard the trumpets blaring,
the thunderings, the lightnings, the smoking, the quaking of the
mountain. Moses, who was spoken to by God
as a friend speaks to a friend, he says that the sight was so
terrible. Moses said, I exceedingly fear
and quake. And that's how it is for anyone
who would come to the Lord God in the law. It'll be fearful,
quaking, terrifying, because the law is a witness against
us, against our works. We all fall short of the glory
of God. But here, our Lord and our Savior
calls us friends, calls us friends. And he meets with his people
in mercy and in compassion and in kindness and in love. And so here in this text, from
that point forward, from verse 17 to the end, our Lord gives
his disciples six witnesses. Six witnesses that testify to
us that we are the friends of God. That we are, that he is
our friend. And that we are his friend. And
that he meets with us in peace and in mercy. and in kindness,
six witnesses. Now, tonight, we're only gonna
look at one or two of them, and we'll see these witnesses, but
we'll come back to this, and we'll see these as we go through
it. Now, the last time we were in,
John, was a couple weeks ago, and we saw six things about our
election of God, from verse 16 itself. We saw that election
is personal, that election is according to God's purpose. We
saw that election is always in Christ. That election is always
unto salvation. Election is unconditional, meaning
it's not conditioned upon what we do or don't do. It's not conditioned
on our works. But election is always effectual,
always effectual, always leads unto a salvation and it never
fails. And so tonight we begin to look
at six witnesses of the friendship that we have with God that are
revealed to the elect people of the Lord whom he has chosen
to save and to be gracious to in his son. And so we could zip
through these, but we'll just go through them slowly, slowly. So the first witness that we're
shown is loving your brethren. That is the first witness that
our Lord gives us, loving your brethren. And so the fellowship
that we have with Christ is witness to us that we do love our brethren. We love our brethren. Our Lord
Himself says in verse 17, John 15, 17, These things I command
you, that ye love one another. Now I realize that that doesn't
sound much like a witness. It's not framed in the language
where the Lord is saying this is a witness to you. But the truth is that you who
are the friends of Christ, you do love your brethren. You do
love those who love the Lord Jesus Christ. You love them because
you love Christ and you love them for Christ's sake. and you're
thankful for your brethren. And the Lord teaches us so that
we want to love our brethren. We want to love our brethren
the way the Lord commands us to love one another. We want
to love our brethren. There's a mutual bond and fellowship
that we share in, in the Lord. That we don't share with other
people. We believe the same God. We have
the same hope. that the Lord is gracious to
sinners for Christ's sake, for what He has done, and that He's
taught them that same word, that same hope, given them that same
life, given them the same spirit, the same faith, the same Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that love that we have for
one another even surpasses familial bonds, the love that we have
for family, or dear friends that don't know the Lord. The love
that we have for our brethren is established in the blood of
Christ. And as you dwell in this world
and go through the suffering of this world, that this world
gives out and meets out to the people of God, you see more and
more how precious your brethren really are. We see it especially
in the New Testament where the apostles, men and women, men
and women of the early saints, they lost families. They gave
up families. Families gave them up. Families
disowned them and turned them away for their faith and hope
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their faith in Christ, their
being baptized in Christ, came at great cost to them in their
family relationships, in their business relationships. It cost
them a lot and they left families. They lost mothers and fathers,
brothers, uncles and cousins and extended family they lost
all that but the Lord shows us that in Christ we have many more
mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and we have much
more family you think when Paul left the boundary of Israel and
went through Asia and into Greece. Can you imagine all the mothers
that cooked for him and took care of him and made sure that
he was well and taken care of while he stayed with them? He
had many things. And so our fellowship and bond
in Christ surpasses even family bonds. And so believers are taught
and led by the Lord and find that there is no fellowship like
they have with their brethren, their like-minded brethren who
share in the same hope, who hunger and thirst for the same gospel
and are thankful for the grace of their God in Jesus Christ.
And the Lord himself, he tells us that this brotherly love is
actually a witness. It is a witness to us. It is
a witness that we are Christ's disciples. Go to John 13. Look
at John chapter 13 and verse 34 and 35. He said, a new commandment I give
unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye
also love one another. In verse 35, he says, by this, By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." And so,
the love that you have for your brethren is very much indeed
a witness that you are a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. If
it's a witness to the world, it's a witness to us. They see
it. They know by the love that you
have for your brethren, and they can tell by that, that you're
not like others. And so the love that is born
in us is given to us by the Savior, by the Lord Jesus Christ. Before
the love of Christ was formed in our hearts, for Him, what
was there? There is only enmity against
the true and living God. There is only darkness. There
is only cursing against God. There is only unbelief. There
is only, I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to do things my
way. I'm going to come to God the way I think I should come
to God. And the Lord delivered us from that. He took us from
that. Look over at Titus 3. Titus 3, and we'll go to verses
3 through 6. Oftentimes we go to parallel
passages like this in Romans 3 or Romans 8 in the early parts
about the enmity of the carnal mind, but here Paul is describing
what we were without Christ. He says, verse 3, for we ourselves
also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful
and hating one another. But after that, the kindness
and love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which
he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. And so the love of Christ, which
He's given to us, it melts our hearts. It melts that hard, stony
heart. Because we see the grace that
He's shown to us, the patience that He's shown toward us, the
long-suffering that He has for us in all our sins, in all our
faults, in all our slowness to believe, to hear, and to trust
the Lord. And to hear what He's teaching
us that we need to hear. But the Lord delivers us from
that self-serving love of self and gives us a new heart, a heart
that hears Him, a heart that is soft, a heart that desires
to know the true and living God and to be faithful to His Word. The Lord doesn't say that we
should love our brethren or that we might love our brethren. He
says, my disciples, you that are my disciples, you do love
your brethren. You do love those who, like you,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves us, and we love Him,
and He gives us love for our brethren. Love for our brethren. Turn over to 1 John 4. 1 John
4, verse 19. First John 4.19, we love him
because he first loved us. If any man say, I love God, and
hateth his brother, he is a liar. That man's a liar. For he that
loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love
God whom he hath not seen? For this commandment have we
from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. You know, sometimes we do get
angry with brethren. Sometimes we get angry with them
because of something that they've said. Sometimes we get angry
with them because something that they didn't say. Sometimes we
get angry with them because of something that they've done or
that they didn't do. When people don't act the way
we think that they should act or respond to things in the way
that we think that they should respond and we get angry, with
them, but I would say don't let that be an excuse to go down
that path toward hatred. Don't let yourself be led down
a path where you begin to be hard toward them, and indifferent
toward them, and to think evil thoughts about them, because
there's nothing good. There's nothing profitable in
that. And it's very easy for us to
tell ourselves stories about other people. And to say, I know
what they're doing. I know why they're doing that.
Or I know why they said that. I know what they're getting at.
Whatever it is, there's so many ways that we think we know what
another person is doing, what they're thinking, why they're
doing it, what their motivations are. There's so many things that they
could be doing something for or saying something or not saying
something for a reason that we don't know. And it's very easy
to judge them and to be harsh toward them. And even if they
are entirely in the wrong, what profit is it to you or them if
you begin to despise them and to hate them and treat them as
one who's not a brother? And so don't use these things
which inevitably come up in life these disappointments and these
trials that come up in life as an excuse to bear the fruits of the flesh
rather than the fruits of the Spirit towards them. Let's see
those fruits again in Galatians. Go to Galatians 5. Paul addresses
a number of the fruits of the flesh versus the fruits of the
Spirit. The fruits of the flesh, there
in verse 19, now the works of the flesh are manifest, which
are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness,
revelings in such light. Right? Whenever we begin to go
down the path of bitterness and anger and strife and hatred,
that's not the fruit of the Spirit, that's the fruit of our flesh.
And you know right away, this is just my flesh talking here.
This is my flesh wanting to do things the way my flesh wants
to handle things. But verse 22, but the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, suffering, bear
the suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,
against such there is no law. And so, if where we're going
in our mind is provoking and stoking and raising up fruits
of the flesh, you know you shouldn't be there. Whereas if it's producing
fruits of the Spirit, think on those things. Think on those
things. Dwell on those things. And pray. Pray to the Lord. Always
pray for your brethren. Be very mindful when that hatred
and bitterness sweeps into your thoughts toward a brother or
sister in Christ. Paul said to the Ephesians, Ephesians
4 27, he said, neither give place to the devil. You just let yourself
drift off in your mind thinking hatred or evil thoughts toward
a brother You're just giving place to that. Don't dwell on
those things. Don't dwell. Turn to the Lord
and cry out to him, Lord, I don't want to think like this about
my brethren. I don't want to go there. I don't
want to go there. I have enough of that in the
world, but I don't want to go there towards my brethren. And
so don't go down that track in your mind that holds a brother
or a sister in a bad light. that holds them there, that is
willing to just get on that thought and just follow it, keep following
it down in its logical conclusion, don't do that. Anytime that those
thoughts enter my mind about someone that I believe that loves
the Lord or even doesn't, but I remember these words that Paul
wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, where he said, love suffereth long
and is kind, it's kind. And he said, love beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things. And he said, love never fails. It never fails. And so remember
that for your brethren. If Christ said, love your enemies,
but I say unto you, love your enemies, then surely we can do
that for a brother. But we oftentimes think, well,
I wouldn't do that way. How can a brother do that? How
can a brother do such a thing? That's impossible. It's impossible. And yet we're reminded of David,
who had Uriah murdered and committed adultery with his wife. And that's
evil. That's terrible. That's an awful,
grievous sin. And so we don't go towards those
places, towards other brethren. It's just not. It's not the place
where we're to be. and giving place to the devil.
So love your brethren, be kind, be generous in your thoughts
and in your prayers for them. You know, Paul even said, if
you're still in Galatians, just flip over to Ephesians 6, and he tells us there in verse 18, he said, praying always with
all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto,
watching, praying thereunto with all perseverance and supplication
for all saints. Because we all need the grace
of our God, and we need his help and strength. We need his comfort. We need him to turn us back into
the way that we should be if we are wrong. And that's how
we're gonna help one another, being faithful, believing all
things, hoping all things. Sometimes you do have to talk
to a brother and say what needs to be said, but always in the
spirit of love and always looking for reconciliation, always looking
for that fellowship to be established in Christ. And then suffering
long, bearing long with it if it doesn't go the way that you
were hoping it would go, but trusting the Lord in it. And
so our Lord tells us that because iniquity shall abound, the love
of many shall wax cold. That's coming. That is in the
world already. That's only coming more and more. And so we're mindful, Lord, I
don't want to be someone who hates, someone who's easily embittered,
someone who goes against others when they don't do things the
way I would do them. Lord, help me to love. Help me to love my
enemies. Help me to love my brethren,
Lord, because you say that your people, that's a witness given
that we are yours, we that love one another. So take heed to
yourselves, Paul said, lest Satan should get an advantage of us,
for we're not ignorant of his devices. We know how he works,
we know the little games he plays, the little tricks he plays, we
know how he just slips in a little seed of doubt, a little seed
of bitterness, and then keeps widening that gap and dividing
it more and more. So take heed, don't entertain
it, don't follow it down on its track, and stop and look to your
Savior. Look to Him. Because we all have
foolish thoughts. Lord help me. Lord be merciful. Lord help my brethren. Help them
and help me. And turn to Him always and keep
turning to Him as often as you need to. Keep turning to Him.
Seven times 70 and on, add infinitum from there too. Just keep on
praying to the Lord to help you. And so remember that command
of your Lord and Savior to love one another. Because he tells
us, by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye
have love one to another. And so this love for our brethren,
it's a witness to us that we are indeed the friends of Christ.
Remember what Christ has done for us when we were enemies.
Remember what Christ did for us when we, in our sin and iniquity
and trespasses, sinned against Him over and over and over again
and fought against Him with fists held high, lashing out at Him
and lashing out at one another and being bitter and angry, and
yet the Lord in faithfulness came and laid down His life,
the Lamb of God, doing for us what we do not deserve, and yet
faithfully fulfilling all the will of the Father to ensure
that you whom He chose, elected by His grace in eternity past,
and gave to the Son, the Son faithfully came and gave His
life for you, and laid down His life for you. And my hope is
that there's many, many in our day who love the Lord, who believe
Him, who trust Him. So seek to declare that gospel. Seek to lift up the standard
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He would make known them that
are His in this world. Because we have so few friends,
so few brethren, so few who believe like us, who love and adore our
Savior. But I believe that he is a great,
almighty, faithful God and Savior, and he does not fail. And he
calls us to bear long, to suffer long. because he teaches us in
that suffering, doesn't he? He teaches us in that suffering
more about himself, more of what he did for us. And so I'm not
gonna go much further, I'll just say that the next witness that
our Lord gives, and we'll come back to it, the next witness
is contrary to this love that he speaks about us having for
one another, he says the other witness is the hatred of the
world for you. The world will hate you. He said
that, I'll just read verse 18 and 19. If the world hate you,
ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the
world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not of
the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore
the world hateth you. And so, remember, brethren don't
hate brethren. This world hates brethren. This
world hates you. And brethren like you, you love
brethren. You go and love one another because
this world is entirely against you because they despise and
hate your God and his Christ who loved you and gave his life
for you that you might live. And so focus on loving one another
and praying to the Lord God to love one another. It's a much
more joyful, glorious, hope that we have, especially in this,
this wilderness pilgrimage that we're going through to have friends,
to have brethren, to have those who we love and those who love
us and to bear long with them as often as we need to bear long
with them. And because that's what our God
does for us faithfully, faithfully. So I pray the Lord bless your
heart with that word in him. Amen. Our gracious Lord, we thank
you, Father, for your mercy and love toward us. Lord, we thank
you for your long suffering and your patience with us. Lord,
help us never to forget this. Help us to remember this, especially
when we are dealing with brethren and dealing with those who we
do love. in Christ, help us to love them,
to be understanding, to be patient, to be kind, generous, and loving
with them. For Lord, you call us to this.
We see how this world hates you, despises you, and hates your
people. And so Lord, help us not to be
like that toward one another, but to love one another. It's
in Christ's name that we pray this. And we know, Lord, that anything
we ask in His name, according to Your will and purpose, You
shall give it. And so, Lord, we ask that You
would indeed bless this people, bless our brethren, those, Lord,
who we've had falling out with, those who we've had trouble with,
Lord, we think of them, that You bless them, bless us, that
You would bring reconciliation, that you would restore peace
and hope, establish us in one heart, in one mind, in one faith,
one Lord, Lord, one body, in Christ our Savior. Lord, we thank
you for this. We thank you for this prayer.
We thank you for teaching us this word, because it's for Christ's
sake that we pray it. Amen. Let's sing as a closing hymn
129. In the land of fadeless day. 129. In a land of fadeless day lies
the city's fair. It shall never pass away. And there is no night there. God shall wipe away all tears. There's no death, no pain, no
fears. And they count not time by years. For there is no night there. All the gates of Pearl are made
in the city floor square. All the streets with gold are
laid. And there is no night there. God shall wipe away all tears. There's no death, no pain, nor
fears. And they count the time by years. For there is no night there. And the gate shall never close. In the city four square, there's
a life just through the floors. And there is no night there. God shall wipe away all tears. There's no death, no pain, nor
fears. And they count not time by years. For there is no night there. There they need no sunshine bright. in that city four square for
the lamb is all the light and there is no night there god shall
wipe away all tears There's no death, no pain, nor fears, And
they count not time by years, For there is no night there. Thank you.

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Joshua

Joshua

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