I love these songs so much. I've mentioned to you before
how much I love music and I thank the Lord for music and these
songs are just so good for my heart. But verse
3 says, open my mouth and let me bear gladly the warm truth
everywhere. Open my heart and let me prepare
love with thy children thus to share. Silently now I wait for
thee, ready my God thy will to see. Open my heart, illumine
me. That's what I want. Spirit divine. Pray the Lord will make it to
be so. Turn with me now to John 13. John 13, I want to bring a message
to you tonight that is comforting and encouraging and instructing
and exhorting. And I pray this will have an
impact on us, a very positive impact on us. In verse 35, John
13, verse 35, our Lord said, By this shall all men know that
you are my disciples if you have love one to another. Isn't that good? Love one to
another. By this shall all men know if
you have love. Love is a beautiful thing. Aren't you so glad the Lord made
love? Love is such a precious thing
when it's real, when it's genuine and sincere. Love is one of the
greatest feelings that can be experienced. Do you remember
when you first fell in love? You remember that? That's a good
feeling, isn't it? You'll throw all caution to the
wind. I may have my heart ripped out of my chest, but that's okay.
All rationale goes out of the window. You know, two people
want to get married. Where are you going to live? How are you
going to pay your bills? Who cares? Love takes over. Love reigns. I believe it surpasses
the feeling of everything else. I believe it's the most compelling
emotion that there is. Love. It was the love of God
that started the whole scheme of salvation. That came from
love. Herein is love. Not that we loved
God, but that he loved us. Sometimes I enter into that.
How amazing. He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins, the blood covering atonement
for our sins. God commended His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Look right here at John 15, verse 13. John 15, 13 says, Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. God is love. Those are three wonderful words.
God is love. God's people are in his love. God's people have His love, and
as He is, that's how we are to be. That's how we want to be. That's how He has commanded us
to be. Look right here again at John
15, verse 12. Our Lord said, this is my commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you. That's my commandment,
love one another. Turn with me over to 1 John chapter
3. 1 John 3 verse 14. We know that we have passed from
death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth
not his brother abideth in death. We know we've passed from death
to life because we love the brethren. God's people love each other. They do. God's people love each other.
And it's because of the God that they serve. That's why they love
each other. When a man or a woman serves
the true and living God, it comes out in his or her conversation. He or she can't help it. When they love God, they talk
about His sovereignty. When they love God, Not just
religion, and not just morality, and not just good deeds, and
being a good neighbor, and such on and so forth. When they love
God, they talk about His sovereignty. They talk about their own sinfulness,
man's sinfulness. They talk about salvation being
totally in the hands of the Lord. When they love God, They talk about God's right because
God is God and God can do whatever He wants to do whenever He wants
to do it. Because He's the only one who
has a free will. Man doesn't have a free will.
Man has a dead, ruined, bound to sin, wicked, incapable, irrelevant
will. God is true. Every man is a liar. God is right. Every man is wrong. God is life. Every man is death. God is high and lifted up. Man
is down in the dirt. God gets all the glory. Man gets
none of the glory. I said all of that this morning.
Does anybody mind if I say it again? No, you don't mind. Have you ever gotten tired of
hearing somebody say that? You ever been in conversation
with anybody, you know, standing right there in the hallway and
somebody talking about God's sovereignty and right to be God,
and he gets, you ever get tired of that? Not only do we not mind somebody
saying that, every time we hear God's people say that, we say,
I love you. Whether it comes out of our mouth
or not, that's what happens in the heart. You talk about God
being our God, isn't that what happens? I love you. I love that
brother or sister. Why? Because he or she loves
God. That's the reason why. The gospel glory of the truth
concerning Jesus Christ, it resonates among God's people. It resonates. And the belief of the one truth
concerning Christ, concerning his glory, it causes
men and women to say to each other, you're my brother. You're my sister. That one faith,
that one belief of the one and only truth that there is. Those
who are given like precious faith to believe on Christ, whosoever
believeth on him. That like precious faith causes
them to be made family, made to be family, and they love each
other. They love each other. Right here
in 1 John 3 verse 14 says, we know that we have passed from
death unto life because we love the brethren. The brethren, those
who have bowed the knee to God Almighty, King Jesus Christ,
the brethren. The family. Verse 14, we know
that we have passed from death unto life because we love the
brethren. He that loveth not his brother
abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer, and you know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of
God because he laid down his life for us. That's what binds
us. That is what binds God's people
together. That is the tie that makes us
brethren. He laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren. He laid down his life for us,
we ought to lay down our lives for each other, for the brethren.
Look at the next chapter, 1 John 4, verse 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Everyone who loves
God for who he is. Everyone who worships God for
who he is, is born of God. If they weren't born of God,
there would be no life there. They couldn't love God for who
he is. They couldn't worship God for who he is. They're born of God, no man or
woman outside of that could know God or have any faith in God. Verse seven, beloved, let us
love one another for love is of God and everyone that loveth
is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God for God is love. God is love. You know, election
is the most loving thing a sinner could ever hear. I've mentioned
it before, we've talked about it before, but you know that
people have it in their mind that election is the most mean
and hateful and excluding thing that could ever be told or believed.
That is not so. Every man and woman on this earth
is born dead in trespasses and sins. They're born rebels against
God. They're born heading to hell. But God, that's election, in love, in mercy, stopped some. Stopped them from the end that
they were headed toward. That's the most loving thing
that could ever be told. In spite of our sin, in spite
of our rebellion, in spite of our natural hatred toward Him,
in our natural condition, He would choose us anyway, and wash us anyway, and redeem
us anyway, that He would save some on purpose in spite of them. That's love. That's love. Verse 8, right here, 1 John 4,
verse 8, he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. In
this was manifested the love of God toward us because that
God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might
live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another. Love is the principal thing.
Love sent Christ to this sinful world. Love nailed him on that
tree. Love for the ones he was hanging
there for. And if love did that for all
of us, we ought to cherish that love. We ought to promote that
love. We ought to strive for it. To
be as sincere and genuine as it can possibly be. Look right
here at verse 16, 1 John 4, verse 16. It says, and we have known
and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. And he that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as
he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He
that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because
he first loved us. If a man say I love God and hateth
his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
In this commandment have we from him that he who loveth God love
his brother also. I want to take that to heart.
I want to take that to heart. By God's grace, if he would let
me, I want to love. I want to love you. I want to love you. I want to
love God's people. And I hope and pray that you
want to love me too. That's my prayer. I pray that
God's people want to love me and I want to love them. Our
flesh is so full of sin and we are constantly doing things worthy
of our brethren not loving us. I can give you a thousand reasons
a day to not love me. But I hope for Christ's sake,
you'll do it anyway. That's my prayer. That's what
I'm asking. For Christ's sake, do it anyway.
We can never go wrong with loving each other. I'm gonna say that
97 more times, okay? We can never go wrong with loving
each other. There's gonna come a time when
I hope that will ring back in our ears, our minds, our hearts?
What do I do in this situation? What do I do with this brother
or sister? We can never go wrong with loving each other. Never. We can disappoint each other,
we can anger each other, we can bring regret to each other, but
we will never go wrong with loving each other through it. Never. Never. Love is never wrong. That's right. Love is never wrong. Go with me to 1 Corinthians 13. You know that the word charity
here, it means love. And it also means Christ. We
can put the word Christ in its place. He is the reason for our
love. And because of that, this is
the importance of our love. We're gonna read this as love, okay? 1 Corinthians
13, verse one, though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels and have not love, I am become a sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal. Every preacher ought to take
that to heart. Every preacher. Verse two, 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 love, I'm nothing. Every believer ought
to take that to heart. Verse three, though I bestow
all my goods to feed the poor, though I give my body to be burned
and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. If I don't have the
love of Christ, love for Christ, love for his people, love that
is of God. Verse four says, love suffers
long and is kind. Love envies not. Love vaunteth
not itself. It's not puffed up. It doth not
behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,
thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in
truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things, love never fails. 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. The greatest is love. Our Lord
instructed us of this in our text where we started this in
John 13. He instructed us. At the moment
of the cross, he was saying that at the moment of the cross, he
instructed us of this in the moment that he was headed into
the sufferings of the cross. Go back over there to John 13. Our Lord was instituting His
table right here. This is the night He was betrayed,
and He said, one of you is going to betray Me. And they all said,
Lord, is it I? He handed the sop to Judas, and
Judas went out. And verse 31, John 13 verse 31
says, Therefore, when he was gone out, when Judas was gone
out, Jesus said, now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified
in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God
shall also glorify Him in Himself and shall straightway glorify
Him. Little children, yet a little
while, I'm with you. You shall seek me, and as I said
unto the Jews, whither I go, you cannot come. So now I say
to you, a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another."
Love one another. How should we love one another? Verse 34, he went on to say,
As I have loved you. As I've loved you. How did He
love us? How did He love us? He forgave us. He was merciful toward us. He was patient. He was kind. He was full of pity and compassion. He didn't judge us. He judged Himself for us. He was not ashamed of us. He
was not ashamed to call us brethren. Is that as convicting to you
as it is to me? He said one time, who made you a judge? Isn't that
all that we do? We judge each other for every
little nitpicking thing. Who made you a judge? He judged
himself for us. And he said, as I've been to
you, as I have loved you, you also love one another. For his
sake, let's choose to love one another. When somebody does something
to you, and I don't say if, I say when, especially a brother or
a sister in Christ, the next time that sinful flesh shows
itself and a brother or sister does something to offend you,
and the natural response of the flesh is to rise up in anger,
and say, that's it, I'm done with you. Choose love. The next time that
happens, choose love. Make a conscious decision for
love. For Christ's sake. Remember His
love. Remember His lowly meekness. Let's remember His goodness to
us and let's choose love. It's so wonderful. It's so beautiful. It's so refreshing. It's so godly. Let's choose love. John 13 verse
35, He said, By this shall all men know that you are
my disciples, if you have love one to another. Love always reigns
in the end. True love always does. His love
is sovereign love. And if his love is in his people,
it will reign in the end. I quote one verse from this song
to you a lot. Let me just read the song to
you and I'll close with this, but I really love this song.
The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star
and reaches to the lowest hell. The wandering child is reconciled
by God's beloved son. The aching soul again made whole,
and priceless pardon won. Oh, love of God, how rich and
pure, how measureless and strong. It shall forevermore endure the
saints' and angels' song. when ancient times shall pass
away and human thrones and kingdoms fall, when those who hear refuse
to pray, on rocks and hills and mountains call. God's love so
sure shall still endure, all measureless and strong. Grace
will resound the whole earth round, the saints' and angels'
song. O love of God, how rich and pure,
how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore endure, the
saints' and angels' song. Now this is the verse I always
quote to you. I love this so much. Could we with ink the ocean fill? And were the skies of parchment
made, and every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe
by trade. To write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the
whole, though stretched from sky to sky. Oh, love of God,
how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore
endure, the saints' and angels' song. May that love be in us. Love for Christ, love for each
other, now and forevermore. Amen.