As was already intimated this
evening, last Lord's Day at our communion service, about a dozen
people, a little bit shy of that, were received into the fellowship.
And again tonight, three more now comprise a formal entity
within the fellowship of this congregation. And in the light
of this increase and growth, And against the backdrop of the
great teaching of Psalm 46 concerning the indestructibility and preservation
of the Church from her external enemies, I thought it was the
part of pastoral wisdom to direct your minds tonight to a very
practical area of biblical truth. I shall be speaking topically.
I trust exegetically. People have asked me, will the
sermon be topical or expository? I said, it isn't expository.
It's not a sermon. if it does not open up the Word
of God. It may be expository by moving
from passage to passage or sticking with one passage, as we did this
morning, and so the subject will be handled in a topical form,
but in its essence I trust it will be the opening up of Scripture
and the laying of that Scripture close to the conscience and to
the heart of you, the gathered people of God. And what I wish
to do is simply to underscore some of the main lines of biblical
truth relative to the responsibility of members one to another. And
this is an area of biblical concern that ought never to recede from
the realm of our present consciousness. For we must never forget that
it's the truth that holds our minds that holds our lives. It is not the truth to which
you subscribe that has receded into the dusty cupboards and
corners of forgetfulness to be drawn forth in an emergency.
It is not those truths which affect us. The truth which holds
the mind is the truth that molds the life. This is why the Apostle
Peter said, I write these things to you though you know them,
and though you be established in them, I think it meet to stir
up your minds by way of remembrance, realizing that only as the mind
holds truth in its present reality and implications that the life
will be molded forcibly thereby. And so this is not an area that
will come as something new to you. It is one of those things
that is constantly set before you, but it needs constantly
to be set before you simply because it is so vital and so important
an area of biblical truth. Now as we address ourselves to
the subject, I shall do so along the following lines. First of
all, I want to establish with you the nature of our relationship
one to another. You see, The biblical consideration
or a consideration of the biblical truth concerning our responsibility
to one another arises out of the nature of our relationship
one to another. It's because we are related as
we are in the fellowship of the Church that we are to act as
we are to act. And having then underscored something
of the nature of our relationship one to another, I wished in the
second place to set forth the primary responsibility which
we have one to another. Thirdly, show the leading or
major ways in which this responsibility is to be worked out in practical
experience, and then close our study by directing you to the
source from which the grace needed for this responsibility is to
be derived. First of all, then, what is the
nature of our relationship one to another? Well, let me state
it negatively and then positively. Our relationship one to another
in the fellowship of the Church is not a relationship like unto
that which exists between the members of the local Republican
or Democratic committee. You see, they are bound together
in a very intimate relationship, but they are bound merely by
a common cause or a common political philosophy. Our relationship
is not like unto that which gathers together the local astronomy
club. I think Mr. Emmerich used to
belong to the astronomy club in the Caldwell area. Now they
are bound together. And they do some very unusual
things together, like getting up at weird hours of the morning
to go out and look at certain stars and planets and clusters
of stars. They do things together, they
share common sympathies, but that which binds them together
is a common interest that is a hobby to them. And certainly
the Church must be something more than that. It is not like
the relationship that exists between a group of hunters, and
now I'm touching one or two in our congregation, There they
are, gathered around a fire, bound together in a very intimate
relationship, but only by a common need in the pursuit of a common
goal. They want to adorn the den with
a 12-point buck, or at least his head, not the whole buck.
They want the buck in the freezer and his head in the den. Then,
ad nauseam, they'll tell you all the gory details of how they
felled that poor beast that happened to be roaming within range of
their rifles. I say that with tongue-in-cheek,
and those of you who are hunters will know that. But you see,
the church is not a relationship of this nature, nor is it like
the relationship that used to bring people into this building.
A little historical background will help you here. This building
was constructed to house the Hungarian-American society. A
group of Hungarian immigrants settled in this area, and they
wanted to preserve their cultural background, and so they banded
themselves together, formed the Hungarian-American Society, and
built this building. Now, they did a lot of things
together. They drank, they laughed, they danced, they had great times. Now, you see, there's something
different in all of these relationships, but none of them even begins
to touch on the uniqueness of the relationship that church
members sustain one to another. Are we bound together in a common
cause as the Republican or Democratic Committee? Yes, but the Church
is something more. Are we bound together by common
interest as the Astronomy Club? Yes, but something more. Are
we bound together like the hunters around the fire by common need? Yes, but something more. Are
we bound together like the Hungarian American Society with a common
heritage? Yes, but something more. And
when you press the thing down to its irreducible minimum, and
you try to, as it were, extract the living nerve of the uniqueness
of our relationship in the light of the Scriptures, you will find
it is this. The nature of our relationship is nothing less
than that of a living, throbbing, organic entity. We are bound
together by a common life. The church is a society of people
bound together by a common life. Statements such as 1 Corinthians
12, 13 are an eloquent declaration of that fact. 1 Corinthians 12,
12 and 13, For as the body is one and hath many members, and
all the members of the body being many are one body, so also is
Christ. For in one Spirit were we all
baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond
or free, and were all made to drink of one Spirit." Here's
the concept of the church as a body. constituted members of
that body by the life-giving power of the Spirit, apart from
whose operation we are never members of that body, but when
He has worked upon us and in us, we are brought into that
body, and then He changes the figure. The Spirit is not only
the powerful, efficient agent working upon us to put us into
the body, but then we have come to drink of that one Spirit we
share a common life. And so the Apostle Paul in Romans
chapter 12 uses this terminology, verses 4 and 5, for even as we
have many members in one body and all the members have not
the same office, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ
and severally members one of another. There is individuality,
yes, but there is this corporality, there is this shared life. Our Lord underscores it in that
extended metaphor in John 15, where He says, I am the vine,
my Father is the husband, ye are the branches. and the branches
all share in a common life. Peter uses the analogy of living
stones in 1 Peter. He says you are built up as living
stones into a temple of the Lord Himself. Now granted, this is
not a common life without doctrinal substance. This is not a common
life without organization, without structure, without discipline.
Granted, all of those things are true. And a reading of John
17 and Ephesians 4 indicates that just as surely as there
is one body and one spirit, there is one faith, one body of truth. And in this place, we do not
downgrade the importance of doctrine. But a church is not a place or
a gathering is not necessarily a church simply because a group
of people subscribe to the same doctrinal standards. No, no. No, no. Something more than that.
And the whole genius of the concept of the New Testament with reference
to the doctrine of the church is that the church is this throbbing,
living, organic entity bound together in a common life. Now then, our responsibilities
grow out of the uniqueness of that relationship. And the Apostle
Paul, when touching on some of the most practical areas of duty,
reminds us of this. I'll give you but one example
as we conclude our study of this first point. In Ephesians chapter
4, Here are some people who came
out of a pagan background and we're moving more and more to
the place in our own American society where we're going to
understand portions of the New Testament that we never understood
before. Have you ever wondered why they had to send out a decree
from Jerusalem to those infant Gentile churches that involved
the prohibition of fornication as well as eating things offered
unto idols and things strangled? You say, well everybody knows
if you're Christian you don't fornicate. Not when you came out of that
pagan background. We're moving quickly to that
state. Same way with lying. We are increasingly living in
a society in which lying is an accepted pattern of behavior.
Everybody lies to everybody. Everybody lies to everybody.
Now that's a generalization. I hope you're one of the exceptions.
I know that I am. I hope you are. I hope you can
say the same, that you know you are and you hope that I am an
exception. But by and large, there's lying at every level,
in the political sphere, in the economic sphere, in every realm,
lying. And this was true of the pagan
world in which the Gospel came in that first century. And so
the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 25, Wherefore,
putting away falsehood, Speak ye truth each one with his neighbor. Why? For we are members one of
another. What a terrible thing if my finger
begins to lie to my hand on this side or my eye begins to lie
to my foot. You see what Paul is doing? Taking
the most practical exhortation to ethical behavior and he says
the necessity of this behavior arises out of the nature of your
relationship one to another. Don't lie, but speak truth because
of the relationship you sustain one to the other. And, of course,
you have this in Romans 12 and in 1 Corinthians 12. I don't
want to labor the point. I just want to underscore it,
something that I'm sure many, if not all, of you are aware
of. The nature of the relationship of church members one to another
determines their duty and responsibility to one another. We are bound
together in a common life, joined to Christ the head, joined to
one another. Now that's not just a pretty
concept. That's not just poetic language.
It speaks of the great reality of the relationship which God
has constituted amongst His family. All right then, having established
the nature of our relationship, what is the primary responsibility
that we have one to another? Now, if you have any acquaintance
with the New Testament, you know we have many responsibilities
to one another. You read through the epistles,
do this, don't do that, do this, do the other, do this. Oh, what
a great complex of responsibilities. So whenever you find a little
35-page book that says, The Christian Life Made Simple, don't waste
your money on it. We have the whole Bible to spell
out the whole duty of the whole Christian for the whole of his
life. And the people that had been best at applying the whole
Bible to the whole of their life when it came to the end of their
life said, I've just begun to learn and to do. Godly Bishop
Usher upon his deathbed said, and oh God, have mercy upon me
most of all for my sins of omission. So just don't look for some simple
answer. And I don't want to fall into
that category. So I'm not saying, what is your only responsibility?
I'm addressing myself to this question, what is our primary
responsibility one to another? Now do you have anything coming
to your mind? If you have this, that's the heart of it. Everything
else will flow out of it. Tighten your seatbelt, and we're
going to go from Romans through 1 John very quickly. Not the
whole, but just a few passages along the way. All right? Romans
chapter 13. Romans chapter 13. In this section
of Paul's great doctrinal dissertation on the gospel, laying out to
God's people the responsibilities that rest upon them as bearers
of the name of Christ, He says in verse 8 of Romans 13, O no
man anything save to love one another. For he that loveth his
neighbor hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not covet. And if there be any other commandment,
it is to be summed up in this word, namely, thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor,
Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. You see what the
Apostle is doing? He says, now there are many duties, but if
we have to reduce them all to one central duty, this understood,
all the others flow out of it. He reduces it to the duty of
love one to another. Turn, please, to Galatians chapter
5. Galatians chapter 5. Verse 13-15, For ye, brethren,
were called for freedom. Only use not your freedom for
an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one
to another. For the whole law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. That is, the whole section of
the law applied to horizontal responsibilities, not the entirety
of the law, which in its first part deals with our vertical
responsibilities, but the whole law as it impinges upon my relationship
to my brethren is fulfilled in one word, thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one
another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another."
Now turn over to Ephesians chapter 5. And all we're seeking to do
is to see if the Bible approaches this matter of our responsibility
one to another in terms of a concept of a primary duty. Ephesians chapter 5. Verses 1
and 2. Be ye therefore imitators of
God as beloved children, and almost as though Paul anticipates
the question, but what will that involve, Paul? He answers, and
walk in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself
up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet
smell. the imitators of God. What does
that involve? Well, many things, but primarily
it involves walking love, even as the God who is revealed in
Jesus Christ has loved us. Now, the book of Colossians,
chapter 3. Colossians, chapter 3. Again, the apostle is giving
many practical exhortations. And he brings it to a point of,
as it were, summary and sharp focus. Verse 12, "...put on therefore
as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness,
lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, forgiving
one another. If any man have a complaint against
any, even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye." Now that's
a big hunk of duties laid upon us. There's an awful lot of responsibilities,
but now notice what he says, and above all these things, put
on love, which is the bond of perfectness. He doesn't say forbearance
is the bond of perfectness. He doesn't say forgiveness is
the bond of perfectness, the heart of compassion. You see,
these are all but manifestations of love. And so he says, above
all these things, put on love. And as love is put on, love in
its exercise will be manifested in lowliness, compassion, forgiveness,
longsuffering, even as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
Now then, turn over to 1 Thessalonians. He has exhorted them concerning
many things. Now he says in verse 9 of chapter
4, 1 Thessalonians, But concerning love of the brethren, ye have
no need that one write unto you. For ye yourselves are taught
of God to love one another. For indeed ye do it to all the
brethren that are in Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren,
that ye abound more and more. Abound more and more in what?
In this love one to another which was taught to them by God's mighty
work in their hearts. in regeneration. And then over
to 1 Peter chapter 4. 1 Peter chapter 4. Again the Apostle has been giving
many exhortations, warning against conformity to the former pattern
of life, exhorting them to so walk that unbelievers may see
their different lifestyle and ask a reason of the hope that
is in them. Now he says in verse 7 of 1 Peter 4, but the end of
all things is at hand. Be of a sound mind and be sober
unto prayer above all things. You see, there is a supremacy
to this duty, above all things. Fervent in your love among yourselves,
for love covereth a multitude of sins. using hospitality one
to another without murmuring and then he goes on to tell us
what love will do all the way from opening the door of my home
and the door of my heart to my brethren to finding out what
my gift is and investing it for the good of my brethren and not
wrapping it in a napkin of selfishness and burying it in the earth of
my own indolence. Above all things and then we
come of course to the epistle, first epistle of John And it's
so full of this that I will just extract one or two almost arbitrarily. 1 John 3 and verse 11. For this is the message which
we've heard from the beginning, that ye should love one another. Verse 16 of the same chapter.
Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Whoso
hath the world's good, and seeth his brethren need, and shutteth
up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in
him? My little children, let us not
love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and in truth."
And then the capstone passage over all of these. We go back
to the Gospels. Chapter 13 of the Gospel of Matthew,
verses 34 and 35. A new commandment I give unto
you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you, that
ye love one another. By this shall all men know that
you are my disciples, if you are rip-snorting defenders of
the truth. Well, some would make that the
badge of orthodoxy. And if you come to this place
any length of time, you know we are not downplaying the centrality
of truth. Those of you who are visiting
with us, don't put what we say tonight in any other context
than the context of the total ministry of this assembly. We
do believe we need to be fastidious about the truth. To obscure any
area of God's truth is to obscure some aspect of the glory of Christ,
who is the sum and substance of that truth. But Jesus does
not say, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples
if you are rip-snorting defenders of the truth. Nor does He say,
by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if this
or that. But He says, if ye have love
one to another, indicating that it must be a love expressed in
visible deeds that even the godless can see and discern. By this
shall all men know that you are my disciples. By the love you
have one to another, well, they can't know it if it's simply
something that is supposedly resident in the heart. But they
know it in its visible expressions in the life and in our interaction
one to another. Now, I don't think that anyone
would debate with my conclusion that the primary responsibility
we have one to another within the framework of this unique
relationship of being members one of another is this. It is
to abound in love one to another and increasingly to manifest
the fruit of that love in our relationship to each other in
the real world in which we live. May I give it to you again? What
is your primary responsibility to me as your brother in Christ?
What is mine to you as your brother? What is your primary responsibility
one to another? It is this, to abound in love
one to another and increasingly to manifest the fruit of that
love in our relationship to each other in the real world in which
we live. That is, love doing the thing
that love demands in every given situation. That may vary a hundred
times in any given day. For the demand is that we love
not in word, neither in the tongue, but in deed and in truth. All right? Having established
something of the uniqueness of our relationship one to another,
we are members one of another, we share a common life, having
established that the primary responsibility we have to one
another is to love one another. Now in the third place, what
are the essential activities of this brotherly love? Now there's
no great significance in the order in which I give them to
you. Picture them not as stairs, and the top one being most important,
the bottom being least, or vice versa, but picture it as a pie
And it's all cut up in slices and it doesn't matter where you
begin. It's the same pie in the same size slice. Alright? The
points are slices in a pie. The first we're going to deal
with is positive and then negative. The first activity of this brotherly
love in a positive vein is this. It will constrain us to mutual
forgiveness. it will constrain us to mutual
forgiveness. I direct you back to Peter's
words. 1 Peter 4 and verse 8. Above all things, here
is the primary grace, here is the fundamental grace, being
fervent in your love among yourselves. having enunciated fervent love
as the primary grace, he then is going to enunciate the primary
activity of this primary grace. And what is it? For love will cause you to do what? What does it say? It will cause you to cover a
multitude of sins. If love is the primary grace,
then Peter assumes that that grace will come into its primary
demand as fellow sinners live with one another and fall short
of perfection before one another, and of necessity need to forgive
and to forget in their relationship to one another. And if we abound in this love,
this love that we saw is our primary duty, we will find ourselves
constrained to mutual forgiveness. We're all in a state of imperfect
sanctification. Love is that blessed commodity
that will enable us instead of focusing upon each other's faults
and amplifying those faults and parading the faults and allowing
them to become breaches in our relationship one to another,
we'll have that ability to cover them. And I believe the analogy
is precisely that in the Old Testament in which God says that
He will cover our sins. He'll put them out of sight.
Now, is Peter saying that if there is scandalous sin, we ought
to just act like it isn't there? No, no. There are other passages
in the Word of God that teach us, if we see a brother sin,
and the nature of that sin is such that it demands public reproof,
that we are to go and to reprove him. We are to rebuke him. Luke
17, Matthew 18, 15 and following, there is ample instruction. But,
dear ones, that which ruins churches That which brings internal blight
when God has promised that all the armies of hell cannot assail
it from without. That which brings internal blight
again and again is not the presence of those scandalous sins that
need to be dealt with by mutual reproof. It's allowing those
many little areas of common fault to become festering sores in
our relationship one to another. And if false doctrine and scandalous
sin has slain its hundreds, the absence of the love that caused
people to cover a multitude of sins has slain its ten thousands. Oh, I entreat you, as our family
grows, the capacity to sin in the house of God grows, because
every person brought into the membership is a partially sanctified
sinner. And the more partially sanctified
sinners you have, the more possibility for sin you have. So the more
love there's got to be to cover a multitude of sins. And without
that, you know what's going to happen? We're going to come unglued
at the seams. We'll become unglued at the seams. And we will find
ourselves with those attitudes that drive us farther apart rather
than draw us closer together. Well, in the second place, The
essential activity of this brotherly love is described in scripture
as that which not only constrains to mutual forgiveness, but it
constrains to mutual forbearance. Forbearance. Will you turn please
to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 2. And again, I'm only being
almost arbitrary in selecting the passages to clinch each of
the points with a clear text, though there are so many. I beseech you, verse 1 of chapter
4 of Ephesians, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech
you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with
all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one
another in love. You know what that means in plain
old everyday lingo? Putting up with one another.
Putting up with one another. I just can't put up with that
any longer. God says, well, you just better
have a little more putter-upper put in. You need a little more
putter-upper put in. Forbearing one another. Now what's
the whole assumption? Just as Peter assumes that there
will be a multitude of moral imperfections amongst the people,
Paul is assuming there will be a multitude of things that will
demand that I put up with you and you put up with me. If that's not the assumption,
then the exhortation is senseless. It's meaningless. There'll be
no need for forbearance in heaven. You'll be so perfect I couldn't
help but love you all the time. And I'll be so perfect you can
never love me all the time. There'll be no need. That's one
grace that won't be needed in heaven. That's a sinner's grace.
Forbearance. Isn't it? Any man here got a
perfect wife? You don't need to ever forbear
with your wife. Any man here got a perfect wife? Any wife got a perfect husband?
Of course not. That's why we need to forbear
with one another. Well, that's true in the house
of God. And what is it that motivates to forbearance? It is love. It
is the love of Christ, love of the Spirit shed abroad in our
hearts. Now, this is true because not
only are there moral imperfections, but they are intellectual. imperfections. Our understanding of the application
of the truth of God is different. We're moving in areas of sanctification
at different rates of speed. And we, by God's grace, perhaps
have gone thirty miles an hour down this particular avenue of
sanctification, and our brother or sister who's been on the road
as long as we have, they've only been moving five miles an hour
in that area. And we tend to be impatient.
Come on! Ah, but there are areas where
he's been going sixty and you've been going two miles an hour. Now, I'll tell on myself from
personal experience here. One of the things, I love to
walk, but I don't love to walk with my wife. Now, isn't that
a shame? We're great companions. She's
not only my wife, she's my best friend. But I don't like to walk
with her. You know why? Because I like
to walk, not crawl. I mean, I like to walk. move
out, and really go, you see? And my wife just doesn't have
that length in her legs to keep up. And I'm reminded what forbearance
is when I walk with my wife. I have to put up with her speed. Now, love demands that I do,
because there's a certain creature around you who can't stand to
see husbands walking 10 feet, 15 feet in front of their wives.
He's been known to actually yell out the car at them and tell
them to wait and have their wives catch up to them, you see. But
you see, that thing, can you feel what I'm talking about?
You're maybe trying to teach someone a game of checkers or
chesses and they don't seem to catch on and you just want to,
and what do you, you need to bear with their weakness, bear
with their dullness, bear with their slowness. That's what we're
talking about. And what is it that will give
us the grace to do so? Love. forbearing one another
in love. When you find yourself unable
to bear with your brothers and sisters in these areas where
their thinking lags behind yours, their experience, their advance
in grace, cry out, O God, baptize my heart with love that will
enable me to forbear with them. It constrains to mutual forgiveness. And the more imperfectly sanctified
sinners we have in the assembly, the more we're going to need
love that will enable us to cover a multitude of sins. The more
differently developed saints we have within the assembly,
the more love we need to mutually forbear with one another. And
then thirdly, this love flowing out along biblical channels will
constrain us to mutual burden-bearing. Romans chapter 15 and Galatians
2, two pivotal passages. I want to hook this one on to
two passages or clinch it with two rather than the one because
they balance out each other. Romans 15, 1. Now we that are
strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please
ourselves. Let each one of us please his
neighbor for that which is good unto edifying. For Christ also
pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of
them that reproach thee fell on me." The context, of course,
is the matter of Christian liberty. And here's the man who's come
into such a clear light or into such clear light of the truth
of the gospel that in Christ All that he has and is is redeemed. There's no such thing as an unclean
meat and a clean meat, clean drink, unclean drink. He can
take all of God's gifts and receive them with thanksgiving and partake
of them with joy. And here's this poor scrupulous
brother. He's all the time wondering, well, will this please the Lord
if I eat this? Will this please the Lord if
I drink this? Oh, he's just so full of scruples.
Now what's the tendency? The tendency of the strong brother
to say, now look, man, just get with it. Don't you understand
the gospel? You're free in Christ! Now why are you going around
like you're still half under the ceremonial law? Scruples
about this, scruples about that, scruples about the other thing.
You bug me, man, every time you're around me! Now Paul says, wait
a minute. Are you strong to understand
all of your great inheritance in Christ? Then you ought to
be strong to understand that you're a Christian because Jesus
Christ stooped to bear your burden. He could have looked upon you
in your sin and in your filth and had nothing to do with you.
But He stooped to you in your ignorance, your darkness, your
blindness, your rebellion. He said, now can't you do that
with someone who is your brother? You who are strong, bear the
infirmities of the weak. Bear with those infirmities.
Give up your own liberties if it's going to aggravate him.
Be willing to bypass the exercise of your own liberties if you
can ease his burden. Don't please yourself. And I
say again, the more our church family grows and we bring into
that family, or God brings into it, more and more cultural diversity,
backgrounds that have conditioned our consciences, traditions that
have molded our thinking, There are going to be more and more
areas where we're going to need that grace to bear each other's
burden in the realm of Christian liberty. Romans 15. But then,
in Galatians chapter 6, we have another line of burden
bearing. Galatians chapter 6. Brethren, if a man be overtaken
in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit
of gentleness, looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear
ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Now there's some question in
terms of exegesis. Is Paul giving a series of responsibilities? Responsibility one, Seek to restore
a sinning brother? Responsibility too? Seek to bear
the burdens of all your brethren? That's one possibility. But another
possibility is that the nature of the burden we're to bear in
verse 2 is colored by the instruction of verse 1. Does it ever occur
to you that maybe some of the sins that you see so evident
in your brethren are really a burden to them? If they are Christians,
those sins are a burden to them. No Christian can carry sin lightly. And if you can carry sin lightly,
you're not a Christian. You can say, this sin attaches
itself to me. Oh, well, we all have our failures.
Whenever a man talks that way, I just mark it off. He doesn't
know anything of the grace of God. Oh, well, you know, we all sin.
Nobody perfect. If that's the language of your
mouth or of your heart, you have never been transformed by the
grace of God. The greatest burden to a true
Christian, if he's five years old or fifty, if he's been on
the way a day or twenty years, his greatest burden is his sin. The sin that adheres to him,
that clings to him. It's sad to say, at times, overtakes
him and cripples him. Oh, how easy it is to throw stones
at a brother who's been wounded and crippled by his sin. But
if the connection, verse two, If verse 2 is colored by verse
1, do you see what it's saying? Bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. And whether that's a legitimate
understanding of it, certainly the general duty would include
every particular, would it not? And if we do not limit the directive
to the particular, bear one another's burdens in terms of the restoration
of the sinning brother, that's but a specific application, then
certainly the general duty to bear one another's burdens would
include everything that is a burden to me as a Christian. And if
we're joined together in a common life, your burdens are mine.
And brothers and sisters, that's costly. When you begin to make
other people's burdens yours, that's costly. He doesn't say
bear one another's light straw loads. Bear one another's burdens. And when a thing that bows my
brother or sister over is on my shoulders, it's going to bow
me over. It's costly to bear people's
burdens. To have a hearing ear and a sympathetic
heart for the needs of your brothers and sisters is costly business. But isn't that the nature of
love? To spend itself for the sake of its object? It's the
very nature of love to spend itself for its object. Oh, that
God would give us fervent love among ourselves. Love constraining
to mutual forgiveness. Love constraining to mutual forbearance. love constraining to mutual burden
bearing. Fourthly, love constraining to
mutual exhortation and admonition. Now one of the things that is
such a joy for us who are the recognized overseers of this
assembly, your pastors and elders, is that there is such a pervasive
if not universal sense of respect to the office instituted of God,
the recognition that the official admonishers of the flock are
the elders, know them that are over you in the Lord and admonish
you, 1 Thessalonians 5. But we must never allow that
concept to cloud this other clearly taught biblical principle that
you have a responsibility of exhortation and admonition one
to another without any official office bearing capacity. Two
texts of Scripture, Romans chapter 15 and verse 14, Romans 15 and
verse 14, And I myself am also persuaded
of you, my brethren, that ye yourselves are full of goodness,
filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another."
Paul here says that as they grow in knowledge, that is what we
might call the intellectual development of the Christian, as they grow
in goodness, that's the growth of virtue, as there is enlargement
of heart and of head, how will it find its expression? Able
to admonish one another. You see, a man who comes to admonish
me, who's got an empty head, has nothing worthwhile to admonish
me about. A man who's got a full head but
an empty heart, he's not in the proper frame to admonish me.
But when he's full of goodness and filled with knowledge, he
comes with the proper attitude to grant me the necessary insights. Now over to Hebrews chapter 3,
and we have a similar exhortation Hebrews chapter 3, Paul warns in verse 12, Take
heed, brethren, lest happily there be in any one of you an
evil heart of unbelief in falling away from the living God. The
first steps of apostasy are always steps of unbelief. Always. And unbelief is always a step
away from God. That's why he says, a heart of
unbelief in falling away from the living God. We must dread,
as the plague of plagues, an evil heart of unbelief that would
cause us to turn from our God. Now what means will God use in
helping us that we will not fall away? Verse 13, But, here's the
opposite, exhort one another day by day as long as it is called
to day, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness
of sin." All of us are in a common place of danger, or a place of
common danger. The seeds of unbelief are part
of the remaining corruption within all of us. Now, he says, beware,
take heed, there must be constant vigilance, lest That spirit of
unbelief gain ascendancy and you fall from the living God.
Now, he says, there is a wonderful preventative at your disposal.
That is this channel of mutual exhortation. Now, you see why
this is laid upon all the people of God? Because it's impossible
for the recognized, duly authorized official exhorters, your elders,
to have the kind of intimate and close proximity to every
member of the flock that the members of the flock have various
ones with each other. Many times, when an issue has
developed to the place where the elders have discerned it,
the gangrene is spread. And it could have been dealt
with so much earlier by some brother or sister who saw the
thing months before, but who either out of a false sense of
timidity or out of a lack of love, did not perform his biblical
responsibility. Oh, may God make us as jealous
of those symptoms in each other. Now, I know this is liable to
abuse. You're always going to get someone who thinks he's the
Lord's chief high inspector. And he's going to go around sure
that he sees in this one and that one the evil heart of unbelief. But such a person is self-condemning.
The whole congregation recognizes him, and it doesn't bother them.
They just learn to live with him and forbear with him. You haven't been in every congregation.
You can't throw them out. You see, they think they're full
of knowledge, but they lack goodness. And sometimes they think they're
full of knowledge when they're just full of hot air. Now granted,
this is open to abuse, but let not the abuse of it keep us from
the proper use of it. And periodically, this exhortation
must be given. You have a responsibility to
each other, to exhort one another. You have a right to ask your
brother or sister, how are things going with you? How are things
in your prayer life? How are things in the Word? We
as elders are not the only ones who have the responsibility and
the privilege of doing that. You have that responsibility
one to another. If you're in the home of a brother
and sister and you notice over a period of time a pattern of
unruliness amongst the children, why a pastor, one of the elders,
it may be months or years before they would have an opportunity
to observe that pattern, you take the head of that household
aside, put your arm on his shoulder if he's a brother, and say, brother,
I know you want to please God, don't you? You don't come at
him and say, you're failing. No, no, no. You put your arm
around him and say, I know you want to please God, don't you?
Of course I do. And you want God to bless your role as a father.
Of course I do. Well, I know you do. Has it ever
occurred to you that perhaps And then you bring the loving,
gentle exhortation. Do you realize that that pattern
in your child is willful rebellion? Well, no, I never realized that.
I just thought that was a stage kids go through. And you sit
down with him, you open up the scriptures. Maybe he wasn't reared
in a home where there were patterns of biblical discipline. And these
things are more caught by example than taught. You have that responsibility. Just recently, I had occasion
to do this. Someone mentioned to me an incident
in the life of a brother or sister in the congregation. I said,
well, how can I deal with it? I've never seen it. I've never
observed that. If I had, I could deal with it.
If you've seen it, have you dealt with it? And thank God, in this
instance, the brother or sister was able to say, yes, I have
exhorted the person in this particular area. But many times, there isn't
that positive answer. Love will constrain us to do
so. You see, love is willing. Love is willing to jeopardize
the friendship. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. May the
Lord grant us, then, this abounding in love that will constrain us
to this mutual exhortation in one more of the positive things
this love will do. It will constrain us to the mutual
sharing of our substance when necessary. Acts chapter 2 is the classic
example. It's not put there as a pattern
to follow. It's just put there as a statement
of what happens when love just breaks over its banks. Not in
Acts chapter 2, I'm sorry. I'm talking about Acts chapter
4. Verse 34, For neither was there among them any that lacked,
for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them,
and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid
them at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto each
according as any hath need. And the next verse does not say,
And go thou and do likewise. This is simply a statement of
what happened. when the love they bore one to
another made them feel in those circumstances that holding title
to greater goods when some had less was simply not right. So they sold everything, put
it in a common pot, and threw it at the feet of the apostles,
indicating they had confidence in their preachers that they
weren't mercenaries. And blessed is the people who has confidence
that their elders are not mercenaries. They threw the whole pot at their
feet and said, here, you distribute it. This one has this much. You
see what their love did? Their love caused them to move
to the tangible needs of their brothers and sisters. And that's
the exhortation that we read from 1 John. He says, let us
not love in word or in deed. If you see your brother have
need and shut up the bowels of your compassion, how dwelleth
the love of God? And you think of God's love to
us in Christ. What we needed was someone to
come amongst us to live as man a perfect life of obedience to
the law. As man to die the cursed death
that the law demanded. Yet he needed to be something
more than man to give an infinite worth both to his obedience and
his death that could apply to an innumerable company of the
redeemed. And so our need was precisely
that. And the Lord Jesus came and met
that precise need because He loved us. And so if we have this
love abounding one to another, it will constrain us even to
the sharing of our substance where this is needed. And dear
ones, this may be increasingly so. I'm no alarmist. We don't
know what days ahead may hold in terms of economic stability
or instability. Are you prepared? To do literally
what the Lord said, if you have two coats to give to him that
have none, the one with none may be our brother or sister
within this assembly. Are we prepared to do that? Some
of us who have two cars, to sign the thing over for a dollar to
a brother or a sister who has none and who cannot obtain another
one because of circumstances that he has not ordered? May
the Lord grant to us that measure of love that will constrain us
to these practical expressions of love one to another. Well,
I was going to deal with the negative, what the love will
restrain us from. For you see, love not only constrains
to certain things, but it restrains. But my time is gone, so I'll
just give you one point of the three that I had hoped to give
you. It will restrain you from harming your brethren." Romans
13, 10. Love, and he describes it negatively.
Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Love works good, that's the positive,
but now he states it negatively. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Love will be the monitor and
the rain upon my tongue. Love will be the monitor upon
my attitudes. Love will be that great purgative
that will keep me from harboring bitterness. Anything that harms
my brother, love will restrain me from moving in the direction
of that which will harm him. Now then, what is the source
of this brotherly love? We've seen that our relationship
with that is that of shared life. Our primary duty is that of love. We've looked at five channels
that love will cut. in the life of God's people.
Now, what is the source of this brotherly love? Well, two things,
very briefly. Number one, its presence is an
indispensable accompaniment of regeneration. That's the whole
teaching of the book of 1 John. I shouldn't say the whole teaching,
but that's one of the primary lessons of the book of 1 John.
Chapter 2, verses 9 to 11. Chapter 4, verses 7 and 8. And
chapter 3 and verse 14. By this we know we've passed
from death unto life because we love the brethren. You see,
when we are brought into the body of that shared life, There
is that reflex sense of responsibility and attachment to those who share
that same life. And it's an indispensable accompaniment
of regeneration. Paul could say to the Thessalonians,
I don't need to write to you to love one another. You're taught
of God to love one another. And that's one of the blessings
of the New Covenant. They shall all be taught of God. And one
of the first lessons God teaches a newborn soul is to love the
breath. Some of us can look back to the days shortly after we
were converted and we found the people we loved most were the
ones we hated most before. That queer bunch of people that
were always talking religion and Jesus and we felt so squoogey
around them. Suddenly we said, man, I'm one
of them. And we felt great around them, didn't we? love of the
brethren. No one had to teach us. No one
had to sit down and say, now you must do that. No. We found
our hearts run out to those who shared that same life. We didn't
even know how to explain it. Many of us didn't have the cliches,
the terminology, but all we knew is, thy people shall be my people. My God, my God, that sense of
attachment to the people of God. And if you're here tonight and
find, well, I'm in this building, but I can sense that these people
share something together. A preacher makes certain points,
and it's obvious the hearts and minds of the people respond,
and there's something going this way and that way, and I feel
like I'm on the outside of it. Am I talking to someone like
that tonight? Oh, my friend, you are on the
outside of it. That's why you feel on the outside. That's why
a Christian can go into a group of people, don't even talk his
language, and in 30 seconds feel on the inside. They're shared
life, even though they can't share the same language. They're
conscious of shared life. Some of you feel like you're
out there. And all this interplay between the preacher and the
people and the people and one another. You're conscious it's
going on, but you know you're not a part of it. Well, my friend,
the reason you're not a part of it is because you're not a
part of it. And you never will be until you're born of the Spirit
of God. Until the life that they share becomes your life. And
it cannot be until you have direct dealings with the One who has
given them that life. That's the Lord Jesus. He said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the
Father but by Me. Christ has given us that life.
He's incorporated us into a body of people who share a common
life. Do you have any verse in the
Bible that says He either wills not to do that for you or cannot? Not a one, my friend, and I have
many to say He wills to do it for all who seek Him. And He
is able to do it for all who come to Him. Seek Him. Call upon
Him. Come to Him. That's the source
of this life, this love. You can never have it until you
have Him. And then for you and for me who
are Christians, The growth and increase of that love is the
consequence of walking in the Spirit. After Paul exhorts to
this love in Ephesians 5, his next word is, walk in the Spirit
for the fruit of the Spirit is love. You see, many times, next
to coldness in our vertical longings, our love for the Word and for
prayer, the first manifestation that we have grieved the Spirit,
is that we begin to have problems with our brothers and sisters.
Things that we could overlook suddenly now begin to be magnified.
Burdens that once were such that we felt we had to bear them,
now we can behold them with polite indifference. Oh, may God speak
to us and cause us as His people to abound in this love more and
more to the end that all men will know that we are His disciples. Is it too much to believe that
our growth numerically need not be the relinquishment of the
intensity of mutual love? Is God's grace able to extend
itself, I speak rapidly, to the new dimensions of His body? Does
He give the increase in order to give decrease of spiritual
life and vigor? No, no. And as we've looked to
Him to grant the increase and in sovereign mercy He has done
so, let us look to Him for the grace to fill that increase with
Himself that we may abound in love one toward another. Let us pray.