Well, let's be turning to Philippians
2. Philippians 2, I sure did enjoy that. Whenever Brother John came up
to New Jersey, I asked him to bring his banjo with him and
play for us and sing a song for us. John, that might have been a
first. I don't know if anybody's ever played a banjo in Princeton,
New Jersey, but I enjoyed it. Philippians chapter one. Now,
we looked last night about how we are brought to the feet of
Christ by his grace. And so tonight. We ended last
night with that command he gives us to love one another. Tonight
we're going to go a little further with that. Paul is writing here
to the Philippians in verse 9 of chapter 1, and he says, And this
I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and all judgment, that you may approve things that are excellent,
that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ.
being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by
Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. You know, the
farmer labors because he hopes he's going to see some fruit.
The gardener is laboring because he wants to see some fruit. A
mother and a father, they teach their children because they know
they're going to come to some trials and they're hoping When
they come to those trials, they're going to bear some fruit. They're
going to exercise what they've been taught, what they know,
what they've learned, and when they face those trials. And the
preacher has the same kind of heart. This was Paul's heart
for them. John said, I have no greater
joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. The Apostle Peter,
he said, beware lest ye also being led away. with the error
of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness, but grow,
he said, in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. That's what Paul is saying here. He tells us, first of all, we're
going to have to go to the fountain. That's where we're going to have
to go. He said, this I pray. We've got to go to the fountain.
We've got to go to the fountain of all grace. And then he tells
us what he prayed for. He says that your love may abound
more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. And then he
tells us why he wants to see that love abound in knowledge
and in this spiritual discernment, this judgment. And he says that
you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere,
that you may be without offense, and particularly to one another,
he's talking about, to the day of Christ. Now, let's look at
this together. Our subject is that love may
abound, that love may abound. But the first thing we see here
is we've got to go to the fountain. He said, I pray this. I pray we've got to go to God.
We've got to go to him. He's the fountain of all grace
because we're going to be we're going to be grown in grace the
same way we began in grace. And verse 11 says, "...being
filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ." By
Jesus Christ. To the glory and praise of God. He's the head. And from the head,
all the members have nourishment ministered. Every part of the
body has nourishment ministered to it. He's the head. We've got
to go to Him. We talk about fruit here. A grape
is a fruit. How is a grape grown? John 15. How's a grape grown? Well, it
starts out with the farmer planting a seed. That's how the grape
starts. A farmer's got to plant a grape seed. Whatever kind of
seed you want, that's what kind of seed you plant. If you want
grape seed, you plant grape seed. And so the believer starts out
because our husbandman, God the Father, he births us anew, and
we're born of the incorruptible seed." We're born again of incorruptible
seed. Not of corruptible seed, of incorruptible
seed by the Word of God that lives and abides forever. Peter said, and this is the Word
whereby the Gospel is preached to you. We're born of His Word,
incorruptible. And then, and Paul's right, the
saints, they're born again. That's how we're sanctified.
That's how we're separated out of darkness and the light. Out
of how we're purged and cleansed and made clean through the Word,
being born again of His incorruptible seed, made anew. And then those
branches, that vine grows and those branches grow out of the
vine. And the branches get all of their life, they get all of
their sustenance from the vine. Every bit of it. And then as
they do, A cluster of grapes forms, fruit forms on the branches. Look at what the Lord said in
John 15, 3. Now you are clean through the word which I've spoken
to you. We're talking to believers. This is who Paul's talking to
and this is who the Lord's talking to. Believers that's been born
of His Spirit and that incorruptible seed. Clean now. He says you're
clean now through the word I've spoken to you. And he says now,
abide in me and I in you. If we're born of that Word, if
that's how we're born, and that's how we're born, then it be serviced
well to abide in Him, to desire the sincere milk of the Word
that we may grow thereby. He says, you abide in Me, and
I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except
it abide in the vine. He says, no more can you, except
you abide in Me. I am the vine, he said, you're
the branches. Don't you love how the Lord just
speaks to us so simple in ways we just, I can get that. I'm
just a branch and a vine, don't you? He says, I'm the vine, you're
the branch. You're the branch. And he says,
he that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth
much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. So that's where Paul begins.
He said, now this is what I'm asking. our Lord for. He's the fountain. I'm going
to Him and I'm asking Him that you might be filled with the
fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ. And who's
going to get all the glory? Who's going to get all the praise
for this? To the praise and the glory of God. He gets all the
glory for this. That's what Paul's saying. Alright,
let's look at this second thing. He said, this is what I'm praying
for. Now look at this verse 9. He
says that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and all judgment. Now, whoever's been born of God,
the believer that's been born of God, loves. He does. He loves. It's an impossibility
for somebody to be born of God and not to love, because this
is what 1 John 4 tells us. 1 John 4, 7 says, Beloved, let
us love one another. For love is of God. He says,
I'm going to give you of my spirit. And when he rebirths us anew,
he makes us partaker of the divine nature. And he says, love is
of God and everyone that loveth, truly loveth, is born of God. And he says, and everyone that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Now, catch this, this loving
and this love coming from God is knowing God. Knowing God. It's knowing Him. And He says,
He that loveth not, he doesn't know Him. He doesn't know Him.
For God is love. God is love. We want to grow
in love though, don't we? We love. We've been born of the
Spirit. We love. But we want to grow in love.
We want to abound in love. We want to grow more and more
in love. That's what I want to do. I want
to grow in love. Now, this love is not this thing
you heard sing about on the radio. That's not the love we're talking
about. Notice here, he says that your love may abound more and
more in knowledge. In knowledge, in all judgment.
I just read to you that everyone that loveth is born of God and
knoweth God. Now this knowing God is more
than just a carnal knowledge. You can get a head knowledge.
You can get an understanding of who God is. But we're talking
about a supernatural knowledge. We're talking about a knowledge
just like that branch is connected to that vine and it's getting
all its sap, all its nutrients from that vine. We're talking
about being brought into an inseparable union with Christ where we're
getting everything from Him. We're one with Him now. We know
Him. We know Him and we're getting
everything from Him. It's called the option from the
Holy One. That's what it's called. You
have an option from the Holy One, John said, and you know
all things. When do you know all things?
When you know Christ is all. That's when we know all things.
When you know Christ is all, you know all things. And that's
what the believer is brought to know. Christ is all. Well,
true spiritual love for Christ and our brethren is going to
abound the more we learn of Him. Learn of Him. When we're born,
Colossians 3 says, the new man is renewed in knowledge. It's renewed in knowledge after
the image of Him that created him. We lost that in the fall.
When Adam sinned in the garden and we sinned in Him, and then
we were born of His corrupt seed, we didn't have this We may have
had some kind of idea of who God is, but we didn't know God.
We didn't have this love in our hearts for Him because it wasn't
there. It's not there until God gives it. But when He gives it,
He renews us in the knowledge of God after His image. And what
happens is, is Christ is made unto us wisdom. We have the mind
of Christ. We see now and we're being taught
of Him just like that sap from that vine to the branch. Peter
said, grace and peace be multiplied to you. That's growth. Grace
and peace be multiplied through the knowledge of God and of Jesus
our Lord. And he said, by His divine power,
He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Where are we going to find those things? By His power, He's given
us everything that pertains to life and godliness. Where are
we going to see it? Where are we going to learn it? Where are
we going to find out about what real life, real godliness is?
through the knowledge of Him, through the knowledge of Him
that has called us to glory and virtue. We're going to have to
learn more of Him, learn Him. We were up at, we stopped at
the natural bridge on the way down here and walked down that
trail. And that natural bridge is amazing. And we went on down and there
was an Indian camp. They had a, made up like an Indian
camp that lived along those, that river. And they said the
reason that the Indians camped there and decided to live there
was because there were fountains there, there was a river there,
and there was food there, and everything they needed to live
was right there. It's what the Lord's telling
us. We need to camp out right here at this fountain, right
here where Christ is. Study Christ. If I want to know
how to love, I need to study Him who is the lover of my soul. I need to find out how to love
by studying him. Everything he's done, everything
he said, everything he taught, the way he, the way he, what
he did when he, to his friends and to foes. That's how I'm going
to learn how to love. Studying him. People will say
to you, well, why do you preach about sin so much? Why do you
all always preach about sin? Because the way that we learn
about His great love, wherewith He has loved us, is to find out
that this great love is so great that He loved us even when we
were dead in sin. The more we find out what a ruined,
I mean ruined, wretched, of worthless nothing that we are. There's
some more we're going to find out about how great that love
is. It's just exactly in proportion to however low you can see that
you are and however far away from God we can see that we are.
That's what makes that love appear to us so much greater and so
much wider and deeper and far reaching and long and enduring
and everlasting and unchanging. He chose a people. and put them
in Christ. He chose a people to put them
in Christ. A people who, when Adam sinned, we died. And when
we came forth, we never had a thought, a word, a deed, anything toward
God. And if we did get into religion
or something like that, all we were doing was trying to wear
a costume. And we didn't love him. We didn't want to have anything
to do with it in our heart of hearts. And when we heard the
truth of God, we hated the message because of our natural hearts
enmity against God. And yet in all of that time,
he loved us. He loved us because love's unchangeable,
his love's unchangeable, his love's unchanging because he
didn't set his affection on us because of anything in us. The
love of God is not based on anything outside of God Himself. The love
of God is in Him, and His love toward His people is His love
toward us. And so that when we sin and when
we fall, fail in Adam and when we go on our way backwards, Because
His grace wasn't based on anything in us, and His love wasn't based
on anything in us, it didn't change His love toward us. It
didn't change His grace toward us. His love's in Christ. His
love's in His Son. His love's in that one who's
the same yesterday, today, and forever, and does not change.
And therefore, His love doesn't change towards His people. That's
why we preach about the sin that we are. Well, look at 1 John
4. 1 John 4. This is a verse that we quote
a lot, but I think we should read this verse more and really
think about this. Look at 1 John 4.9. There we
are. We're more worthy to be loathed
than to be loved. That's what we deserve. But here
He comes for His elect. He sent His Son where we are. Sent His Son into where we are
to live and to die in our place. Look at verse 9. In this was
manifested the love of God toward us. This is how he made it known,
because that God sent his only begotten son into the world. Do you know what amazing, how
amazing that is, that God sent his only begotten son into the
world? Melinda and I were traveling. We went down to try to eat someplace
one night down in Trenton, New Jersey. And we didn't know where
we were going, and we got lost, and we got ourselves in a place
that was rough. I mean, rough. I mean, a place
where I didn't even want to, I mean, we had to stop to get
reconnected to the GPS to try to figure out our way out of
there, and I didn't even want to stop. I didn't even want to
stop. It was a bad, bad place. A bad
place. We don't like to go into places
like that. If we have to go into places like that, we like to
go into them and get out of them. and go back to our place. We
don't like to be in places like that. This whole world is a place
like that. This entire world is a place
like that. And God sent His Son here. His only Son. We have trouble letting our children
go, don't we? Just to go and to leave. It's
as if they're going to minister to somebody or to help somebody.
We have trouble letting them go. God sent His Son into this
world. Just like sending them into just
the most base, foul place you could ever imagine. That we might live through Him.
Verse 10, Herein is love, not that we love God. There wasn't
anybody there. with open arms, expecting him. I moved from Tennessee all the
way up to New Jersey. And that's a foreign place to
me, to go all the way there. But I went there with some folks
with their arms open to receive me. He didn't come here with
anybody with their arms open to receive him. He came here
into a bunch of folks that were ready to slay him, to slay him. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
that word so there means after this manner. This is the manner
in which God loved us. And if he loved us after this
manner, this is the manner in which we ought to love one another.
This love is why He became our surety. Even before anything
was made and all this sin came about, He knows the end from
the beginning. And the Father said to Him, I'm going to give
you this people. I'm going to give you this people
to come there into this place and to be their surety. That
means you go there and you do all the work for them. And you
pay everything that they owe to my justice. And this is how
I'm going to make myself known to them. We talk about our love.
We get a little offended about somebody and something they've
done. When's the last time we paid everything they owe? Did every bit of the work for
them and paid everything they owe? That's what he came to do.
He entered into this agreement. Love's what made him take our
nature, take sinful, take the appearance of the likeness of
sinful flesh and come in our likeness into this earth where
we are. It was love that made him do that. It was love that
made him willing to go to the cross. It made him willing to
take the sin of his people and to go under the wrath of the
God he loved. That was love. That's God loving
God is what that was. That's love fulfilling the law. That's love fulfilling justice.
That's love satisfying God is what that is. For his people,
we talk about this. We won't talk about love if we
want to truly talk about love. This want to come to God in the
law. A man wants to come to God in love. This is what the law
requires. It requires perfect love, perfect love to the father
said, I'm willing for the father to turn his back on me in wrath
that his justice might be declared. I love him that much. And perfect
love said, I'm willing for my children, those that I'm doing
this for, to forsake me and leave me here by myself, to bear this
on my own, all by myself, so that I can save them. That's
the fulfillment of the law. That's what we're going to have
to do if we want to come into the law. That's love, brethren. That's
love, unspeakable love. Paul said in another place, this
is what I pray. I want you to be, I want Christ
to dwell in your hearts by faith. that you be rooted and grounded
in love. This is the root. This is the
ground. It's love. It's love. This is the bed. Paul's got those raised beds
over there at his house. This is the bed. This is the
raised bed where we're planted. It's love. rooted and grounded
in love, that you may be able to comprehend, to know, to really
know with all saints, with all your brethren together, one,
to know the breadth, the length, the depth, the height, to know
the love of Christ. We're willing to go out, spend
a lot of money to send a child to college so he can get knowledge. We just might have to do it in
this damn time. But this knowledge right here
is called knowledge, love. It's called to know the love
of Christ which passeth knowledge. How much are we willing to give
to give our children this knowledge, this knowledge, this love that
passes knowledge? to know Him and be filled with
all the fullness of God. The fullness, knowing Him and
knowing what He's done for us, the love that He's shown to us
is to be filled as we know Him through faith, is to fill us
with the fullness of completion. Know we're complete in Him. To
fill us with the fullness of the knowledge that we've been
fully justified. We've been fully redeemed. We've
been fully purchased. We've been fully loved as fully
as anybody can be loved. And I feel that fully loved by
Him. Fully kept. Fully preserved.
Fully held to and clung to. Like a husband that loves his
wife. Won't let any harm come to her. This kind of love is holding
us. It's His love, brethren, that right now He's seated with
the Father. We have an advocate with the Father. We have a lawyer
with the Father. We have somebody with the Father.
And when you have an advocate standing up before you and speaking,
you don't say anything. You keep your mouth shut and
the advocate does the talking. We have an advocate whose blood,
whose wounds, who being right there in the presence of the
Father, who's satisfied with Him fully, pleads everything
for us. And He says, when we sin, He
said, don't sin, don't sin. But when we sin, we confess our
sin and come to Him being honest in everything. Come to Him. And
He says, and He's faithful. He's faithful. He doesn't upgrade.
He doesn't turn around. He's faithful. And He's just. He's faithful to forgive us our
sins. And He's just to forgive us our
sins. Because Christ has come and he's satisfaction to God
for our sin. He's the mercy seat. He is that
mercy seat. Well, how was Paul assured of
their love? Let's go. Let's go back to Philippians
1. Hold your place in 1 John. We may come back there in a minute,
but let's go back to Philippians 1 right now. How did Paul know
their love? He said he was assured of it.
He's talking about it growing more and more. How do you know
that? Love's got to be expressed, don't it? Love's got to be expressed
some way. How do you know it? Look at verse
5. "...for your fellowship in the
gospel from the first day to right now." That's how he knew
it. They stayed with him. They were
with him. They had fellowship together
where? In the gospel. In the gospel. Look there about
Middleways in verse 7. It says there, In as much as
both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel,
you're all partakers of my grace." You know where Paul was? Paul
was in prison. He was in prison. You think about
this now. You think about what if your
pastor got thrown in prison for preaching the gospel? Thrown
in prison for preaching the gospel. And everybody in this town is
against him. And everybody in this town has
turned on him. And a great many of those who
walked with you, who were your brethren, who professed to believe
the gospel he preached, they left too and forsook him. And
yet, what are you going to do? The Philippians stood with Paul.
They defended Christ. that he preached. They defended
this gospel he preached. And they confirmed it. They said,
this is the gospel. And they loved Paul. They stood
with Paul. You know why they did? You know why they stood
with him? You know why they didn't turn and leave him? Because through
that gospel, they weren't worshiping Paul. It wasn't like they thought
Paul was set upon a pedestal. The thing was, he was the earthen
vessel. That Christ, their Redeemer,
used to bring this good news to them and through whom He blessed
them in the heart and gave them this understanding of Christ
and His joint union with Him. And because Christ kept them,
because He kept them by His grace, filling them with these fruits
of righteousness and kept them there, they stood steadfast with
Paul. This is the kind of love we're talking about. We're not
talking about this thing where people go around talking about
how they love Jesus and how they love one another and all this.
True love for Christ does this. It defends the gospel and confirms
the gospel and stands with brethren in the gospel. This is the love
we're talking about. This is the kind of love we're
talking about. Paul saw it and he knew they had it and he prayed
that it grow more and more. It grow more and more in them.
He said, when I say to you, what I'm trying to say to you is this
love's in truth. I'm going to just read this to
you. This is from 2 John. The elder unto the elect lady
and her children whom I love in the truth. And not only, but
also all they that have known the truth. For the truth sake,
which dwelleth in us and shall be with us forever. This love's
in truth. We're talking about the truth.
Love that's feigned love. Love that's a double minded love. Love that's a show and it's impure
and it's not sincere and it's not according to truth. We'll
say something like this. And I heard somebody say this.
Let's not let an issue like. Well, they didn't call it an
issue. They actually said, Ananias, let's not let something that's
a non-issue, like particular redemption, get in the way of
being united with those that believe Christ died for everybody.
Now, let me give you an illustration. If you were drowning, you were
drowning. I mean, you're drowning. And
here's a bunch of folks that come out, and it appears they're
coming to your rescue. And they got what looks like
a life preserver, and they fix to throw this life preserver
to you. And somebody on board finds out, he finds out that
this thing that looks like a life preserver, they're about to throw
to you, it's full of rocks. It don't have any flotation device
in it at all. It's just got rocks in it. So
when you grab on to it, it's just going to take you further
and further and further down. And that man stands there against
all those fellows that want to throw you this preserver that
don't have any flotation in it. It's just got rocks in it. And
he says, no, we're not giving them that. We're giving them
this true preserver. We're giving them this true preserver. And he stands against him, though
they're all against him. And he gives you this truth,
this true preserver, by which you've been saved. You've been
saved from death. Which one are you going to stand
with? Are you going to stand with those fellas that want to
throw you that preserver with the rocks in it? Or are you going
to stand with that fella who threw you the preserver in truth?
in truth. That's what this love is doing.
The Lord is calling out His people through this truth and He's showing
us how valuable it is to have somebody blessed by His grace
and kept by His grace and given this truth through His grace
to come to us and teach us in truth, call us out to Him. And that's how He unites us together
and grows His body and increases His body and keeps us together
more and more. That's what He's doing. So why
is this wisdom, wisdom, wisdom? It's just wisdom the way the
Lord does this. And men will say, well, you can
either let your light shine before men, you need to make sure everybody
sees you. The Scripture says that. The Lord said it. He said,
I didn't light a candle to put it under a bushel and hide it.
I lit it for it to be seen. But to what this world's looking
at and what men are trying to, men of this world and religion
are trying to make men look at is not the light. Start the light. You know what will happen if
you preach the truth to somebody? We're trying to stay out of the
way. When you have a candle and you're carrying that candle into
a dark room, you've got that candle out front of you that
you want people to see that light, aren't you? Of that candle so
they can walk. You're not putting that candle
behind you and walking and trying to lead them. They wouldn't see
any light. The light is, we're holding forth the Word of Life.
Christ and trusting He's going to draw His people with that
light right there. And when He draws somebody with
His light and He visits them in the day of grace, they glorify
God for your subjection to Him because they see you weren't
trying to attract me by you, you just preached the truth to
me. You did something nobody else in this world was doing.
You told me the truth. And that's love. This junk of
telling people lies in the name of love, that's not love. It's not love to lie to somebody
just to get them to join with you. And you want to call that
love? That's not love. That's not love. Alright, I need to move on here
now, but look at this. We're one together now. Made
one together. Alright, now, when you're one
with somebody, you're one with your children. When your children
get something, when somebody gives them something and they
bless them, does it make you envious? You parents, do you
get envious of your children? You don't, do you? They're your
children. They're one with you. They're an extension of you.
When somebody says something mean to your children, does it
offend you? Yeah, it does. They're your children.
That's the same with our Redeemer and our brethren. We're one.
So when they rejoice, we want to rejoice with them. We don't
get envious of them. Somebody says something against
them, that offends us. That offends us. Or our Redeemer. Somebody says something negative
about our Redeemer. So look now, the first thing, you've got to
go to the Lord for this growth. To get this growth more and more
in this love. And then secondly, this love's
not just some random thing. This love's in knowledge. It's
in knowledge. It's in a true understanding
of who He is. And then thirdly, let's look at this too. When
we grow in this love and this knowledge, we get some discernment. We get some discernment. Be able
to discern some things. Look at verse 10. And we got
it for some good purposes. Look at what he said, verse 10.
That you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be
sincere, and that you may be without offense till the day
of Christ. We need discernment for that.
We need discernment. Judgment is discernment. That's
what judgment is. Spiritual sense, the Holy Spirit
gives us eyes and ears and touch and taste, just like all other
senses. And a Hebrew writer said, strong
meat. That's what the gospel is. It's
strong meat. Strong meat belongs to them of
full age who's had their senses exercised so they can discern
good and evil. Their senses have been exercised.
They can discern between what's morally good and what's morally
evil. They can discern between what's law preaching and what's
gospel preaching. They can discern between what's
the doctrine of God's grace and what's the doctrines of men.
They got some discernment to hear. The Lord said, my sheep
hear my voice and we hear his voice. And he said, a stranger
they won't follow. Why? We've got discernment. We've
got some judgment. And he wants us, Paul says, I
want you to see you grow more in that discernment. Now, we
have this gospel. And I talked to you last time
about how important it is to have the gospel, to have the
gospel preached. Because this is where we get
the word. This is where we get this. And then we come into trials. We have different kinds of trials.
And that helps us to exercise this discernment that we've got.
You know, a doctor. A doctor, when he's working to
become a physician, get his license to be a physician, he goes to
the classroom and he studies. But he don't just go to the classroom
and study. Then he goes through what they call clinicals. That's
where he's going in the rooms and he's actually doing what
he's studying to do. Which one of the doctors you
want working on you? You want the one that's just
been in the classroom studying or you want the one who's been
through the clinicals, too. So he's got the experience. He
knows what he's talking about. I want the one that's got the
experience. Well, this is what having our senses exercised is. We get this gospel and we hear
it and it comes into our heart and then we go through some trials
and those trials are on purpose. God is sending them to exercise
this spiritual sense we got. So we get the clinicals now.
We get to experience this and find out what God is teaching
us is true. It's life. It's true and it's
life. And that's why I was talking
to Paul about this last night. It's so wise that God puts us
in a church together, all of us together, all different personalities,
from different places and different kinds of folks. And He puts us
all together, blends us all in one body like this. And it's
so good for us because we start hearing the gospel and we hear
this gospel. And as we're hearing this gospel
preached, We get opportunities to have our spiritual senses
exercise. You start experiencing that.
You start seeing some brother in the congregation, and you
begin to think, he just seems to me like he's being too worldly.
He seems like he's just being too carried away with the things
of this world. And you sit there, and if we're not careful, what
ends up happening is we get into a worse fault than what they're
in. What the brother's in. because we fall into the fault
of being self-righteous and being proud. I wouldn't do that. I
wouldn't act like that. That's needful, too. It's good.
You don't learn how not to fall down until you fall flat on your
face. And that's good for us, too. We need to learn that. But
something else happens, too. The Lord, a lot of times after
He's brought us down, and the best way for us to be brought
down is this. When we experience anything with
our brethren and say, And I don't think there ought to be acts
like that. As soon as we start thinking like that, do you know
what we ought to remember? That's me. That's me. What they're doing, whatever
it is, I do it for worse. That's me. The Lord graciously
gives us an opportunity in all of our brethren to see ourselves. To see ourselves. And as He does
it, He begins to It brings us down to see it, to remember that.
To remember that He was so gracious to me. He's been so long-suffering
to me. He's been so tender with me.
And it brings us down from thinking those self-righteous, prideful
thoughts. And as He's doing it, and showing
us how long-suffering He's been to us, the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts. And we become thankful. Even
for the trial, we become thankful. Thank you, Lord. You teach me
patience. Teach me to be long-suffering with my brethren. Teach me to
be tender with them. So that instead of flying off,
you know, and start whipping them about being covetous, you
start talking about any chance you get, any opportunity you
get, start talking about how this blood of Christ It's so
precious. It's more precious than gold
and silver that perishes. And see what the Lord's doing
in all that. He's bringing up, He's exercising our senses. And He's showing us what He's
done for us. And He's shedding His love abroad
in our hearts. And at the same time He's doing
that, He's making us helpers of one another's joy. He's exercising
us. He's exercising us in this thing.
Isn't it needful for us to be in a family together, to learn
this? The wisdom of God is amazing,
isn't it? And He just put this together. And as He begins to do this,
we grow a little more and we try things that differ. We stop
speaking so much about the other one's faults. What do we try
that differs? We try our motives. We try our
own thoughts. We try our own words. We try
ourselves. And as we do that, we learn to
approve things that are excellent. We let go of us. We let go of
ourself and all our ideas and all our thoughts, and we approve
what's excellent. And what's excellent is to help
one another, tell one another about this precious blood. Say
it's somebody who has a problem with maybe they're not loving
their spouse like they ought to, whether it's the husband
or the wife. What's the cure for that? Talk about Christ the
husband. Talk about how he's come to where
we are. He never looked away from his bride. Pat was diligent
in business for his bride to provide for and clothe her and
redeem her from all iniquity. Even when she was on the slave
block, nobody wanted her. He still went and redeemed her
and paid the price owed for her. Whatever it is, maybe it's somebody
that's been slothful in business. Talk about that, how he came
forward and said, my meat is to do the will of Him that sent
me. And he didn't rest. He went about doing that which
was necessary to redeem us from all iniquity and didn't stop
until he cried out and said, it is finished. I finished the
work. Whatever it is that we have a
problem with, You know, we would stand, I would stand up and hear,
or sit down and hear a preacher get up and whip folks with the
law. Whip poor, desperate, needy sinners
with the law. I wouldn't stand for that, would
you? You wouldn't. And you know what happens if
we're in our own living room and we start talking about somebody
for whom Christ died? You know what we're doing? We're
preaching the law. That's what we're doing. We're
preaching the law. Turn from love to law. We've
turned from grace to works. We've turned from being helpers
to being hurtful. That's what we've done. And we
fail. I fail. You fail. We fail at
that a thousand times over. And God keeps showing us what
mercy is. He don't turn us away. He keeps
showing what love is. He keeps drawing us to His breast
and keeping us and loving us and caring us. Let's look over
at 1 Corinthians 12. What are some things that are
excellent? The psalmist said, how excellent
is that loving kindness? Oh, God, that's something that's
excellent. Don't you think it's excellent? Christ has obtained a more excellent
ministry, excellent ministry. He's the mediator of a better
covenant established on better promises, and this is that covenant
through which the Lord says I'll have mercy on them. I won't remember
their unrighteousness anymore. I won't remember their sins anymore.
That's an excellent thing to think about, to speak about,
to talk about. Well, Paul gives us something
else that's excellent. Verse 31, he says, Covet earnestly
the best gifts, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way. I see something more excellent
than gifts, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels
and have not charity. I become a sounding brass or
a tinkling cymbal. Paul said that some men have
turned from preaching the gospel to vain jangling. When I'm just
alone in my house, whether it's to my spouse or anybody else,
if I'm saying something negative about my brethren, whipping them,
talking about them, I've turned to vain jangling. I become a
tinkling cymbal and it's not worth anything. Some of the best
advice ever given to me was this. Don't ever say anything negative
about somebody for whom Christ died. Don't say it to your wife. Don't say it to you around your
children. Don't say it around another brother. Don't say anything
negative about somebody for whom Christ died. I wish I could remember
that. I wish I could just keep that
in my heart all the time. Christ redeemed them. Christ
paid His blood for them. And He says, I don't remember
their sins anymore. Why do I want to keep bringing
them up? Why do I want to keep talking about them? We keep forgetting
what we're supposed to remember and keep remembering what we're
supposed to forget. He says, verse 2, Though I have
the gift of prophecy, I understand all mysteries, all knowledge,
so I have all faith so that I can remove mountains and have not
charity. I'm nothing. It's good to know the gospel.
It's good to know and believe him and trust him. But the devils
know this gospel better than we know it. And they don't and
they tremble, but they don't have love. They don't have love. We need to have love. That's
what we need. Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor.
That's what we normally associate with love, isn't it? It's pretty easy to write a check,
really. It's a lot easier to write a
check than it is to go over and help somebody personally. Though
I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profits
me nothing. Paul said, now you hold your
place there just a minute. Paul said that he wants this,
he said, I pray for this to be sincere. You know what that word
sincere means? That word sincere means that
it's pure. That means it can be tested in
the light of the sun. That's what it means. It can
be tested. If you put it out in the sunlight,
it can be tested. The word literally means no wax. And as I was studying
that, I mean, about the exact time that I was studying that
and reading that, my father-in-law walked in the door with a big
old jar of honey. I looked at that honey, and the
first thing I did was walk over to it, and he said, that honey
don't have any honeycomb in it. He said, it's been strained.
He said, that's pure honey. And I walked over and held it
up to the light, looked at it, and he was right. It didn't have
any honeycomb in it, no wax in it. It was pure honey. That's
what the word means. Sincere. Pure. Pure. And this is how we test it. This is how we test it. The Lord
said, this is a condemnation. Lights come in. Lights come into
the world, and men love darkness more than light because it leads
to evil. So they will come to the light,
Christ the light, because they don't want the deeds to be reproved.
But he said, but he's that doer of the truth. He wants to come
to the light. He comes to the light. He comes
to Christ the light. He wants to see what Christ says
in His Word, what the Word of divine revelation is. He comes
to that light, that His deeds may be manifest in the open,
that they're wrought in God. He wants to be sincere. He's
striving for pureness, not sinfulness, not malice. He's willing to put
that off. He's striving for Christ. That's
what he's striving for. All right, so here's what he
says. This is what light is right here. This is what light says
to us. Let's bring it to this right here. First Corinthians
12, 4. This is what love is. It suffers long. It's kind. Charity envieth not. Charity
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. It doesn't behave itself
unseemly, seeketh not her own, it's not selfish. It's not easily
provoked. He doesn't think evil. Rejoices
not in iniquity, but rejoices in truth. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love
hopes all things. Endures all things. And it never
fails. Isn't that so much better? That's what our love did. Our
beloved. That's what he did for us. We
keep forgetting. Paul said, whatever's pure, whatever's
honest, whatever's just, whatever's lovely, whatever's of good report,
if there's any virtue, any praise, think on those things. Think
on those things. Also in the family, you've got
that dear sister who just seems to always have a kind word. As bad as the situation is, she
can always Make you feel comforted and always say something to you
that helps you. She's following after Christ.
Follow after her if she follows after Christ. She's somebody
to think on and follow after. Follow after him. All right.
Now, let's go back. We'll we'll end up. And he says
here the last thing and he wants us to do this, that we may be
without offense, without offense. This is without offense to one
another. Without offense to one another, not causing another
to stumble. We're going to learn how to love
by being loved. That's how we learn. And we teach
others to love by loving them. That's how we learn how to love.
That's just how we learn how to love. And the point here is
don't give offense at anything so that the ministry is not blamed.
So that folks don't look at us and say, ah, those folks there,
they just fight and feud with one another. So the ministry
is not blamed. And I'll give you something else
here. You remember Paul said, this is just an example, but
Paul said, let us follow after things that make for peace, things
that edify one another. And he said, you know, the kingdom
of God is not meat and drink. And he said, so it's good neither
to eat flesh or drink wine or anything whereby thy brother
stumbles or is offended or is made weak. I saw something, a
brother do something the other day that was maturity. It was love. And it blessed my
heart. That whole trip I took the first
of the month to Kentucky, out of everything I heard preached
and everything, this thing right here has stuck with me more than
anything. I won't tell you who this is,
but everybody here knows him, and I don't want to embarrass
him, but I went over to this brother's house, and all the
brethren were coming over there. And he kept waiting around, waiting
around, and everybody had kind of quit coming. And he come in
and he said, I was kind of waiting to see if any brethren would
show up that might be offended if I offered you a glass of wine.
And he said, I don't think anybody's going to show up that would be
offended by that, any of our brethren. Would you like a glass
of wine? And I thought, man, that's love. That's love. Somebody can say, this is going
to offend my brother. It's not worth it to do it. I don't need whatever the thing
is. I don't need that bad enough if it's going to make them stumble
in any way. That's love. That is love. I thought, man, it just stayed
with me. It was just so good, I thought.
Alright, let's look here now at 1 Corinthians 1, and I'm going
to end with this. 1 Corinthians 1. He said we're
going to do this till Christ comes. He said do this till Christ
comes. I want you to see this. Where
does all these graces come from? Where does this growth come from?
See, we're not trying to be without offense to Him. We're without
offense to Him. We're in Christ, robed, washed,
clean in Him. He's going to keep us that way.
This is to be without offense to one another and to men in
this world. Now, look what he says here. This is until Christ
comes. Verse 4. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 4. He says,
I thank my God always on your behalf. for the grace of God
which is given you by Jesus Christ, that in everything you're enriched
by Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as you
started out, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.
So right now, he says, you don't come behind in any gift. You're
waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall
also..." He's gifted us like this and He's going to keep growing
us in His grace, but this is what else He's going to do. "...Who
shall also confirm you unto the end that you may be blameless
in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, because God is faithful,
by whom you were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord." And when He brings us there one day, we won't
even have to talk about this anymore. All the childish things
will be gone. Faith will be gone. We won't
need that anymore. We'll see Him. Knowledge, we'll
know Him as He is. Love will still remain, though. Without any hindrance at all. Blameless to love. Won't that
be a good day? Amen.