The letter of 1st John and we're
continuing in chapter 4. Really this is part 2 of last
week's message. I talked so much that I ran out of space in the
calendar to finish it. When our bodies are tired, our
minds are tired. And when our minds are tired,
our bodies are tired. And we always make these resolutions
this time of year, don't we? You'll start seeing them on social
media. I resolve, I resolve. I remember many years ago, I
just got up in front of a church, a rather large congregation.
I said, I have a New Year's resolution. I'm going to gain 40 pounds this
year. I want to be successful. I'm going to accomplish very
little. Resolve to the status quo. And of course, that was
a joke. But we do, we think about things
this time of year. For some reason, that calendar change, this date,
2021, it makes us think, okay, I gotta make some changes, it's
a new opportunity. And yesterday was a new opportunity,
and three weeks ago was a new opportunity. Today is really
the only day we have. It's really the only day we have. I have some great days in my
history. some amazing days. The day I married my bride, the
day my children were born, you know, the day we planted Grace
Truth Church, every life that has come to the faith of Christ
through it all. I mean, friends and friendships
and intimacy and good times and bad times and the Lord is gloriously
the same through it all. But really, we can't live in
the glory days of yesterday. We can't make our life great
again. We can't come to a place of thinking,
well, tomorrow we will get this done. For James says, if the
Lord wills, we're not promised tomorrow. This moment right now
is the only moment that you are certain of. That's why Paul tells
us and tells the church to do all things without grumbling
and complaining. That's why we are to be slow to speak, not
slow in our speech, but slow to speak. We are to be quick
to listen. That's why we see the wisdom
of Solomon, who had all wisdom and had all wealth, who had all
women. He thought he could find, if
anything, a man in the world could find some type of foundational
peace and purpose, but there was no purpose in it. It was
all vanity, vanity of vanities, worthless, worthless, nothing. And the only thing that mattered
was the glory of God and the name of God. And I'll tell you
this right now, we have been learning about that ever since
we all gathered together the very first time, nine plus years
ago. And we're learning about it over
these last 25 weeks. We're learning about it in the
Gospel of John, we're learning about it in 1 John. See, sometimes
we think, well, you know, this new time of year, I'm gonna be
a better lover of the brethren. And that's not a problem. It's
okay to say I want to do these things. The question is, is where's
your focus? And it's usually not that simple,
is it? It's usually like, well, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna
do this. We got a list, we got a calendar. I've got friends
who make posters this time of year. They put them up and they
look real good till about March, about Easter, you know, half
of them are down. Kids have drawn on them. You know, that fit guy
on the poster, the mustache. put a hat on him, and they end
up going in the closet, and they end up going in the trash, and
then by the summer, it's like, you know what, I'll worry about
that after the holidays. I'll worry about that after the
summer. Oh, here comes this time. I'll do it then. There's always
a later. Procrastination is a way of life.
Then we feel guilty about it, and then we tie it to our spiritual
growth and our spiritual lives, and we think, well, I didn't
accomplish much for the Lord. So to compensate for that, this
is what we do. We become uber-zealous. Zeal is a young man's disease. Zeal is the essence of youth. I don't care if we're going to
ride a bike. We're not just going to ride a bike and ring the bell.
We're going to ride the bike down the hill without training
wheels. We're going to not wear a helmet. We're going to climb
the mountain and jump off. We can't just ride the bike back
in two. We got to find that old stump and hop on top of it. This
is what guys do. I don't know what girls do. We
can't just ride the bike. We can't just enjoy the leisurely
stroll down the sidewalk waving at the neighbors. Good morning,
neighbor. Now you put your hand up the
way guys with their zeal ride bikes, you're gonna die. You're
gonna endo and you're gonna have concrete in your forehead. There's
still some concrete there. That's why I'm so hard-headed.
These aren't imaginative things. These are literal things. What's
wrong with you? Why did you do that? I don't
know. I mean, it's the brain disease of childhood. We don't
know why we do these things. But beloved, we're not exempt
from that as adults. We're not exempt from that as
teenagers. We're not exempt from that in our 80s and 90s. We are still going to try to
overcompensate with our flesh, and we're going to think of our
zeal and our passion as being driven by the Lord, and it's
not driven by the Lord. zeal and passion are driven by
the flesh most all the time. Because that zeal which is driven
by the Lord is a zeal of peace, and contentment, and slowness,
and wisdom, and lack of words, not verboseness. Zeal that's
driven by the Lord is one of absolute resolve to know that
I, a child of God, am resting in the sovereignty of my King.
And that wherever I may be this day, it is the greatest day for
His glory through me. We just sang it, didn't we? We sing the truth. Sometimes
we don't really recognize it. Paul would say to the brothers
of and acts that my life is not my own. It doesn't belong to
us. He would say that he doesn't
live, but Christ lives in him. And we think, well, we've got
to be there. Paul spent 90% of his life locked up. Writing to one person at a time. Letters that took years to finish. Postcards. Yeah, we want to be. Let me just put it this way.
I've written more in quantity than Paul. Yet Paul has written the word
of God. So what I have to say, my commentary,
I've even reminded myself of this the last week or so, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. That's what it sounds like before the Lord. But his word,
if preached, if learned, if rested in, if trusted, to trust the
word of God is to trust God himself. We don't need resolutions. We
need faith. We need faith that rests, faith
that sits, faith that, as Trace said a few months ago, does nothing
in that sense. We don't need to be busy bodies.
We need to be busy about the work of God, and the work of
God is just starting in most of our lives. What is it that
God has called us to? That's what we've been learning
in 1 John. 25 Sundays, 25 hours, rounded hours. After today, we've
been talking about this letter. We've been learning about what
it is that we know concerning God, His righteousness, and that
His righteousness is manifested in His love, and His love and
His righteousness is displayed in the love that the church has
for itself. This is the message. So there
is one thing that the church should be looking to do, and
that is to rest in the sufficiency of the gospel of free and sovereign
grace as she serves one another with gladness. I want to emphasize, I've said
it probably a dozen times during this series, and I'm going to
say it again. We are not loving God when we are not patiently
loving each other. When we do not patiently love
each other, we are sticking our finger in the face of God and
saying, I know better than you. Who's that sound like? The enemy. You do not have to die, Peter
says. Get behind me, Satan. I don't
have to listen to this. Paul would tell the Corinthians,
if anyone does not take this letter as from God, disassociate
with them immediately. That's a paraphrase. Have nothing
to do with them. See when we subject ourselves
to the authority of the Word. If you want to talk about Lordship,
Christ is the Lord over His church. He's the Lord over His enemies. He's the Lord over the world.
He's the Lord over the sunshine outside. And He is the Lord of
the Word. He is the Word come flesh. And what was written about Him
was written by Him through His people so that we could see His
face and behold God in everything that He is. All that we'll ever
know about God is revealed in Christ Jesus. We think we're
going to learn some extra mystery. No, we're going to rest in a
melting pot of unity for all of eternity as we continue to,
as brother and I were talking last week, comprehend the incomparable
essence of God's glory. I get it. It's amazing. It's incomprehensible. That's
what we comprehend. Now why? Why labor over that
idea? Because, beloved, if any of you
are like me, you are in a war. You're in a war, you're gonna
be in a war, and there's always gonna be something. This day,
a year ago, I said the same thing. It popped up on my social media
feed this morning. I love that about social media. Look at there,
I'll have it changed a bit. And you hope that's how your
picture looks, but that doesn't happen. A little more gray hair,
a little more heaviness, whatever it may be, a little more decrepitness,
maybe a new style of clothes. I don't change glasses. I change
lenses. I cannot stand to change frames. It just bugs me. I don't like change. You know,
it's the same story. It's the same thing. We are suffering
well, and in that suffering we are partnering in the suffering,
we are sharing in the suffering of Christ, and that is a promise
of God to His people that we would suffer well because we
recognize that Christ suffered. But see, the world and its evangelists
and its spiritual ideals would say, well, We need to understand
that the God that they know, and I'll speak to be careful,
He doesn't want you to suffer. Yes, He does. It's part of the
promise. How is it that He can snatch
us out of the world and give us eternal life and call us His
own and put us into His Son being found in Christ and Christ when
He was in the world, the world hated Him. The world crucified
Him by the will of the Father that He might be the Redeemer
of His people. The just and the justifier of
all for whom He died. to think that if we are found
in him and are remaining in the world that we would experience
anything differently. That's why I read 1 Thessalonians,
first three chapters this morning. That's the sixth time I've read
it since Thursday. I read the whole letter and all
the pastoral epistles this week. And we see that Paul's heart
to see the church in unity Paul's heart was to see them not give
up hope. Paul's heart was to see them
rest in the sufficiency of that which they were taught. And through
that teaching, God taught them the truth. And the truth, which
is easily understood in the cognitive mind of even a lost person, now
can be believed by an elect person. So I want you to think about that
for a second. I am not a neurologist, but I
know a lot about neurology. Definitions and terms. Why? Because I read stupid stuff like
that. The man who had my house before me must have been in that
field, and I still get his magazines, so I read them. Just read them. I know some things about physics,
but I'm not a physicist. I know some things about cults,
but I'm not in a cult. And there are opportunities for
the human brain to absorb data, empirical knowledge, and absorb
facts and truths and say, yeah, yeah, I'm with that, I'm down
with that, that's good. But faith is not knowing the
facts. Faith is resting in the one who
taught them. resting, trusting, holding, staying,
and that is not of our flesh, and that is not of our power,
you see. It is because of God's love for
us, His people, that He keeps us in the faith. Keep yourself
in the love of God. How's that? By sitting. and watching and
waiting for his return. Because his promises are true.
His love will never fail. He will keep us until the end. First Peter chapter one would
say, who we are being kept and guarded in heaven, the inheritance
that is ours. We have been adopted and there
is no court in the world who can undo the adoption that God
has done for his people. There is no sin that you can
commit that can take you out of the hand of Christ. There
is no weakness in your faith that can cause you to fall into
destruction. And there is no, there is absolutely
nothing that can separate you from the love of God. Nothing. God himself cannot separate his
people from his love, for he has effectuated their purchase,
their adoption, their sanctification, their redemption. And God does
not lie. You see that? Therefore, this
is the love that God has given to us, not to call us children
like the neighbor. Hey son, you ain't my mama. You
didn't say that to her, because she could whip you. She had the
authority when I was a kid. But she wasn't your mama. God's not just saying, hey, my
children, my earthly created children. We are his beloved. And he has loved us first, so
therefore, Take a deep breath and sit down
and rest. That is your resolution for this
year. And as you rest, rest together
in love. Because there's going to be fuss
enough, isn't there? There's going to be trials enough. There's
going to be problems enough. Why do we borrow it? Why do we
egg it on? Why do we invest ourselves in
troubling things? Thinking, this is what God wants
me to do. No, it is not. It is not. Because in every turn, in every
breath that we are investing in something else, we are not
investing in that which is clearly commanded to us in scripture. Let us love one another, 1 John
4 verse 7. For love is from God and whoever
loves has been born of God and knows God. So we've learned that
God is light and that God is love and these truths are something
that we grow into. And then learning to love is
something that we grow into. Learning to discern is something
that we grow into. Having wisdom is something that
we grow into. You don't believe me? Then if
that's not true what I just said, then all the New Testament letters
must be discarded and we need to go back to the prophets and
live by them. Thank God we don't. Because Nineveh
repented and then God destroyed them. Because it was a temporary
fix, just like Pharaoh. Yeah, y'all can leave. No, I
changed my mind. We grow to learn to love, just
like we learn to walk, just like we learn to read, just like we
learn to speak and eat and feed ourselves. We learn to love. And the power behind that knowledge
is the word of God and the people of God together growing in the
knowledge of the word. And being reminded that elders
jobs are to remind us of these things, to teach these things
in accordance with the scripture, to grow along with the church
just a little bit ahead of them. And if you think that I've learned
it all, think again, because I'm learning every day. And sometimes we think, well,
I've already know that. No, we don't know that. We don't know.
We may know about it. We don't know that, but we do
know the righteousness of God. We do know the love of God, but
we must learn the righteousness of God. We must learn the love
of God. How is that possible? By what means is God going to
teach me these things in a deeper way by doing them? By doing them. By loving. By
living in a manner worthy of the calling that we've been given.
This is the call. Not out of fear, but out of faith.
Out of adoration. Out of worship. It's what Paul
talks about in Romans 12. To offer our lives and our bodies
as living sacrifices. Not that we may be worthy of
standing before the Lord and say, look at my life. No. that
we may stand in the grace of God and the sufficiency of his
love for us through Christ Jesus who satisfied God's wrath in
our place. The guilt of the elect of God
has been satisfied in the death of Jesus who knew no sin but
who took on our sin so that we could be the righteousness of
God. How is that? Because as he took our sin, guilt,
he credits us his righteousness. That's the simple gospel. Well,
how do I get that? You can't get that, God gives
that. Well, how does God give that? Through the reading and
the hearing of his word. To whom? To those for whom Christ died.
Period and only. Forever. We do not have divine eyes to
see who are and who are not, reprobate and elect. We must
judge by that which the scripture gives us the lens to see. And
when you confess to be my brother and my sister, we walk together
until there is a necessary end to that confession. Or, there's
a necessary end to the willingness to be subject to the commands
of Christ. To love and to be submissive
and to be quiet and to work together. And to be in unity and to reason
together and to be long-suffering and to wait upon the Lord. Our urgency does not move God. I want you to hear that again. Our urgency does not move God. God is not a first responder. He does not hear us yelling and
screaming, fire, fire, fire, and then come to the rescue.
Sometimes God intends to burn the whole thing down. Jesse, you like that one? and then rescue us from the ashes.
But he will rescue us, even if it is by fire. Even if it is
through death, we are his. Now that is the love of God.
That is the discipline of the Lord, which is his love. That
is the instruction of God, which is through his word alone. And
beloved, this is a terrible, terrible, terrible thing to be
burdened with in your flesh. to think that you have to accomplish
these things. If we have to accomplish the
practice of these things, the practice of this resting, this
constant perfection of love, then we are in big trouble. Anyone
who does not love does not know God because God is love. You see the emphasis there? Well,
I know God. God's shown me the truth. You ever have hatred for people?
You know, one of the most disheartening things I see is when my brothers
and sisters degrade unbelief as a joke. And I see it a lot. I see mocking
unbelief. I see memes that are snarky. And we stand around and we laugh
at them. I laugh at them. Oh, that's funny. Like the, you
know, when YouTube first came out, I see people fall and get
the wind knocked out of them. You're like, that's terrible.
Why am I laughing? Because you knew you wouldn't laugh. If I
fell off the stage right now and hit my head, I mean, we're
so conditioned. You're going to chuckle as you
come to my aid. Oh, pastor, you okay? Oh, God,
call 911. I mean, you know, Lord, let's pray for this man. He's
hurt. But I don't know why I'm laughing. Because we've conditioned
ourselves to that. There's nothing funny about reprobation. There's nothing funny about unbelief.
There's nothing funny. And there is nothing positive
to be had for the saints of God. There is no love for the body
of Christ when we emphasize these not gospels to the point that
that becomes the moniker of the saints. God is love. In this, the love of God was
made clear taught to us manifest among us that God sent the only
son that he has into the world so that we might live through
him. Now some people think the word
might is an option. It's just English grammar. It
emphasizes the point of it, the outcome. God sent His Son into
the world that we might live. We are going to live. We will
live. It's not a possibility. It's
an absolute certainty. In this is love, not that we
have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. I've already explained that this
morning. This is just review. Beloved, if God so loved us,
We ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If
we love one another, God makes residence in us and we are with
Him. We are living in a manner accordance
to His love and His love is perfected in us. His love for us is perfected
in us when we love others, which is our love for Him. By this
we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He's given
us of His Spirit. See, this is all John's entire
point of bringing up the spirits. It's not to warn people about
Antichrist teaching. It's to warn people about Antichrist
living that correlates with teaching. Yeah, I believe in error. Well, you're in error. Let's
fix it, brother, sister. The Word of God doesn't agree
with that. We go with the Scripture. We go with the whole of what
the Scripture teaches. We don't pick out parts. The
prophets are not written to us. They're written for us. The New Testament was written
to the New Testament church and even then had a specific audience
and it's still for us. So the whole of Scripture is
to be absorbed and understood in its context. It is one narrative. It is one story. It is one revelation
of God redeeming His people because of His love. There's not a jot
or tittle written to a lost person in the context of the entire
Bible. Not one breath of the Apostles has been written hoping
that a reprobate would hear it. It's written to the church. And the Spirit of God creates
this mind that is ours, which is the mind of Christ, who was
God, became nothing, and died as a slave, like a thief, like
a murderer. So we should have this same mind.
Husbands have that mind when you treat and endear your wives. Wives have that mind when you
respect and honor your husbands. Children have that mind when
you obey your parents. Parents have that mind when you
discipline your children. Slaves have that mind when you
serve your master. Master have that mind when you
love your slave. boss and employee and everybody
alike in every relationship. Church, have this mind among
you. This is love. And until these
things are perfected in us, beloved, the body of Christ should not
be about any other business. I want you to hear that. Until
the love of God is perfected in us in this discipline, the
church should not be about any other business. Why? Because
this is the business of God. This is the gospel ministry.
This is the point of the church. This is proper ecclesiology.
that God has formulated fallible people who are worthy of wrath,
who are sinful to the core, and He's saved them by His mercy,
He's illuminated this revelation, He's given them the revelation
of this mercy through Jesus Christ, He's caused them to believe,
and then He puts them together as we saw last week in 1 Corinthians
12, as He sees fit for the mutual benefit, so that when we love
each other, we all have a role and a part in that context. And
it starts and ends in the sense of the assembly. When we're able
to be together, let's be together. And let's be intentional about
these things. And those who are brothers and
sisters, they confess the essence of Christ. They confess the truth
of Christ. They confess the gospel of Christ.
They do not make concessions about the gospel. Because when
they do, what does the scripture teach us? Well, let me show you what the
Bible says here. Oh, and the spirit that is within us will
testify to us that the word of God that was used in our correction
gently and calmly and patiently because God teaches, not James,
not you, God teaches through the scripture alone. Then the
Spirit of God that is in unity, that is the same Spirit, will
teach one another and create unity. God is walking and we are walking
with God when we are in the gospel. So we have come to believe the
love that God has for us. We've come to know it and to
believe it. And God is love, and whoever
abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this,
love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence for
the day of judgment. This is review, but I feel like
we just need to get through to get the essence of it, because
it's written as one thought. We beat ourselves up, we have
convictions, we have fears, we have anxiety. We have anxiety
because we feed ourselves anxiety. We eat it. We turn on the news
and we watch all the anxious junks going on around the world.
We turn on the radio, we hear it all. We turn on talk radio,
we open up the newspaper, we open up social media. And the world is hungry for something. Our lost friends and the reprobate,
everybody's hungry for something. What do they want? They want
to feed the flesh. Our flesh wants to feed itself. But we
must fight that and we must together understand that the love of God
is the greatest food that we could eat. That the word of God
is the bread of life. That Jesus Christ himself is
the bread that came down from heaven to give life to his people. And so we don't need to feed
ourselves anxiety. We don't need to engage in these anxious conversations.
We need to trust because anxiety by definition is a lack of faith
in the faithfulness of God. How many times a day are you
anxious? I don't know, let me tell you how many times a day
I'm not and it's easier to count. So don't stand there and look
at me, man, I wish I could be a rock-like pastor. You don't be a rock,
I'm Plato, man. Only time I'm hard is if I get
stuck on the dash in the summer and you pick me up and I crumble.
Christ is my rock. Christ is your rock. We are not
rocks. We are clay in the potter's hands. We are sheep wondering
where our shepherd is. Standing in the mire, wallowing
in the mud, wondering why we're so dirty. Why am I so dirty?
I mean, you know, get out of the mud, silly. It's silly. We're such silly
people, but yet we have the remedy, and the remedy is not our fault.
It's God's fault. The remedy is God's to give and
God's to command and God's to work into us. And that's why
we're together, that we might be encouraged to maintain a steady
diet of truth and a steady intimacy with truth with each other. And because of that, we have
confidence. We aren't worrying not only about the day or about
tomorrow or about yesterday or about each other, but we are
confident that the Lord is going to work all these things out
for our good. And we are confident to know that the means to which
he has promised these things are right here. right here with
us in the scripture together. And there is no fear in love
that perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment
and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. This is what
I'm talking about. You know, I preach ahead of the
text. We love because he first loved us. So if anyone says I
love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. Why? Because the
only way you can love God is to love your brother. The only way you can love God
is to serve. The only way you can love God
is to rest in his promises through loving each other. See how backwards
we think love is? Love is not a feeling. Love, even for humanity, and
I know my philosopher friends will argue with me, but that's
OK. It's the way I see it in the
sense in which I'm speaking. It's not wrong, it may just be
incorrect. Isn't that the same thing? Not necessarily. Love is not a disposition. Love is an action. Love is a presentation of one's
life to another. God presented his son and took
his life as the picture of love. Husbands and wives come together
as one flesh, and neither belongs to themselves, but each other
belongs to the other, just like we belong to Christ, our husband. So all these shadows and all
these relationships, we're to live them out as a temporary
trial run hoping for the day that we will
not sin anymore. And so when we're not doing these
things, as I've often been told as a child, that idle hands are
the devil's workshop. Idle minds are the devil's workshop.
And I always envision the devil sitting there at a table, creating
some chaos, like an elf on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or something.
These pictures that float through my head when I hear these phrases
are all childish. But it's not a game. It's not
a childish reality. It's not a fairy tale. The enemy
is actively working by the sovereignty of God, being sent where he wants
him to go. And he has the authority by God
to exercise menacing things in the minds of believers. But he
can't take our faith. And he can't take the redemption
of God. God has promised that because
He loves us, that we will be perfected in that love. And that
when we say we love God, who we cannot see, yet we do not
love our brother who we can see, that we're lying. What are we
lying about? That we love God. Not that we're
lost, that we love God. And you understand that as we
continue, I'm just preaching all three of John's letters,
2 John and 3 John are illustrations were their responses, John's
responses to loving action in two churches. So they received
this letter, they are doing the work, just like the Thessalonians,
I didn't keep, I wanted to read the whole, I should have read
the whole thing, but the Thessalonians were known for their love, for
their compassion, for their kindness, for their temperament, for their
patience. And then John writes these other
two letters to say, okay, you're loving well, but there's an area
here where you need to understand hospitality is not okay. Same
thing with third John. Those are one sermons, maybe
two sermons a piece. Third John writing to Gaius about
all he's doing for the brothers. The commandment of Christ is
that whoever loves God must also love his brother. Now, last week
we were in 1 Corinthians 13. Turn there with a little bit
of time we have left. I want to finish that. And you notice some of the things
that have been in my heart and my mind this morning have given
allusion to my childhood, the way I think, the pictures that
come to my mind. Because that is the moment. Childhood
is the season where, for those of you who understand anything
about classical education, you understand the trivium. You understand
that we teach things in certain ways, some rote memory, some
rhetoric, and logic, and critical thinking skills. But in those
early days of childhood, we are programmed. And I'm saying that
in a very sterile and benign sense. But that's what we do.
We teach our children. Children, as children, we developed
our belief systems. I'm not talking about spiritual
beliefs. Sometimes we can, but sometimes we're not. Some of
us didn't come from Christian homes or spiritual homes or biblical
homes. By the way, we have a belief
system, we have worldviews, the way we look at politics, the
way we ditto what our parents and grandparents and those people
that we esteem around us, our vernacular, the way we stand,
me and my brothers, we all stand and hold our hands exactly like
our father, we're all standing in a room, we're all like, all
four of us just standing like this. We have the same laugh,
we have the same diction in certain words, answer the phone in like
manner, it's weird. We just pick these things up
and this is true. And so we have to then as we
grow and we learn to think and we learn to critically evaluate
that which we have inside of us, why do we believe what we
believe? That's when it becomes real belief.
That's when it becomes real learning. Not that I can mimic it or copy
it or repeat it, but that I know it and I have learned it for
myself. And I think that's the biggest problem that we have
in the church today. in our culture today, in every
discipline, and especially the body of Christ, is that we are
walking around with the, it's gonna sound bad, but we're walking
around with the wastebaskets of history. And I'm not even
talking about antiquity, I'm talking about last week's history.
You know, Pastor Tippin said last week, I wrote that down,
I've just been living by that. Good, okay, but if it's not your
belief based on what the scriptures taught, then throw it away. Put it in a fortune cookie because
that's about the greatest value that it has. Love never ends. You know what
does end? This pulpit. This assembly. This community. The food we distribute. The money
we distribute. The care we distribute. Everything we do in life, it
ends, doesn't it? The pets, the parenting, the washing the clothes,
it all ends. The books, you know there's not
going to be a library in heaven? There's not going to be one book in the new world. I can downsize my house. And we're not going to be looking
at what I had to say. We're going to be learning and
hearing what Christ is saying this very day forevermore. Love never ends. Teaching and
preaching ends. Languages end. Knowledge ends. Love is patient and kind. It does
not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It
does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing,
but rejoices with the truth. 1 Corinthians 13 7. Read there
with me. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love endures all things. What is it that rests and stays? He closes this passage out. So now faith, hope, and love
abide. Everything else is gone. The only thing that's going to
remain is faith, trusting and resting in the finished work
of Christ, His promises, believing God. Let's just simplify faith
for now as the church. Believing God. Everything God
has to say and promise. Believe Him. Hope, because we
believe Him, we have hope in that which He's promised. That's
what faith produces. And love abide. The greatest
of these three is love. Now this is God speaking. There's no caveat here. Paul
gives caveats when he's given his fatherly wisdom. I, not the Lord, say, it might
be better for you to do this. No, right now God is speaking.
And God's Word says, the Spirit says, the greatest of all the
things that remain is love. Why? Because God is love. God remains. You see how backwards
it is? How is my love? What if it fades? It's not about a feeling. I don't
know who sang that song, but I don't want to sing it because
it will ruin everything. God is love. The work of God
as love in His love for His people remains. The gospel never fails. His word never ends. So our love for Him will never
end. Because in some sense we don't
know and it's not for us to figure out because we'll be trying to
capitalize on it for the future. In some sense, we will also love
one another in like manner for all eternity. What does it look like? It bears
all things. How does that work? Well, let's
look at it from God's perspective, then let's look at it from our
perspective. God's love bears all things with us. He is satisfied
in his wrath. So the love of God sees sin in
my life. God sees sin. The love of God
says, well, Christ paid for that sin. Let me discipline the one
I love to teach him what is beneficial for him. Don't put your hand
in the fire, dummy. It bears all things. So how then do we? If God is
patient with us, are we not able to be patient with one another?
If God has forgiven us, are we not able to forgive one another? You know how hard it is to forgive?
It's very hard. It's easy to say, oh, I forgive
you. And in that moment, there is an emotional euphoric just
feeling, wow, we've got unity. And you go home and sleep on
it. You wake up at 3 in the morning. I still can't believe that man
did me like that. I cannot believe that woman said
that to me. I cannot believe that bank treated
me like that. I cannot believe my elder brother
called me out like that. How dare he? And then what? We're
entitled. We haven't forgiven anything.
And that is so hard. I used to think I was the greatest
forgiver until I got older and realized
I was just too busy to worry about it before with little children. Just want freedom. I mean, and
then when you got a little bit more margin, you start to think
about things and you're like, I haven't forgiven this person.
You see him and you go, I love him. Oh, I wish he hadn't come
today. You see what I'm saying? But
love bears all things. The love of God bears with us. carries us. The burden of our
sin has been put on the shoulders of Christ. He bore the burden
of our guilt in His flesh. The least we can do is bear each
other's burdens. That's a minimum. You see, That's
just not my temperament. That's great. Then you're not
going to carry a burden that's going to be apart from what God
has called you to carry. There are many types of burdens
and there are many types of gifts. There are many types of parts
of the body. If I want to carry that piano, I can't do it with
my pinky toes. If I want to move this stage,
I can't pick it up with my teeth. I can't pick it up at all. I
need some help. Come help. We need about six of us to pick
this thing up. You see, so when we are together and we're learning,
we're reminded of the gospel. We're reminded of the love of
God that bears all things. And then in that, we are also then
called to bear all things. So as the opportunity permits
itself, that is what love looks like in the church. But it starts
in the mind. And I'll tell you what, beloved,
the hardest thing we could do for anybody is to pray for them.
To pray blessings. I've got that question now. What
does it mean to pray blessings on your enemies? I've got 27
questions. You don't take three weeks off
in a row. I don't think we'll get through all these. But it
bears all things. We pray. We can pray for each
other. Now here's the next one. It believes all things. See how
that sounds? We're automatically on the offensive. Gotta spray Lysol on that virus.
I don't believe false teaching. It's got not even the context
here. Well, I know you just got off the mountain of Hamarama
and you believe in the God of the sunflower, but come on, brother.
I mean, come on, guys. That's not what it's talking
about. It's talking about when the testimony of someone comes
to us. And there's more to it than this,
but we're not preaching out of first Corinthians right now.
The testimony of someone comes to us in intimacy or in conflict
or resolution or in love or anything. We accept it. We accept it. We accept an apology. We accept the information. We
believe unless there is sufficient evidence not to. We don't live
in a place of suspicion ever. How many things do you hear a
day that are suspect? If you're feeding yourself anxiety,
I know most of it. The idea of fake news is all
over the place. We believe all things. Love believes
all things. It believes that which is expressed
in love. It believes that when we see
our brother or sister praying for us that they're praying for
us. It believes that when we see someone serving us that they're
serving us out of love. It believes and it doesn't consider
the alternative. It's not suspicious. It's not irritable. It's not
resentful. It just believes. Thank you. We don't look for
ulterior motives behind the service of others. I mean, you look at that for
a second. Or some examples that we see in the scripture. I mean,
a lot of things are going through my mind right now, but. We see the work of the apostles
and the labor that they gave and the suffering that they experienced
through it all. And yet many people wanted to
ride their coattails, right? Sort of like Twitter hashtags. There's an entire marketing scheme.
When you see something trending on social media for a hashtag,
you can somehow ride that wave. And marketing companies are very
good at it now. There's going to be something about the forest
burning in Australia. It could be like, save the trees. And
then a logging company comes along with a hashtag. I mean,
you know, getting some juice out of it. And that's what's
happening. And where a lot of people still
today, they want to ride the wave. They want to ride the wave. And it's easy to be suspect.
And I've been accused of that kind of suspicion in the years
past. Oh, the only reason you're saying that is to blah, blah,
blah. Well, how about maybe the Lord just brought it to my mind? I haven't heard you say it. I'm
sorry that I plagiarized 1 Corinthians. And my teaching, believe all
things. And there's depth there, but
you know what I'm talking about. You know the difference when
your spirit and your spirit in the spirit of your mind and your
heart, when somebody tells you something, you go, I don't really
believe that. And we should. Hope's all things. This doesn't
even sound normal. How does love hopes all things? Well, the very thing that we
saw. Love never stops understanding that the love of God is where
the hope comes from. And these things aren't really
to be parsed out like I'm doing them. I'm just giving some examples
to help us understand what love looks like. Because long before
the service starts for the physical acting of love, this is the mindset. It bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love doesn't fail. The love of
God doesn't fail, so the love of the body of Christ for itself
doesn't fail because it is our love for God. It hopes. Love doesn't sit around
and worry about the end result of love. Well, if I do this,
then this will happen. Oh, now, what's the opposite
of that? Manipulates all things. Even if it's for the common good.
Even if it's for the outcome that we think would be best.
Love doesn't manipulate. Love doesn't insist upon its
own way. Love doesn't try to work around the sovereignty of
God and His power. Love hopes in Christ. Love hopes in the power of God.
Love hopes in His sovereignty. I mean, put it in the gospel
perspective. I believe in the finished work of Christ, but
I better do this in order to prove that I am in Him. We call
that what? Adding to the gospel. Paul would call it damnable in
Galatians. Don't add to the gospel. We hope
We don't work around to try to see how we can bring about the
outcome that we need. What is the promises of God?
The promises of God are yes, it is so, amen. So in those things,
love can hope. We can believe that when we love
as God has fit us together to love, that the hope that we have
is in the hands of the Lord. And of course, bearing and enduring.
seem to be the same, but they're not. Bearing certainly takes
endurance, but ultimately, that's weird, ultimately enduring comes
with the idea of suffering. Bearing is carrying something,
being willing to take it upon oneself, but enduring is when
we carry that, hopefully knowing and believing in our love for
one another, we are going to be, it's going to cost us. It's
going to be a little bit painful. As Paul would say to the Hebrews,
you're in need of endurance. After you've run the race, you'll
be able to sit down and hold fast. How do we do that? Because Christ has gone before
us. Christ endured the suffering
and the shame. Christ endured the reproach of
sinners. Christ endured the wrath of God. That is love. And so if Christ
can endure the wrath of God for me, what is it that any of you
could dish out that I should not be able to endure? Or that
I should not be called to endure? I don't believe that old silliness
that God only put on you what you can handle. My man, he must have had my tag
mixed up with somebody else's a long time ago. Somebody must
have mixed my chart up at birth. Because he's been dumping stuff
on me that I've never been able to handle and still to this day
can't handle. I can't handle the burden of joylessness in
the body of Christ. I can't stand it. I can't handle
division. I can't emotionally stand under
it. I can't stand it. when God is
working mightily in the hearts and lives of His people and then
somebody comes in and just wrecks just like a bowling ball down
the middle of a prayer meeting. I can't stand it when marriages
fall apart and children rebel. I can't endure that. I can't
endure that when people slip out of this life not in Christ
and then they ask me to preach the funeral. And I love preaching
funerals because it's an opportunity to preach Christ. That's not
within my human ability to handle these things. But God, because
of His love, and because of His means of grace, through the Word
and through the body, we are able to endure. Because love
endures all things. It's not I who live, but Christ
who lives within me. I live by faith in the Son of
God, who what? loved me, gave himself for me. So that is the power of love. That is the purpose of love.
Because in our love, we give glory to God in ways that no
preaching can. Preaching will cease. Because believe it or not, beloved,
the church is not all about sitting down and hearing the Word continually.
The church is to hear the Word. I might have to preach Ephesians
again one day. But the church is to hear the Word so that The church can be trained and
prepared and equipped to do the work of the ministry, which is
to love one another, to speak the truth in love. What does it look like to speak
the truth in love? When we have to say the truth and we speak
the truth, the truth then is believed. The truth does not
what? Beg its own way or insist on
its own way. The truth often stings the hearer. The truth sometimes doesn't feel
as pleasant as it should. So it's often argued that the
truth is not loving. Well, you're just not loving.
Well, it is loving. It is loving. Discipline is love. Correction
is love. Service is love. Bearing is love. Praying is love. Giving is love. But why do we speak the truth
in love? That we may grow up, we may all grow up into maturity,
into the manhood of Christ, adulthood. Because as Paul says in 1 Corinthians
13, 8, I've already said it, love never ends. Everything else
does. Verse 11, he says, when I was
a child, I spoke like a child and I thought like a child and
I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up
childish ways. I find that interesting that
he puts it there. But if you know anything about this letter,
and if you know anything especially about the introduction of the
first chapter, Paul calls them infants. Why does he call them
infants? Because they're ignorant of the
gospel? No. They know the gospel. Because they're ignorant of gospel
living. which is love. They're ignorant of long-suffering.
They're ignorant of patience. They're ignorant of being nothings
rather than trying to be somethings. So that's the first step in the
context of what it means to love is quit trying to be something.
Let's quit trying to be God's soldier. Let's quit trying to
be God's apologist. God doesn't need a soldier. He
doesn't need an apologist. The Word of God is Him. He cuts down
the nations with his mouth. It is so over. It's not going
to be an army of angels fighting an army of fallen angels. There's
not going to be tanks and junk and helicopters and missiles
shooting at God. Is that a gnat? I mean, what is
this? And that's still marvelous. It's
just not that way. God's love is everlasting. And it will not fade. But we
get to the place sometimes where we think we've got to become
something more than a lover of the brethren. It starts and ends there. Because
everything that we do rises and falls with the local assembly
of the saints. Everything we do has everything
to do with the relationships we have. in covenant, because
of God. Because otherwise, where's the
accountability? Otherwise, where's the correction? Otherwise, where's
the hope? Otherwise, where is there ever going to be a continuity
of gospel learning and gospel living? Because I know me. If I get upset with something
over here, I can eat at this restaurant next week. May not
be the same taste, but at least I don't have to deal with that.
And that's how we have approached the gospel of free and sovereign
grace sometimes. Just find the place that I like
the taste. And love doesn't do that. Love
endures the tastelessness or the nastiness of the meal because
it continues to focus on the taste of the bread of life, which
is sweet and fulfilling. And we need to grow and not be
like children. who even when children share,
it's just a step away from saying, that's mine. This life is not
our own, beloved. And as we continue to learn in
this letter, we will see that love goes hand in hand with the gospel.
And we're gonna have to learn what it looks like, and we're
gonna have to learn what it does, and we're gonna have to learn
how to do it. That's why we're here. And the beginning and the end
of that is always God is love. And he loves us and he will never
not love us and he never hasn't loved us. And because he loved
us, he proved his love and showed his love and revealed his love
in the giving of his son for us. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your
love. I thank you for your son. I thank you for your mercy. I thank you, Lord, that no matter
how hard it is today, and though we may not know anything about
tomorrow, we do know about the future. We do know about your love manifest
in the consummation of your body, the body of Christ. of your people,
your children, whom you have adopted through the blood of
Jesus. So Lord, keep us focused on this truth. Keep us focused
on the gospel. Help us to be discerning concerning
the gospel. And Lord, don't allow us to be
deceived by the world and by the flesh to think that we are
not subject to the commands of Christ. For you have loved us first,
so we ought to love each other. Let us be about that business
because Lord, you thwart the plans of the proud. And sometimes
we as your people are the proud. And we need to know that we are
living in a way that honors you. And so together, let us be like
Christ. to serve and to love and to live
under the truth of the gospel, amongst gospel bearers, objects
of mercy, those who you have given life to through Christ.
And we thank you for this time together. We thank you for the
truth. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you, church.