We have been working our way
through at a snail's pace in the first chapter of Paul's letter
to the church at Ephesus, and in the course of that very slow,
painstaking, verse-by-verse, word-by-word study, we came to
the first statement of the second major paragraph, verse 15, in
which the Apostle Paul records his reaction to the report he
received of the growing faith and love of the Ephesian believers. And so having expounded that
verse and then thinking of a number of situations which have arisen
in my pastoral dealings with you as a congregation, I felt
it to be the part of wisdom to amplify the theme introduced
by Paul's words concerning the love of the brethren And so we
have spent some four or five weeks treating the basic theme
of love to the brethren, and we've been very exclusive in
our consideration of that love, namely, how that love acts and
reacts in the presence of the sins of the saints. One of the
hard realities of the Christian life which must be faced by every
individual believer and by the corporate fellowship of God's
people, is that though as a body of regenerate people there is
this basic release from the dominion of sin and this pursuit of entire
conformity to Jesus Christ, none of us has yet attained, and there
are varying degrees of remaining corruption left in all of us,
as James says, In many things we all offend. If a man say he
have no sin, he deceives himself and the truth is not in him.
Therefore, one of the great demands made upon the love of the brethren
is in this very area. How does love react in the presence
of the sins of the saints? And more church fusses and more
occasions to grieve and quench the Holy Spirit have come to
pass in evangelical churches through a failure to know how
love reacts in the face of sin that have ever come to pass through
such things as gross heresy and gross immorality. And so we spent
a good bit of time considering love's response to the sins of
the brothers all the way from Peter's directive, fervent love
that covers the multitude of faults, to the directive of Paul
in 1 Corinthians 5, in which love will actually excommunicate
a man and give him up to Satan for the destruction of his flesh.
And everything in between, the biblical directives to how we
treat sin amongst the people of God, are couched in the context
of love. But love needs directive. As
an old Puritan has said, law is love's eyes and without it
love is blind. And these many passages which
we have studied tell us how love is to react in the face of the
sins of the saints. Now today I wish to focus on
a second major aspect of brotherly love, namely the response of
brotherly love to the tangible material needs of the saints. And I've actually used my Rogers
or Roget's thesaurus in trying to find some better words than
tangible and material, and I've drawn a blank. And I'm using
those words in contrast to what we would naturally call more
spiritual needs. We've dealt with what love does
when it sees sin in a brother. It rebukes him if the sin is
of the nature that demands rebuke. It will exhort him. It will seek
to restore the brother that is overtaken in the fault. If the
sin will not be faced, love takes the two or three witnesses. And
then if the sin is still not dealt with, love will go to that
final thing, even church discipline and excommunication. But we were
thinking then of those things that we might call, for the sake
of clarification, though not technically, the more spiritual
needs of the saints. But now in contrast to that,
we want to deal today with those tangible, material needs of the
saints, and how does love respond in that context? And what I wish
to do is to be selective in the passages that I expound this
morning because the scriptures are so full, Old and New Testament,
of positive, detailed directives that this would go on for months
if I tried to expound even the major passages. But I want to
focus upon two pivotal passages convinced If we can lay hold
of the substance of these two passages, we have the framework
of everything else that Scripture teaches on the subject. The first
passage is 1 John chapter 3. Now remember, all we're attempting
to do this morning is to get some light on this basic issue,
how does love respond to the tangible, material, visible needs
of the saints? 1 John chapter 3. beginning with verse 14. And
I shall conclude with the reading of verse 19. We know that we
have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in
death. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him. Hereby know we love, because
He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the world's goods,
and beholdeth his brethren need, and shutteth up his compassion
from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My little children,
let us not love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed
and in truth. Hereby shall we know that we
are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before him." Now, as
we think our way through the passage and giving a brief exegesis
of the mind of the Spirit found in this particular portion of
Scripture, we should do so in the following way. First of all,
we see John states a principle, and then he anticipates and answers
a question, and then he gives an exhortation, and then he draws
a conclusion. So you have a principle stated,
A question anticipated and answered, an exhortation given, and a conclusion
drawn. All right? First of all, what
is the principle that John states? Verse 14. We know we have passed
out of death into life because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not abideth in death. One of John's purposes in writing
this epistle is clearly stated in 1 John 5, verses 12 and 13,
in which he says, These things have I written unto you that
believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that
ye have eternal life. He wrote in order to strengthen
the assurance of believers. Now, the things he gives them,
by which their assurance is to be strengthened, are these tests
of life. How can I know that I've passed
from death unto life? Well, in this passage John says,
if there is this love to the brethren resident in our hearts
and exemplified in our lives, we can have assurance that we
are those who have passed from a state of spiritual death into
a state of spiritual life. And so the principle stated is
that love of the brethren is the evidence of spiritual life. He states it positively in the
first part of verse 14. In the last part of verse 14
and verse 15, he states it negatively. Whosoever hated his brother is
a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him. So there's the principle stated
very simply. The youngest child amongst us,
if he is paying attention, can understand it. If you love the
brethren, an evidence of life. If you don't love the brethren,
an evidence of death. Now then, John anticipates a
question and he answers that question which he anticipates.
And the question he anticipates is this. Alright John, I'll accept
your principle. The presence of love, evidence
of life. Absence of love, evidence of
death. But John, I have a problem. How
can I tell if I have that love? I agree with you. All right,
I'll accept the statement. If I love, I have life. If I
don't love, I don't have life. But how can I know if I have
love? If I want to know if I've gained weight, I get on the scales.
Whether I like it or not, the scales don't lie, if they're
anywhere near accurate. If I want to know if I'm six feet tall,
I get by an accurate measurement. If I want to know if I've got
TB, I go and have some x-rays. But now, how do you know if you
love the Brethren? Is there some kind of a love-ometer that I
can pull out from under the pulpit and go around and put it on the
heart of everyone? How can you tell if you love the brethren?
Well, John anticipates that question. Sure, it's as though the readers
say, John, that's wonderful. I want to know that I have life.
I want to make sure that I'm not just some religious goat
who says he's one of the Lord's sheep. And I see, John, that
if I'm joined to Christ, I'll love all who are joined Him.
But how can I tell if I have love? John anticipates the question,
and then he answers it in this way. Hereby know we love. Because. And he says, all right,
now how do we discern God's love? If you get hold of that, then
you can get hold of the principle how you discern your own love.
Hereby know we love because He laid down His life for us. How do we know God loves us?
And I say it reverently, but for the sake of illustration,
not because God has made a love-ometer and put it upon His own heart
and then sent the results down to us and put them in a museum
in every hamlet. No, no. The cross of His dear
Son is the monument, the demonstration of His love. Hereby know we love
because He laid down His life for us. We know God's love, particularly
in this passage. We know the love of Christ. because
of His tangible, sacrificial response to our tangible and
tragic need as sinners. God beholding us, wallowing in
the filth of our sin and uncleanness, knew that there was no way that
we ever could be made acceptable to Him except through the mediation
of His Son. And so his love moved him to
respond to that very tangible need at great personal cost. And now John says, and if that
love is in us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. See the parallel? How do we read
God's love? By that disposition to lay down
his life for us. How do we know if we have love?
By that disposition to give, if necessary, even our most precious
possession, life itself, we will give it on behalf of our brethren.
Love is discerned not by putting some kind of a love-ometer upon
the heart, but by the willingness to respond at great cost to tangible
need by tangible deeds of love. But in John's day and in ours,
very few are called upon to make that supreme evidence of love. So John goes on to say, but even
though love in the heart of a believer for other believers, which is
an evidence of life, will move him to make that supreme sacrifice,
few are called upon to do that. But whoso hath this world's good,
and seeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion
from him, how doth the love of God abide in him?" If you have some material substance,
which will meet your brother's evident need and you shut up
your heart, John's question is, how does God's love abide in
you? The very love which, if abiding
in you, will move you to give your most precious possession,
life itself, if it doesn't move you to open up your hand a little
bit, how can it be in you? It's like some guy coming into
town bragging that he's the strongest man on the East Coast. He says,
you put an elephant on the platform and put some chains around it
and get a neck brace and I can lift it 18 inches off. And he's
bragging all the time. So one day you're out walking
your dog and your dog happens to fall into a ditch and that
man's walking by and he says, mister, will you please pick
my dog up? And he bends over to pick your dog up and he's
grunting and he's groaning and he walks away and says, I can't
do it. Well, immediately you say, wait
a minute. You're the guy that says you can pick up an elephant?
and you can't pick up my dog, you're just a lot of hot air." That's what John is saying. That's
what John is saying. John is saying in answer to the
question, how do we know if we have love dwelling in us? We
know God's love by the giving of His very life for us. And
if that love is in us, it will move us if necessary to give
our very lives for our brethren. Now then, here's a man who claims
to be a Christian, in whom this kind of love is dwelling, and
he sees the dog in the ditch. And he has no strength to lift
the dog. Can he lift an elephant? If he won't give something that
is external to him, his world's goods, he won't reach into his
pocket and take out of his substance. Will he allow someone to reach
into his veins and take out his blood? That's John's argument. When that love is there by the
implantation of divine life, he says, it will express itself,
if necessary, in the highest sacrifice, but certainly in the
lesser. And so, in anticipation of the
question, John's answer is, how do you know if love is there?
You'll know it by its response to the tangible needs of your
brethren. You see your brother in need.
You have wherewith to meet it and you don't? How does the love
of God dwell in you? God didn't act that way. His
love saw us in our need. His love poured itself out to
meet that need. So then we've looked at the principles
stated, verse 14 and 15, positive, negative. The question anticipated
and answered in verses 16 and 17. That leads us to an exhortation
given in verse 18. My little children, in the light
of the principle we've established, the question we've anticipated
and answered, here's my exhortation. My little children, let us not
love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and in truth. Now this is a figure of speech.
We touched on it in the adult class this morning. It is an
absolute for a relative. In other words, John is not condemning
the verbal exchanges of affection amongst brethren. If so, he broke
his own commandment time after time. When he introduces his
second epistle, how does he do it? The elder unto the elect
lady and her children, whom I loved. He's loving in word. Third John. The elder unto Gaius, the beloved,
whom I loved. He's loving in words. So what
is John saying here? In his exhortation is he saying,
now you Christians, I don't want any verbalizing of your affection
for one another. No, that would both be unnatural
and it would be cruel. We need to verbalize our love,
just as a husband and wife need to. And no amount of the acts
of love will substitute for those whisperings of those little sweet
nothings. And if you don't think that's so, some of you husbands
ought to ask your wife. Some of them would just feel
that, well I don't know what they'd feel if you just sat down
and looked them in the eye and took them by the cheeks and said
you loved them. You love them for washing all
your dirty underwear day after day and week after week and stuffing
them back in your drawer with dirty socks of yours and cleaning
up the shaving cream that you leave all over the kitchens and
all over the bathroom sink. Picking up your smelly shoes
from under the bed and sticking them back in the closet. How
long has it been since you told her, dear I love you for all
the things you do. And then when she doesn't do
them, just tell her you love her for what she is. Sure, we need
this in any human relationship. And we need it amongst the brethren.
John is not forbidding the verbalizing of our love, but he's speaking
as God spoke to Israel in Jeremiah 7.22. He says, look, when I called
you out of Egypt, I didn't talk to you about sacrifices and offerings.
I talked to you about obedience. Well, he did talk to them about
sacrifices and offerings. If you don't believe it, work
your way through Leviticus, as I've done recently in my own
devotions. He said an awful lot about sacrifices. and oblations
and washings and all the rest. But what he's saying is, look,
the main thing I was after was not that you could come at the
right time in the right place and bring the right offering
in the right way. The whole thrust of all of this was to bring you
into covenant relationship to myself, a relationship of love
and obedience. Now that's the figure of speech
that John is using here. His exhortation is, brethren,
Let's not be concerned primarily about the verbal expressions
of our love. Talk is cheap. But let our love
be, and he says two things, indeed, that is, in the tangible response
to tangible need. Hungry tummies are not filled
with words but with food. James chapter 2. Where James
is showing the emptiness of faith without works, he uses an illustration
that underscores that point. He says, if a brother comes to
you destitute and hungry and you say, hello brother, I love
you more, be filled. Does he go away filled with the
hot air that's come out of your mouth? That's James' argument. No, he goes away hungry, he says,
unless you give him that which is made for the tummy. And words
aren't made for the tummy. Food's made for the tummy. Cold
bodies are not warmed by the breath of a mouth pouring out
profuse expressions of love, but they're warmed by clothing.
In other words, John is saying, look, if your tongue were ripped
out, would you still be proclaiming love to your brethren? Let us
not love in word only, but in deed, in those things that can
be read and tangibly seen. And, he says, in truth, that
is, from the heart. Here he's dealing with sincerity,
for 1 Corinthians 13 indicates you can even give your body to
be burned and not do it in truth. You can do it without love. So
Paul's exhortation in Romans 12, 9 to 13 is an excellent commentary
on John's exhortation. Let us not love in word only,
but in deed and in truth. What's that mean? Listen to Paul.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Don't let it be play-acting.
I'm going around doing my good deed for the day to the brethren.
No, no. He says, let it be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cleave to
that which is good. In love of the brethren, be tenderly
affectioned one to another. In honor, preferring one another.
Verse 13, communicating to the necessities of the saints. That's it. Let us not love in
word, but in deed, in the tangible expressions of love, in meeting
the tangible needs of the saints, and let's do it in truth. Let
your action and your attitude be expressions of love in reality
and in sincerity. That's his exhortation. Now,
what's the conclusion he draws? Verse 19, We shall know that we are of
the truth and shall assure our heart before him." He brings
us around full circle from his principle to the conclusion.
And he says, as you see yourself demonstrating love in the tangible
expressions of that love, you shall assure your own heart that
indeed you've got something more than a notion that you're a child
of God. You will know that the very quality of love that moved
the Savior to lay down His life is operative in you, because
it's enabling you to pick up puppy dogs. And if the time comes,
it'll give you grace to pick up elephants. But no puppy dogs,
no elephants. It's easy for us to say, oh sure,
I'd lay down my life for my... Well, that's pretty clever, because
you know quite surely that that pressure will never come to bear
upon you. But what are you doing about those other needs? of your
brethren, that you can and should and ought to meet. John says,
let us not love in word, but in deed and in truth. So, in
summary then, before we move from this passage, we see that
the thrust of John's word is that love is one of the indispensable
evidences of divine life, and the proof that we have that love
is its genuine response to the real needs of real saints. even as God's love was evidenced
in His response to our need. Now, without any further exhortation,
I want us to move very quickly to the 25th chapter of Matthew
for the second pivotal passage in which the principles that
John enunciates are fleshed out and form the basis then of some
very pointed exhortation. What is love's response to the
tangible needs of the brethren? Well, we've had John's answer
to the question. Now let's listen to our Lord's
answer in Matthew 25, beginning with verse 31. The first thing
we shall do as we work through this passage very quickly is
to consider the setting of the passage. But when the Son of
Man shall come in His glory, and all the angels with him,
then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him
shall be gathered all the nations, and he shall separate them one
from another, as the shepherd separated the sheep from the
goats, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats
on the left." What is the setting? All of the fanciful A strained
commentary of dispensationalists notwithstanding the setting of
this passage is the judgment of the last day. It is a parallel
passage to Revelation chapter 20 verses 11 through 15 in which
we have the picture of all the nations standing before God upon
the return of our Lord in power and in glory. And so it is just
one of the many passages dealing with the judgment of the last
day. And the whole setting is the
setting of a legal court. It will be the formal declaration
of men's eternal destiny and a public vindication of the righteous
judgment of God in the pronouncements that He makes. This is not a
passage telling a man how he becomes righteous. It is God's
formal declaration to the world of who the righteous are, not
how they became that way. If you want to find out how a
man becomes righteous, you go to Romans. You go to Galatians. And so this passage is not teaching
salvation by works, it's simply teaching a salvation that works.
And that's exactly what John taught. This is not telling us
the grounds of a man's acceptance, but the evidence that he is accepted.
These works that our Lord uses as the basis upon which he consigns
some to the pit and others are brought into heaven, these are
not meritorious works, but they are evidential works, the works
of faith. Now that's the setting of the
passage. Now then, consider first of all the King's word to the
righteous, verse 34. It's first of all a word of welcome.
Then shall the king say to them on his right hand, Come ye blessed
of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. Then he vindicates that welcome,
verses 35 and 36. Four, here's the welcome, come. Now, the reason for which the
welcome is given, vindicating that pronouncement to all the
myriads of men and angels and all intelligent creatures, for
I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat. I was thirsty, and ye
gave me drink. I was a stranger, and ye took
me in. Naked, and ye clothed me. I was sick, and ye visited
me. I was in prison, and ye came to me." Jesus said, I had need
of food, for I was hungry. Tangible need. I had need of
drink, for I was thirsty. I had need of lodging, I was
a stranger. I had need of clothing, I was
naked. I had need to be visited and nursed, I was sick. I had
need of companionship and provision, I was in prison." And he says,
you responded to these needs. He vindicates his pronouncement
that they are the righteous by saying these things about them. This is what you did to me. Now you'll notice. that they
immediately propound a question to our Lord, beginning with verse
37. The question is not, Lord, when
did we do these things? But the question is, Lord, when
saw we Thee hungry and fed Thee? And when saw we Thee sick or
in prison and came unto Thee? That's their question. Not that
they did these deeds of mercy. They were very conscious that
they had given food to some hungry people, and drink to the thirsty,
and lodging to the stranger, clothing to the naked, nursed
the sick, and provided companionship for the imprisoned. But their
question is, Lord, when did we ever see you in that state? Lord, we never saw you sick.
We've seen sick people, but not you. That's their question. Where did Christ enter in to
all of this? And then notice the answer of
our Lord. Verse 40, And the king shall answer and say to them,
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these
my brethren, even the least ye did it unto me. Jesus says, In doing this to
my brethren, you did it to me. Great question. Who are Christ's
brethren? And to say that Christ's brethren
are apostate Jews, or to even say that they are necessarily
converted Jews, is to read into the Word that which is not warranted
by the text and by cross-referencing our Lord's description of who
His brethren are. For He answers that question
in a very explicit, clear manner in Matthew chapter 12, verses
46 to 50. Some people are standing around
him who have a blood relationship to him. While he was yet speaking to
the multitudes, his mother and his brethren stood without seeking
to speak to him. And one said unto him, Matthew
12, 47, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without seeking
to speak to thee. But he answered and said unto
them that told him, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand
toward his disciples and said, Whosoever shall do the will of
my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother, and my sister,
and my mother. And what is the will of the Father?
Well, the first facet of that will is that we believe on him
whom he hath sent. For Jesus said, This is the work
of God, that you believe on him whom he hath sent. He said, These
are my brethren who have received me. For what I claim to be? Sons of the Father, the Messiah,
the only Savior of sinners. These are my brethren. I bear
a relationship to them far more intimate than the relationship
of a common gene pool and chromosomes. No, no. No, no. These are my
brethren. So when our Lord answers the
righteous and says, in treating my brethren even the least, what
is He saying? He says to the question of these
who are puzzled by the words, you did it to me, yes, you did
it to me, in the person of my disciples even, the most insignificant
despise of those disciples. Those regarded as the off-scouring
of all things and shut up in prison as some kind of pest to
society, you saw in them that which caused you to draw near
and to minister to them. And in ministering to them who
bore my likeness, who claimed attachment to me, you ministered
even unto me." So much for a basic exposition of our Lord's words
to the righteous, the question of the righteous, the answer
of our Lord. Notice the same pattern in His
words to the unrighteous. Verses 41 and 42 and 3, it's
a word of rejection. Verse 41, Then shall he say to
them in the left hand, Depart from me into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. Then the reason for that
rejection, verse 42, I was hungry, you did not give me to eat. Thirsty,
you gave me no drink. Stranger, you took me not in.
Naked, you clothed me not. Sick and in prison, you visited
me not. There he vindicates that pronouncement. Depart from me
into everlasting fire, for, here's the reason, you saw me in need
and you didn't respond to me. If you were mine by faith, you
would have responded in love to my evident need. Well, this
provokes a question on their part, just as our Lord's words
provoked a question on the part of the righteous. And what is
their question? Then shall they answer, saying, Lord, when saw
we thee hungry, or a thirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick,
and did not minister unto thee? Lord, if we had ever seen you,
we would have responded to you. But, Lord, we never saw you.
We never saw you in a prison. We never saw you famished. What is the answer of Christ?
Verse 45. Then shall he answer, saying, Verily I say unto you,
inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it
not unto me. Our Lord says, Your failure to
respond to the needs of my own, even the despised, the insignificant
ones, that indifference to their tangible need was indifference
to me. Now, so much for the basic exposition,
now I would move to some application and exhortation based upon it.
And the first is this. Our treatment of our brethren
in their tangible, visible needs is reckoned by Christ to be our
treatment of Him. May I repeat that? Our response
to our brethren in their tangible, visible needs is reckoned by
Christ to be our treatment of him. Ye did it unto me, he says
to the righteous. He says to the wicked, ye did
it not unto me. And if this is true, then there's
an awful lot of people who think they are Christ's friends who
aren't. Oh, they love the Lord in their closets, and they love
the Lord sitting isolated in the pew. They don't love the
Lord in the person of that brother or sister whose personality disgrades
against them. They don't love the Lord in the
screaming need of another brother or sister, which need could be
at least in part met by some kindness, by some benevolence,
by the investment of some time or some money. But the Lord cuts
through all that sham and says, your treatment of the brethren,
even the least of them, is your treatment of me. That brings
us right smack into the center of one of the most precious truths
in all of Scripture, the union of Christ with His people. We
are the body of Christ, and we are joined to the living head,
so that when the Apostle Paul is going around, breathing out
threatenings and slaughters and laying hands upon Christians,
and the Lord Jesus arrests him on the road to Damascus, what
words does he use? Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? You touch that little saint,
you touch me. That saint is joined to me in
a living bond of life and fellowship. You touch me, Paul. Why do you
persecute me? You think your hands are just
on some despised people following this heretical teacher who came
out of Nazareth? Oh no, Saul, you are touching
me, your Messiah and your Sovereign. If that really grips us, what
a profound effect it has upon what we do and what we don't
do to our brethren. They are joined to Christ and
my treatment of them is my treatment of him. That's the first great
principle that's here in the text. Notice what the Lord says? He didn't say, you had it in
your hearts to visit me. He said, I was in prison and
you visited. He didn't say, you had it in
your hearts to feed me. He said, you fed me. He didn't
say, you had it in your hearts to clothe me. You put some material
on my back. Oh, how clever we are. Well,
the Lord knows it was in my heart. Yeah, the Lord knows it all right.
And whoso trusteth in his own heart is a fool. The Lord says
that. Well, it was in my heart to go. Yes, I know it was in
your heart to go. But did you go? I was in prison
and it was in your heart to visit me? No, you visited me. I was
sick, you came to me. Hungry, you fed me. Thirsty,
you gave me to drink. Oh, may God help us to see that
Christ comes to us again and again in the person of our fellow
saints and displays His needs. And John says, let us not love
in word only but in deed and in truth. And I thank God for
the measure to which this is evident in our assembly. I thank
God I can say with Paul, concerning love of the brethren, ye have
no need that I write unto you. But then he says immediately,
I exhort you to abound yet more and more. I said, I don't need
to write you, but I do. And I don't need to preach to
you people about this, and yet I do. You see? As our family has grown and the
diversity of our needs has been increased, we need to cry to
God for renewed sensitivity and that reflex response of love
to the tangible needs of the people of God, always remembering
the most despised amongst us, that brother in our midst, that
sister who's not so very comfortable to be around, maybe has some
queer ways about them. maybe a little body odor and
bad manners and it's just so easy to just avoid them. Put ourselves comfortably out
of reach where we can't discern his or her needs. That's our treatment of Christ.
That's our treatment of Christ. And the character of the wicked
is described not in terms of lechery and dishonesty and any
of these gross sins, but in terms of their failure to respond to
the needs of the people of God, which was a failure to respond
to Christ Himself. Well, the second thing that I
see in the text that we've looked at, our treatment of Christ in our dealings with the brethren,
is a most telling indication of our true spiritual state.
See, we can sit there saying, oh, I just feel so good when
I have my devotions, and I love the Lord, and the Lord is so
precious to me, and when I sing the hymns, oh my Jesus, that
sounds all right, but you know, you can deceive yourself. Do
you really love Christ? What's the true indicator of
your spiritual state? Here it is. He did it unto these. He did it not unto these. There
it is. Could it be that Christ has often
been a visitor amongst us, needing a welcome, needing a meal, the
warmth of Christian hospitality, but your plans were made? And
you know, you must not upset your plans. Could it be that Christ has been
hard-pressed, sitting in our midst? We had that little bit
salted away and we had that vacation all planned and all the rest,
so we couldn't respond to that need that Christ had. in one
of his brethren amongst us. It's a tremendous text in Proverbs
19, 17. It says, He that lendeth unto the poor, lendeth unto Jehovah. That's a pretty strong statement,
isn't it? Could it be that Christ often
sits lonely in the person of some of the widows amongst us?
While some of you sit home watching your television two, three nights
a week and never take one of those evenings to go out and
spend it with one of these widows just for companionship's sake. I'd love to be able to spend
an afternoon a week with the widows amongst us, but I can't
do it. The time that I must invest to be able to feed a flock of
150 people, I can't do it. But there are a number of you
that could invest an evening to just go and sit. You don't
need to be a spiritual giant. nor physical one or anything
else. You just come through the doorstep, come to have a sit
down, and you'd make a little bit of heaven. Could it be that
Christ has come to you and some of these widows? Their prison
is the haunting of those four walls now stripped of the echo
of a husband's voice, the sound of a husband's feet. Only a widow
knows something of the emptiness of that. Could it be that Christ
is saying, I'm there in the person of that widow? It's easy to say
we love the Lord, we're growing in grace, but my Bible says pure
religion and undefiled is what? To visit the fatherless and the
widows, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Pure religion
is not sitting at home with your love-ometer on your heart saying,
ooh boy, look how high up it's going. No, no. The third principle that
I see in the text relates to these needs and how
they apply to us. Will you notice three things
about all these needs to which the saints responded? They were
all tangible. They could be seen by the naked
eye. Hunger, nakedness, sickness in prison. In other words, you
didn't need to be an advanced saint with unusual perception
that you must be to deal with many of the spiritual problems
of the people of God. Paul says in Romans 15, 14, I
myself am convinced of you, brethren, that you are full of goodness,
full of knowledge, able to admonish. And until you have some reason
to believe you're full of goodness and full of knowledge, you better
keep your admonishing at a minimum. I don't care if you've read Competent
to Counsel twenty times. All kinds of harm can be done
by spiritual quackery, by immature people assuming the role of spiritual
counselors. But you don't need to be a spiritual
giant to pack a Scrabble game in your back pocket and go on
off and spend an evening with someone who is lonely and have
some fellowship and read a chapter of the Word and pray. You need
to be a spiritual giant to do that. You see, these needs were
tangible. They could be seen. Secondly,
they were all basically in what we would call the temporal. That
is of a non-spiritual nature. Food, companionship, clothing. Nothing very spiritual about
that. And yet it's these things that Christ said proved the love
of his people to him. And the third thing I want you
to notice about him is all those needs can be met by the average
disciple. Now he didn't say, I was in prison
and you secured my release. You need to be an influential
magistrate to do that, or a Philadelphia lawyer, and a crooked one probably
too. He didn't say, I was in poverty
and you made me wealthy. Only the wealthy could do that.
He didn't say, I was in sickness and you healed me. You'd need
to be a miracle worker for that. But he says, I was sick and you
visited me. You see? I was thirsty and you
gave me to drink. The average disciple could meet
all of those needs, the needs of immediate provision, visitation,
sympathy, the alleviation of present distress. And there's
hardly one of us here who could not on any occasion put a little
more water in the soup and stretch it a little more. I don't mean
just your literal soup. I'm in the soup of your time
and your responsibilities. Who amongst us is just sitting
around twiddling his thumbs with nothing to do? Sure, we're busy. Sure, we're busy. Sure, we're
busy. But are we so busy that we cannot
make the efforts to meet the needs of the saints of God in
this area? There's a beautiful example of
this in 2 Timothy 1. Will you turn to it please for
a moment? 2 Timothy chapter 1. We're going
to read about a man whose name has not gone down in church history
as a great preacher, great apostle, founder of churches, or anything
like that. But what a precious thing is
said about him. 2 Timothy 1.16. The Lord grant mercy to the house
of Onesiphorus. Any statues built to Onesiphorus?
I've heard of St. Paul's, St. Andrew's, St. John's Church and all the rest.
You ever hear of St. Onysiphorus? No, just out of kindness for
people's speech apparatus, they shouldn't name anyone St. Onysiphorus. But no one's named Onysiphorus.
But listen to what Paul says about it. For he oft refreshed
me, and was not ashamed of my chain. But when he was in Rome,
he sought me diligently and found me. The Lord grant unto him to
find mercy of the Lord in that day. I think Paul had reference
to the very words of Christ that we've expounded. And in how many
things he ministered at Ephesus, thou knowest very well. What
did he do? Did he come to Rome and say, anybody know where Paul
is? No, never heard of him. All right, well, I'll give...
No, he said he sought me out, what? Diligently. No evidence
that he was used to found churches, to preach sermons, to write epistles. But he says, here was the indication
of his character. What he could do was to seek
out an imprisoned apostle. Oh, you say, apostles are so
spiritual. They don't need human fellowship. They've got the Lord
who said so. Paul often unzips his heart and
lets us peek in, and he says, oh, he said, I have nobody of
like mind except this man, Timothy. He says, the Lord who comforts
us in all our trials comforted us. by the coming of Titus. You mean a man of Paul's stature
needs to have the comfort of Christ mediated through the loving
visit of a brother? Exactly. Exactly! And so it's not a matter of being
unspiritual that we need one another. Christ ministers to
us through one another. That's the way He's ordained
to do it. And so this man on a cypress seeks out Paul. How long has it been since you've
sought out a lonely one in our midst and spent an evening with
him? How long has it been since you've sought out a distressed
one and took the place of being your brother's keeper? Got close
enough to find out what the need was that you might meet that
need? Well, I see then that third area
of truth in the passage, and now I come to the fourth and
last. All of the things we've considered this morning are to
be couched in the larger context of Scripture. Keeping the balance
of truth in any area is no simple thing. Remember, first of all,
that it's treatment of the brethren, not the world. If you sit here
this morning as one who is not attached to the visible community
of God's people, and yet you expect people to respond to your
needs, you've got the welfare mentality, and that's not the
mentality of a child of God. The church provided for her own
widows, Acts 6, and in 1 Timothy 5, 8-9, Paul gave some pretty
clear reasons as to why they need to be careful in spending
their money for the widows. He said, in fact, don't enroll
one unless she's at least 60 years old. unless he's already
got a reputation for being an advanced saint. He says, if you
do otherwise and start taking in any old widows, you know what's
going to happen? So you're going to have pouring your money down
a bottomless pit. He says, for after a while they'll show their
true colors and they'll wax wanton and leave their first faith.
Ooh, there's some pretty strong stuff in there. There's a guarding
of the benevolence of the people of God. And so we need to remember
that we're dealing this morning with love to the brethren and
response to the brethren's needs. Secondly, This kind of response
is to be qualified by the other principles, such as we find in
2 Thessalonians 3, where Paul says, if a man won't work, don't
let him eat. And if he comes to you saying,
oh, look, I'm Christ coming to you with my hungry tummy, you
say, all right, I'm Christ coming to you in the words of Paul saying,
if you won't work, you don't eat. Now, I'm not being facetious. That's exactly how you meet such
a presumptuous, ignorant person. They come to you spouting the
words of Matthew 25, you lovingly quote to them the words of 2
Thessalonians 3. The man will not work, don't let him eat.
If he cannot work, then you better provide his food. If he cannot,
then you and I must respond. And then the third principle
I would say is that All of our expression of this kind of tangible
love to the tangible needs of the saints is to be governed
by our present ability. And here I take great consolation
in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, it is accounted as a man hath, not
that he hath not. How many times my wife and I
have sat and said, oh, just somehow two or three thousand would drop
out of the sky. There's so many places we'd love to put it right
now. And I can honestly say it doesn't have any reference to
our needs. But we see the needs of God's people. And then I come
back to this. It's accounted that a man hath, not that he
hath not. And then I must ask myself, but
now wait a minute, Buster, are you kidding yourself? You say
if the Lord gave you $3,000, you'd do this with it. What are
you doing with the $5 you've got left over? That's a different
story then. Then I back myself in the corner
and say, am I really being honest? And if I'm not clothing, and
feeding, and getting to drink with the five dollars, or take
my time. Oh, I'm so busy, so busy, yes.
Yes, so busy. If only I had one or two days
a week, nothing to do. Visit the widows. I would do
that. What are you doing with that evening you've got? How
are you investing that? There's the test. Unless some tender soul feel
utterly swallowed up in discouragement, let me remind you, God reads
the heart of these things and our treatment of others is to
be governed by our present ability. So then, I would admonish you
as God's people that you pray for this love, the love that
will be sensitive to and responsive to the needs of the saints of
God. What a little bit of heaven we'll
have in this place. continually, thank God for the
measure we already have, but it will get gooder and gooder,
as the little kid said. If by God's grace we not only have
that love that covers a multitude of sins, that rebukes specific
sins, and will even lead to biblical segregation or excommunication
when necessary, and then coupled with that kind of love in the
midst of our many sins, this kind of love that responds to
the tangible needs of the people of God. That day we shall join
the ranks of all true believers who shall hear the Lord say,
Enter that kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world,
for I was hungry and you fed me. naked and you clothed me.
And because a true saint knows that he's accepted not by his
own works or his own righteousness, he doesn't keep a little notebook
with all his deeds and say, oh yes, Lord, I remember that back
there on March 22nd, I went to so-and-so. That's right, Lord.
And Lord, you forgot. No, no. You see, there was none
of that. There was a self-forgetfulness. Why? Because they were occupied
with the Christ who saved them, conscious of their own unworthiness.
and yet continually meeting the needs of his insignificant ones,
so that it comes as a surprise when the judge says, this is
what you did. Well, Lord, when did we see you
when you did it to the least of my brethren? Oh, may God give
us the self-forgetfulness of genuine love to Christ, of vibrant
faith in Christ that becomes the great taproot of all the
fruits of Christian kindness and response to the needs of
the saints. One of our brethren is still
sick. I hope we continue to visit him.
You've been so faithful. Let me urge you to continue on,
not grow weary and well-deemed. There are widows amongst us who
need to be visited. If you don't know who they are,
come to the elders and ask us and we'll tell you and give you
their address and their phone number. Some of you need to start
visiting. There are others in other needs. Let's start where
we are and learn, should the time come when we are put into
a situation where we know what real privation is, perhaps we
will have learned these lessons to some degree, that we will
be instruments of grace and mercy one to another. Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, we confess
to you this day.