of Luke chapter 14. I want to read verse 26 and verse 27 and
eventually at the end of our meeting we'll get back to the
chapter that Brother Randy has read to us this morning. I want to read verse 26 and 27
of Luke chapter 14. If any man come to me, or if
any come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea,
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever
doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." At the outset this morning I
would like to ask this question, what is a disciple of Jesus Christ. What is a disciple of Jesus Christ? And then there's a further question
that I would present to you, and that is this. Am I one of
His disciples? Now, beloved, I think that it's
very important that we understand and know what a disciple is,
because, you know, we're bitten in the Word of God to go and
preach the gospel to every nation, teaching them, that word is discipling
them, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son,
the Holy Spirit, so therefore we must know what a disciple
is in order to be able to do that work. Now, beloved, to understand
ourself whether we're one of the Lord's disciples or not,
I think I should make haste to say that a disciple of the Lord
Jesus Christ is a believer. He's a believer. Somebody that
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. I was told early in my Christian
life that an individual could be a believer and not be a disciple. Well, I found out later in studying
the Word of God that such is not the case. I heard early in
my Christian life that an individual could be saved and not serve
the Lord. An individual could be saved
and not bow his knee to the Lordship of Christ. That you could be
saved and later on down the road somewhere you could bow your
knee and accept Jesus as Lord. And I found out through the study
of the Word of God that such is not the case. Now beloved,
you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. If you are what Jesus says that
you must be to be a disciple. Now I know that there are true
disciples of Christ and then there are those who are not so
true unto him, but nevertheless All believers are disciples,
and all disciples are believers. And you cannot draw a line between
the two of them. We are either saved and disciples
at the same time, or else we're not saved. Now then, what is
involved in being a disciple? Well, we know that the word means
that one is a scholar, that one is a learner, one that learns
and one who has went to school to Christ and has become a learner
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It also means that he's become
not only a scholar and an imitator or a scholar and a learner, but
he's become an imitator also of the teacher. He has followed
the Lord Jesus Christ and imitated His ways. All to be like the
Lord Jesus Christ. If we say that we know Him, we
ought to walk even as He walked. Not only are we imitators, but
we're adherents to what we've heard, what we've been taught
in the school of Christ. We become adherents. We follow
that. We become obedient unto what
the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us. Now, beloved, I pray this
morning that if you're one of those here, you say, well, I
believe that I am a disciple of Christ. I am a believer and
I believe I am a follower of Christ. I'm a scholar. I learn
of Him. I hope to learn of Him every
day. I hope to imitate Him. I hope to be a follower of Him. And also, I adhere to what He
says and what He teaches. I believe His doctrine. I stand
with Him in His truth and in His teaching. Then my friend,
I believe that you have the high privilege of, this is the highest
privilege of your life. This is a great honor for you
to be able to say, I truly am a disciple of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now if you're here this morning
and you are not a disciple of Christ, you're not a believer
on the Lord Jesus, I pray that the Spirit of God this morning
will speak to your heart and move upon your soul that you
would be brought to that place this morning where that you may
sit at His feet and receive His word from this time forth and
become a disciple of the Lord Jesus. Now the first mark, I
want to give you four marks this morning or four characteristics
of a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. and I'm going to use
four texts of scripture and I hope this morning that as we go through
these texts and as we look at them and examine them that you'll
either be able to say I'm on one side or I'm on the other.
And I hope this morning that the Spirit of God will work into
our hearts. The first mark of a disciple,
and I've read to you out of Luke 14 here, and the 26th and 27th
verse, and I'll remind you again of what it says, If any man come
to me, and hate not his father, and his mother, and wife, and
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot He cannot be my disciple. It doesn't say that he may not
be my disciple or that there's a question as to whether he's
my disciple or not. Jesus says he cannot be my disciple. Now these words prove, I think,
that the first requisite of a disciple of Christ is, number one, wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness. Now the meaning
of this passage is that Christ's disciples must so love the Lord
that in comparison with the love that they bear unto the Lord
Jesus Christ that whatever other love they have in their hearts
is not worthy of being even named love. Now we understand here,
and I know this verse has been a puzzling verse to a great many
people because there have been some that have taught or supposed
that Christ really wished men to hate their father, their mother,
or their wife, or their brothers and sisters, their children.
But beloved, the Lord Jesus was not teaching any such thing as
this. It is not possible for a man
to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ and hate anybody. It is not possible for us to
be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ and have hatred in our
heart toward anybody. For the religion of Jesus Christ
is a religion of love and hatred must be expelled from the bosom
of those who receive it. So it is inconceivable that anybody
who would hate his father or his mother could be a disciple
of Christ. That would be a violation, would
it not, of the first commandment that our Lord gave that was with
promise, which bids us honor our father and mother, and certainly
Jesus never taught anything contrary to the commandments of his father. He who hated his own mother would
be a monster. He who hated his father would
be a monster and not a disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus who
cared for his mother amid the agonies of the cross. and does not nature itself teach
us that our love should certainly flow out to those who were the
very authors of our being and who so kindly cared for us when
we were in our infancy. So beloved, we must love our
fathers and mothers and our wives and our brothers and sisters.
Should not a man love his wife? Has ever yet man hated his own
flesh? The Bible says that a man ought
to love his wife as he loves his own body, and Paul says,
Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church.
Now, neither can we imagine Christ as bidding anybody to hate their
own children. Nature itself dictates that we
should love our children and that we should nourish them and
that we should sustain them and care for them in this world. And we do this and we cannot
help nor do we wish to do otherwise. This is the desire of those that
have a right relationship with the Lord. is to nourish up their
children and cherish their children and to bring them up in the nurture
and admonition of Christ. And we would be traitors to Christ
if we were to try to expel from ourselves this affection that
has been implanted in us. It is only in a comparative sense,
and not literally, that this term hate here can possibly be
used. And to make this very clear,
Christ said that we're even to hate our own life. Now we know
that the next step to that would be that somebody would commit
suicide and this is a terrible sin and certainly our Lord would
not tell somebody to hate their own life, meaning take it out
and throw it away or do away with it. Now Christ said that
we're to hate our own life and as we consider what that means,
what he means here is that he wants He wants to have the Lord
Jesus Christ, and He demands to have, not only wants to have,
but demands to have first place in the hearts of all of those
who are dear unto Him. And those that are dear unto
us are to have second place in our hearts and ourselves also
are to be second to and we'll be prepared to break every earthly
tie rather than the tie which binds us to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when our Lord says we're
to hate father and mother, He does not mean literally so, but
He means that we must love Him to the point where we would never
allow father, mother, wife, brother, sister, children to interfere
with our service unto the Lord and our obedience unto Him. So the teaching of the text is
that Christ is to be loved better than all our relations. He's
to be loved better than all of our relations. It may be that
we shall never have to endure the test of choosing between
the Lord Jesus Christ and our own loved ones, but some have
had to do that in the past. Now I want to tell you this story
here about a martyr, and I think that you can probably get a better
idea of this text out of Luke 14 from that very incident than
I could possibly convey to you with any words that I might use
this morning. There was a man who was He had
been tried for his faith in the gospel and he was going to be
burned at the stake for the Lord Jesus Christ and his enemies
had failed to move him from his steadfastness and from his convictions. He had testified most surely
of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his desire to follow
him and obey him even if it meant death. But on his way to be burnt
at the stake, his persecutors, wanting to make one last attempt
to turn him around, they brought out on the road his wife and
his 11 children. He had 11 children, and they
brought him out, and his wife pleaded, my husband, be not so
willful. Do not go to the stake. And each
of the children had been taught to lay hold of the father and
say to him, father live for my sake and for mine, oh father. This was a trial which the good
man had not expected and as he stood there surrounded by his
loved ones he said, God knows how dearly I love you all and
how gladly for your sakes, He says, you know how gladly for
your sakes that I would do anything that I might do with a clear
conscience to make you happy. But compared with Christ and
his gospel which I love, with all my heart and with all my
soul, I must give you all up and treat you as if I had no
love for you, and I must go and yield up my body to be burned
for the truth of Christ. Therefore do not weep and break
my heart." And he went on and died at the stake. Now, beloved,
this is the meaning of the text of Scripture that I read to you
out of Luke, chapter 14, verse 26 and 27. Well, dear friends,
though our faith may never be subjected to this kind of supreme
test, a matter of life or death, yet we may have to be tested.
And we certainly will be tested as to whether or not we love
the Lord Jesus Christ with all of our hearts. We will be proved,
my friend, as to whether we love Christ, whether we're really
serious about our commitment to Him. Whether or not when we
said, yeah Lord, I will trust Thee, I will believe Thee, I
will walk with Thee, I will follow Thee, I will imitate Thee, whether
we were dead serious about it or not. I remember reading a
story about a bishop long ago who had a brother. And this brother
was a failure at everything he did. In that day and time, a
bishop could take a member of his family, whether he was honest
or whether he was dishonest, and he could make him a preacher,
and he could ordain him, and he would get a living or a siphon
from the church. Well, this man's brother came
to him and to this bishop and said, I want you to ordain me
so that I'll be able to get a siphon from the church. And the bishop,
being a God-fearing man, loving the Lord, said, You're not called
of God to preach, and I know you're not. And therefore, I
cannot ordain you. I cannot use my influence on
your behalf in this way. I cannot do it. I'd be glad to
help you in any way that I can, but I have no heart for this. I cannot do this. Now, beloved,
that's exactly how we must deal with our relatives when it comes
to the things of God. We must be honest with God, faithful
to God, obedient to the Lord, and He must come first in our
lives. You must either do a wrong to
Christ and to His people, or else you must appear to be hard
and unkind many times toward your relatives and toward your
friends. You've got to stand the test.
Brothers and sisters, wife, children, father and mother must never
be allowed for a moment to be put into comparison with Jesus
Christ. Charles Haddon Spurgeon told
the story about himself when he was a young man. He was converted
and about 15, 16 years old. And he very soon came to the
conviction that he must submit himself to water baptism. He must submit himself to immersion. Well, everybody in his immediate
family, while there were many believers in his immediate family,
there wasn't anyone that shared his convictions about believers'
baptism and about being submerged in water, buried in a watery
grave in order to confess the Lord Jesus Christ. And those
that were nearest and dearest to him did not agree with him
in this matter. So he laid the case out before
them that he might have permission to carry out his convictions. that he might get convictions,
or that he might get permission from his parents to follow his
convictions and to be baptized. But at the same time, he told
them, as a young man, he said, if the permission does not come,
I shall obey my Lord's command, for in this case, I own no father
or mother, but simply do as my Savior bids me. in the matters
of our following Christ. and their obedience to Him. Christ
alone, beloved, is our leader. Christ alone is our master. Christ
alone must be followed. And our conscience can never
own any supremacy but that of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we
must keep that in mind. Our conscience, I say, and you
maybe want to write this down, can never own any supremacy but
that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he announced, of course,
very gently to his parents, without any bitterness of spirit, and
with humility and prayer, praying for wisdom and guidance, that
there must be no question about our action as a believer. You are to put your foot down
and say in everything which concerns Christ and my soul, I call no
man father upon earth. But at all costs, I must follow
my Lord wherever he leads me. and I think you can see here
the very drift of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in what
took place in this young man's life. And beloved, Christ first,
everybody else as far down as you like. Everybody treated with
kindness and due consideration, but nobody permitted to assert
the throne of the great king. So in the first place then, we
must love our Lord better than all our relations. We must love
Christ supremely and love Him first. And next, we must love
Christ better than our own lives. You know, I told you about this
man who was burned at the stake. But there have been many back
through the generations. You get the book, Fox's Book
of Martyrs, and you'll see many who love not their lives unto
the death. The scripture says in the book
of Revelation, be thou faithful unto death. and thou shalt receive
a crown of life. One dictator wrote concerning
the early Christians, in which he said, he wrote a letter in
which he said that he knew not what to do with them, early Christians,
for they were men of good character, but they had this one peculiarity,
that they must in everything follow Christ. He said they had
this one problem, that in everything they must follow the Lord Jesus
Christ. They actually came with calmness,
he said, even to the Roman judgment seat, well knowing that if they
were convicted of being a Christian, that they would be put to death.
And think of them, forced to sit in red-hot iron chairs, and
others dragged at the heels of wild horses, or tossed to and
fro by bulls, or torn in pieces by savage beasts. Everything
that could add to their pain and death was invented in those
times. But did the martyrs flinch? Did
they turn back? No. They stood fast for Christ's
sake and threw their lives away as if they were worth nothing
at all rather than to be found traitors to the Lord Jesus Christ,
their Savior. They would not. They loved not
their own lives, don't you see? Well, I think we should be prepared
to do the same as they did, don't you? I think we should be prepared,
if necessary. Now in our case, we probably
will never come to that place because of the civil and the
religious liberty that we have in this country. But nevertheless,
we should be prepared. Well, to sum up, then, the teaching
of this text that I've read to you, and I'm not going to spend
as much time on the other three, but to sum up the teaching of
this first text, Christ is to be loved better than everything. How does that sit with you? Can you love Christ better than
everything? If this were the choice this
morning sent before the whole world of Christ, I thank God
that there are many of us who would not wait a minute to say
this is where I stand. I stand right here. This is exactly
where I stand. I stand with the Redeemer, the
Lord Jesus Christ. So the meaning of this text is
that Christ must have wholehearted service. And if you come to Him
to be His disciples, you must bring your whole being with you.
Christ will never be a king over a divided manhood. He never will. You must You must come with a
singleness of heart submitting yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ. So my friend, that's what I had
to say about this first text and I hope that it came home
with some force to your heart. Now the second text is found
in the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John and if you would turn
there, the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John at the 31st verse. Let me read verse 30. and 32
along with verse 31. As he spake these words, I'm
giving you four characteristics of a disciple or a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ. As he spake these words, many
believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed on him, if you continue in my word, then are
you my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free. Now then, so the second
mark here of a disciple is that they continue in the Word of
God. They continue in the Word of
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a trait of their character.
Now there are a great many people who, like these Jews that our
Lord was talking to, they profess to believe in Jesus Christ for
a time. And when opposition and persecution
come, they desert Him, and so they proved that they were not
really His disciples at all. Now beloved, I want to make a
statement here that I believe to be absolutely true, that I
Believe this with all my heart that when we enter in to the
army of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we say that we have taken
the name of Jesus Christ upon us, when we have believed on
Him that this is for life, it is for life, now In Christ's
true church, there's no perfection of faith merely for a time. Once you have made it, you have
made it forever. Now, beloved, when I was 16 years
old, the Lord saved me, and I thought back, and I was thinking back
this morning as I was sitting there before the meeting while
we were singing, I was thinking about the fact that when I believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ in that old farmhouse, upstairs in that
old farmhouse, when I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, I knew
then that it was forever. It was forever. It wasn't something
that I was going to do for a few days or for a few years and then
I was going to quit or that I had a place that I would ever find
a place in this world to quit and to turn around and go back.
I knew then! It was forever! It was forever! And beloved, let me say to you
that not only is it for time, it's for eternity. When you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, It's for eternity. It's forever and
ever. Never ever will you go back. You're going to continue and
continue and continue in the way of Christ, in the person
of Christ, and in the fellowship of Christ forever and ever. Isn't
that wonderful that even in eternity There will be no change, because
when we leave this world and go into the life to come, it'll
just, as I told you here a few weeks ago, just a change of location. That's all it is. A change of
location. Nothing else. Because the seed
of that which is in our life here, my friend, is glory and
it will he gives grace and he gives glory he gives grace here
and it's glory by and by just a change of location and a man
or woman boy or girl has no right to expect anything in eternity
the seed of which is not in their life in this world have no right
to expect it and so I want you to know that this commitment
that you've made is for this life and you made it even forever. Now the very way of confessing
Christ, which is baptism, signifies this very thing. For the man
who is rightly immersed into the name of the sacred trinity
He's first buried, and then he rises again, and that burial,
having once taken place, can never be cancelled. It can never,
ever be cancelled. Whatever happens, that's a fact
that is accomplished once you confess Christ. and are baptized
into the Lord Jesus Christ, my friend, you're buried with Him,
having died with Him, and that's a picture of your death to sin
and your life when you're raised out of the watery grave. That's
a picture that you're alive in the Lord Jesus Christ because
He lives, you live, and you shall live forever and ever and ever. So whatever happens after you
confess Christ in water baptism, that fact is accomplished. It's
not something you can turn around and go back on. Well, first of
all then, we're to continue believing Christ's words. What are we to
do practically? We're to believe His Word. Jesus
said, if you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed. Well, beloved, there's many new
doctrinal errors that spring up. We're to take no notice of
them. You say, well, it seems like
every week I come across something or some member of my family comes
across with something, come up with something, somebody presents
something to them that's foreign to what we've heard, foreign
to what we've been taught. foreign to what the Word of God
teaches, my friend, pay no attention to it. We'll be his disciples
indeed in this evil day if we stick to the Word of God. If
we stick to what it teaches, stick to what it says. Mr. Whitfield
used to say in his day that there were some people to whom it was
impossible to make a creed. You couldn't tell what they believed
because they were as changeable. He said you might as well try
to fit the moon with a suit as to try to fit these people or
determine what camp they were in. They were always constantly
moving about. Starting and then but nothing
long. Always starting something but
nothing long. Well, that's not the characteristic
of a Christian disciple. A man is not Christ's disciple
if he's taught to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine. Read the Word of God. Study the Word of God. Meditate
upon the Word of God. Get it well fixed in your heart.
It'll hold you like a vice in this day when Men are running
to and fro telling you they've heard something from God that
you need to listen to. Well, my friend, listen. There's
another thing, too, that we must not allow anybody. And I realize
that in the relationships of life, Oftentimes we come across
people and we get involved with people in the relationships of
life and they don't hold our views. They don't believe what
we believe. They may seem to be good people.
They may be good people outwardly. But my friend, one of the things
you must not do is to allow them to get there or in your boat
and turn you around and send you in a direction that you've
got no business going. And that's the reason why the
Word of God says that a believer is not to marry an unbeliever.
That's the reason why the Word of God teaches us to come out
and be separate, because this world has an influence upon us. I told you before that health
is not catching. It's disease that's catching. Don't let anybody put an oar
in your boat. unless you know they're dedicated
followers of the Lamb of God and that they respect His Word
just as you respected His Word and His truth must be honored
or we will not allow them even in the boat. We will not allow
them to steer the ship. We will not allow it. We must
set our foot down and say, I know where I stand, I know what I
believe, and I don't have time to get shifted here and get turned
away and head down a stream here off the side that's going to
land me in trouble. I don't have time between now
and the time I die to get it all straightened out and to get
back where I am. I don't have time to fool with
it. And I'm not going to. It's those who continue in the
Word, my friend. So don't allow anyone to turn
and twist you about wherever this intruder might please to
take you. Don't allow. The Master's message
is to follow His Word. If you continue in My Word, then
are you disciples indeed. And then we must continue in
obedience. in obedience to the Word of God. It is part of a
true disciple of Christ to do his Lord's will in the teeth
of every temptation that may assail him. Beloved, you're not
going to be obedient very long. You're not going to have respect
to the Word of God very long until you're going to be pulled
this way and pulled that away But the true disciple of Christ
says, if all the kingdoms of this world were to be given to
me on condition that I would fall down and worship the God
of this world, I would not for an instant think of doing so,
for I am enlisted in the army of the cross, and I serve the
Lord Christ and Him alone. I serve Him, and I serve Him
alone. Now we also must continue in
the word when we're in affliction. And when we have crosses to bear,
and difficulties to deal with in our life, there are many who,
when they follow the Lord for a while, and then things begin
to happen. And they accuse the Lord of getting
rough with them. They just cannot, they're offended
at the Lord. They're offended at God. And
God is the first cause of everything, don't you see? He is. He's the
first cause of everything. I was telling somebody here a
while back, as a believer, we're waiting on the Lord. We're waiting
on the Lord. We're not waiting on each other.
We're waiting on the Lord. We're trusting to God. All of
our expectation is in Him. is in Him. We're not looking
to each other. We have this desire in our heart
to do what the Lord wants us to do. And we're waiting on the
Lord. And so we must in affliction.
And many have trouble on trouble. And they complain that God behaves
in a very ill manner toward them. But my friend, wherever you're
at in your pilgrimage this morning, You must remember that there's
a motto for the believer, and that motto is found in the book
of Job. And old Job said, though He slay
me, yet will I trust Him. Though He slay me, though He
slay every one of my hopes, though He slays all my desires, though
He slays everything that I want, and the Lord just puts a stop
to my way and to doing what I please. Whatever, though He slay me,
yet will I trust Him. I'll trust Him, whatever. And
we must do that. We must commit ourselves unto
Him who is a faithful Creator. A faithful Creator. We have lifted
our hand in token, have we not? And in allegiance unto Him. We
cannot go back. We cannot go back. Though He slay me, yet will I
Trust Him. And I hope you'll go out of here
with that motto this morning. Now as brothers and sisters in
Christ, There's another thing here that we need to consider,
and that is in our third text, and that's in the 13th chapter
of John's Gospel and in verse 35. I'm sorry that maybe I took
on too much this morning, but I'll get you out of here in a
few minutes. And in John chapter 13 and verse
35, I want you to listen to this. By this shall all men know that
you're my disciples if you have love one to another. In the 34th
verse of this chapter, the Lord Jesus said, a new commandment
I've given to you, that you love one another as I've loved you,
that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that
you're my disciples if you have love one toward another. Brotherly love is the third mark
of a genuine disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. By this shall
all men know that you're my disciples. This is a mark of discipleship
which all men can see. And don't you think they can't
see it? They can see it. I'll tell you they can. Even
the heathen can see whether or not the professing church of
the Lord Jesus Christ loves one another or not. Whether there's
any love in their hearts. for each other. Good men and
bad men, ignorant men, wise men, foolish men, they cannot help
seeing what love is. As just as if it was a sign hung
out that identifies a business. Whether the church loves Christ
or not and loves each other is like a sign that's hung out.
And people can read that. and we ought to be ashamed of
ourselves. You know, the disciple whom Jesus loved wrote, Beloved,
let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God, and he that loveth
not knoweth not God, for God is love. Well, how are we to
love our brethren so as to let all men know that we are Christ's
disciples? Well, one ready way, I think,
is to consider the wants and the needs of our brothers and
sisters in Christ. 1 John 3 verses 16 through 19,
you can read that sometime, you can jot that down as a reference.
I don't have time to turn there. Then if we say to the cold and
to the hungry, be ye warmed and be ye filled, and yet do nothing
practically to help them, how does the love of God dwell in
us? What kind of Christianity is that which is liberal only
in word? We're not to love in word, but
in deed and truth. Isn't that the verse you quoted
here the other day? All right, we're to love in deed
and in truth. And so the kind of Christianity
we need is the kind that is observant and the kind that looks and sees
and turns not away from those that are in need and those that
need assistance and help, but they are forward, the believer
is, to reach out to those people. Now also I believe that our love
is to be shown in bearing with the faults. bearing with the
faults of one another. Now there are some people who
seem to think that they've come into the world that other people
may put up with them, and they certainly do play their part,
for they give other people plenty to put up with. Isn't that true?
But my friends, still, we're to bear with our brethren. Well,
may God give us all the patience and the grace to bear with one
another. There's a great verse over in
Ephesians 4, and I'll turn to it very quickly and read it to
you. It's the last verse of Ephesians
4. It says, Be you kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Even as God, for Christ's sake,
hath forgiven you, you be kind to one another, you be tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, bearing with one another. Love beareth
all things. Love gives the benefit of the
doubt to the other person. If somebody hears something about
a believer, then my friend, they should consider, well surely. I mean, we should trust one another
as believers. And we should give the benefit
of the doubt. Cut some slack for the believers
around you. and believe that they're walking
in as much light as they have, and pray for them, and encourage
them. And if there's something that
gets out, listen my friend, just say to yourself, it had to be
misreported, it could not be true. Be always ready to go the
second mile with believers and those dear ones around you. And
I say to you that are a little older in the faith, Where were
you when you were as young as some of these young people here
that are believers in Christ? That have recently come to know
Christ? Where were you when you were
their age? You say, well, I know better
than that now. Well, hallelujah, bless God, I'm glad you do know
better. But my friend, listen, when you
were their age, you didn't know better. And when you were their
age, you did not better either. I say that most of you probably
didn't act as good as the young people that we have in this church
acts today. And I'm saying to you that we
need to bear with one another. And love beareth all things. Love believeth all things. And we need to give people the
benefit of the doubt. Believers I'm talking about.
And show that we respect each other a little bit. And we need
to take up one another's case. And we need to bear up one another. And to fulfill the law of God
by bearing with. Our brothers and sisters in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And love, you know, is the fulfilling
of the law. And when a man tells me, oh,
I got respect for the law. Well, good. There's nothing wrong
with the law. The law is spiritual. We are
carnal. But I'm going to tell you this.
The only way you can fulfill it according to the Word of God
is having love. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. and the only way you're going
to fulfill the law of God living in this world at this time is
by love my friend and people that get so carried away they
become like watchdogs and they got sharp teeth and they're always
biting and devouring and always tearing in to people around them. I tell you, those people don't
know a thing on earth about being a disciple of Jesus Christ. They're
not his disciples. Disciples, men say, I know that
those people are the disciples of Christ. They got a big sign
hanging out front. No, they don't have, but we know
that they love one another. And I know they're the Lord's
disciples because they love Christ. That's so important. And there's
this need, and you know I'm going to have to drop the fourth one
and not be able to give it to you, the time's away from us.
But there's one point that I want to just say a word or two about,
and that is that showing this love. We ought to rejoice in
each other's happiness. And you know there are some real
sour people in this world. If you're around them and something
good happens, God blesses you, encourages you, and something
good happens to you, I mean, they get all bent out of sorts
about it. They just can't take it. That God has blessed you,
that God has done something for you, how could he have done that?
When I'm better than you are, how could he have done something
for you? Well, my friend, I think that if we're Christians, We
ought to be grateful. If a man's poor, and another
fellow's been blessed with some of the means of this world, a
poor man can say, well, bless the Lord, I'm glad that not everybody
is poor as I am. I'm glad that not everybody's
in the same shape I am. He's like the old fellow that
was running for an office, and there was a fellow running against
him, and the fellow running against him got twice as many votes as
he did. And the fellow had a good attitude about it. He said, well,
I just thank God that there was somebody that this town could
get that was better than I am, and I'm glad they knew where
they could find him. Good attitude. And as a believer, there's sometimes
people come in the church, and the Lord seems to have blessed
them with an understanding of the Word of God. And somebody
says, well, I think we need to be suspicious of so-and-so. You
say, well, and then you look at him and you hear him sometime
and you say, well, I could have known everything that fellow
knows. Well, why didn't you then? Why didn't you? Why don't you
just love that individual and treat him just exactly as the
Lord would have you to and submit yourself. I was told years ago
that I shouldn't let anybody preach in this church because
they liable to say something that wasn't just exactly kosher
and that you just better be careful about it. I said, well, if the
Lord raises up somebody and puts them in this church, then praise
his name. That's how I got here. The Lord
brought me here. And if God owns me and he's put
me here, I don't have to worry about somebody else coming along
and taking the church away from me. I don't have to worry about
it. That's in the Lord's hands. That's not my business. That's
his business. And certainly this morning we
need to be aware of the fact that God is sovereign and believe
what we say we believe and trust the Lord in these matters and
show some love and compassion. Who knows what God is doing in
our midst? Who do we know? Listen, what
do we know about whether God's raising up somebody and is going
to plant them right here? Hey, this old man's on his way,
my friend. I'm going home to glory. I'm
leaving this place one of these days. God's gonna raise up somebody
and put him in this spot. And we need to be aware of that.
Holding on like we just had to have this and had to have that
and that we couldn't get along unless we had this and so on
and so forth. It's a bunch of foolishness.
You don't believe what you say you believe. That's what your
problem is. And we need to trust the Lord
and leave it in His hands and treat people like the Lord would
have us to treat them and to receive them as ourselves. To
look upon those people and treat those people like we want to
be treated. And to be very, very careful
about our slander and strife And all of these words that will
kill people and destroy people, we need to be very, very careful
about all of it. And we're going to be the Lord's
disciples. We're going to prove it and show it by loving one
another. Now the last, I'm just going
to give you the text. And you can look at it and you can think
about it. Maybe sometime I'll get back to it. But I certainly
can't do it this morning. It's 12 o'clock. and I have to
let you go. And this is in the 15th chapter
of John. It's the chapter that Brother
Randy, and how thankful I am that it was read this morning.
15th chapter of John's Gospel, and verses 4 through 8, about
our bearing fruit, about being fruit-bearing people. And Hosea
14.8 says, For me is thy fruit found. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ, we have in every jewel that's hung about the Christian's
neck, is there by the Holy Spirit. There's fruit to be born and
the people of God will bear it. They will bear it. We're married
to Him that's been raised from the dead that we might bring
forth fruit unto God. May the Lord bless you this morning.
Mike, would you