Love One Another

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I was going to talk on exhortation, how we need to exhort one another and encourage, but I got to thinking, I forget was it yesterday morning, that before that can happen, there needs to be love, [00:00:33] or else I'm not going to encourage you. You're not going to encourage your son or your daughter to do better or to play softball better or climb the tree. Hey, come on, you can do it. You don't love them. You're not going to encourage them to live the life that God wants them to live if you don't love them. If you don't love them, you don't care about them. So I thought maybe I should talk about love first. So I thought, well, I'll just sneak in a little bit about love and talk about exhortation all at the same time. [00:01:04] Found out I can't do that. John 15 verse 12 This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. This is Jesus talking and the word as or because, because I have loved you or since I have loved you. If you think about the way that Jesus loved us, it's unreal if you stop and you study it and you think about what he went through, how he loved us. [00:01:49] And I was thinking while I was studying this, some of those thoughts go through your mind. You know, this is old hat stuff. You know, who doesn't know this? But at the same time, how do you teach your child? I've got to tell TJ on and on, don't do that, don't do that. The same thing on and on and on. Well, maybe TJ is different than my boys, but that's the way my boys are. You've got to repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. So, I pray that God can take this word that he has given me [00:02:28] and can expound on it and it will sink into your hearts. Three things that I thought about Jesus Christ and His love. His love was without respect of persons. He loved. If you think of his life, he loved sometimes just because the people needed his love. And whether you believe it or not, there are people who need your love. And we need to love just because they need our love. [00:03:18] Who doesn't need love here today? Everybody needs love. And sometimes, you know, we're going to get love from our family and our wives and husbands and all that. But there are people who need love from just you. That you, what do they need my love for? But they need your love. And we need to love them just because they need our love. Jesus, another thing about his love was that it was in deeds, not just in words. [00:03:57] Matthew 25, I want to turn there real quick. I should have wrote it down. And now I don't remember which verse it was. Shoot, sorry about that. His words just weren't, He didn't love just in words, I love you. But it was also in His actions and His words and in His deeds. And in John 13 verse 1, [00:04:30] Now after the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Jesus' love didn't quit. It didn't give up. It didn't shrink or it didn't turn away. Even when he was ridiculed, when he was talked bad of, when he was blasphemed, [00:05:08] when he was persecuted, his love did not shrink. It did not give up. And that's how we need to be. and this kind of love, this divine love, this agape love is totally different than the world's kind of love and this kind of love is going to change lives and it's going to change our church, it's going to build our church [00:05:39] there's quite a few verses I want to go through And I figured since Jesus said it so many times, I think it's something that we need to get. Very important that we get this one. The other thing I was thinking of is all the, okay, Jesus said we should love one another. There's a lot of other verses, there's a lot of other one another verses. [00:06:12] Honor one another. Oh, I should have wrote them all down, and maybe that will come. A lot of one another verses, but the love one another needs to be first. John 13, 34 and 35, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. [00:06:45] So, if we don't have love for one another, then what? Then we're not his disciple. Is that what it's saying? For by this, by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another. So if we don't have love for one another, that means we need to check our heart. Right now. We need to check our heart. because that's how we can know if we're his disciple. [00:07:25] A new commandment I give to you, you know, way back in Leviticus, I think it says that we should love our neighbor as ourself. I didn't write that down. So, it's not new in that sense, but it's new because it's coming from Jesus. It's coming from an example. Jesus hadn't ever taught this before. That's why he says it's a new commandment. And I like what it says about the word as. [00:07:58] As I have loved you. Look at how Jesus loved and look at how am I loving. Am I loving the same way? John 15, 12, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. Verse 17, These things I command you, that you love one another. I remember hearing a little story about a five-year-old girl or a young girl who needed a blood transfusion. [00:08:38] and so they checked all her family to see if their blood was the right kind of blood and everything and her little brother was the only one that the blood matched and her little brother was a little, the next one older, I don't know how old he was but maybe seven or something and so the doctor asked the little boy, he said, are you willing to give some of your blood for your sister? and the little boy kind of gritted his teeth and said yeah you know okay so while they were doing [00:09:15] during the transfusion the little boy he started getting kind of pale and the doctor didn't know why and so the doctor you know wasn't anything obvious and he it was everything was going good until the doctor asked the little boy he said you all right you feeling sick he said oh I feel fine But when am I going to die? There the poor guy thought that he was giving all of his blood. He thought he was going to die. And, you know, I thought, what a beautiful, he was just willing to give his life. [00:09:51] Here, sister, have my life, have my blood, you know. And that's how, that's how we need to be. Romans 13 verse 8 O no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. And going to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 9 [00:10:31] But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And 1 Peter 1.22 2. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, in sincere love for the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. [00:11:06] That word fervently stuck out to me. Love one another fervently. And 1 John 3, verse 11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Verse 23 And this is the commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. [00:11:38] And going to chapter 4, starting at verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. [00:12:19] Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. Okay, it's quite obvious that we're supposed to love one another. No doubt. But I don't see it as an option. I see it as a command. [00:12:51] I think that in order to be children of God, in order to be people of God, this must be in order. This must be in place. We must love. A question to me is, well, how? How are we supposed to love? First, let's go back to 1 Thessalonians and look at how Paul loved. Chapter 2, verse 7 and 8. [00:13:22] But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. Now Paul is talking to the Gentiles, and he is saying, that they were gentle among them as a nursing child, as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. [00:14:01] And I just had to think of this, you know, so gentle and so loving and so kind and so caring how you hold that little baby, newborn baby. And verse 80 even gets a little bit mushy, I think. affectionately longing for you they long to see them and look it even says not only [00:14:32] the gospel of God but also our own lives they poured out their lives for them and that's really that's interesting to me how they just they didn't just hey Brad I love you and go on No, they poured out their lives to them. That was a real challenge to me. And then if you go down to verse 17. But we, brethren, haven't been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart. [00:15:09] Notice their heart was still with them. You still had love for them even though they were away. Endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. Therefore, we wanted to come to you, even I, Paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us. And that made me think of, you know, Satan cannot take away our salvation. Can he take away your salvation? He can't take away my salvation. But he knows that by getting in between our relationships, he can break apart the church. [00:15:47] And I'm not sure what he meant by how Satan was hindering them. But Satan wants to hinder our love in whatever way that he can. Think of some ways that he can hinder our love. You know, we can... Where is it? Where is those verses found? What sort of things are pure and just and worthy and think on those things. [00:16:20] If we think on the things that people do, the things that people say, if we think on all the bad things, that's Satan getting in there and wanting to break apart these relationships that we have. So let's not let Satan hinder us. I'm going to go to Romans, Romans 5. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [00:17:02] I want to think about how this divine love that we're to have, this agape love, it's not a romantic love, it's not family love, it's divine love, agape love. Love. Love no matter what. Unconditional love. [00:17:36] And Romans 5 verse 8 tells us how God loved us while we were enemies. While we were sinners. He died for us. It doesn't matter our background. It doesn't matter our big old long sin list. It doesn't matter what we did. It doesn't matter our skin color, race. It doesn't matter if we're Jew or Gentile. It doesn't matter. And Christ still died for us. And that is what we need, how we need to love. [00:18:17] Brad, you know, if I don't like the way he combs his hair, if I don't like the way he washes his truck all the time, whatever it may be, I'm not going to allow that to get in the way of my love for him as a brother. As God's people, we can have that inner strength to live in this kind of love. Because it takes an inner strength. How easy is it for you to love the unloving, the unlovely? [00:18:52] How easy is it for you to love them? How easy is it for you to love somebody that says something bad about you When it was taken all in the wrong context and somebody goes and says that you said this but you're to still love them. Takes an inner strength only from God. This divine agape love is the spirit in the heart that will never seek anything except the highest good of his brethren. [00:19:30] I had to think of that. Do I? I will never seek anything except the highest good of my brother. The other thing I had to think of was that we don't always feel like loving somebody. [00:20:01] And love is not only, not just an emotion. It's easy to love when that emotion is there. But when we have agape love, do you think, first of all, do you think Jesus only loved when he felt like loving? I don't think so. I think he loved, obviously, he loved even though he didn't feel like loving. This divine love, loves even when emotions may be totally absent. [00:20:42] This divine love that we're talking about sacrifices and gives and has compassion. It wills to love even when the other person doesn't deserve it. It wills to build the other up, build relations no matter the cost. It helps when help is not deserved. All of these things just ring in my head. You know, when somebody doesn't deserve it, when I feel someone does not deserve my love, they don't deserve any help, look at what they're doing, I'm going to love them anyways. [00:21:25] We are commanded to love them anyways, no matter what they've done. I was thinking about somebody in the church, I mean no one in specific, but I was thinking, let's think of a brother in the church. He's faithful to God, He's faithful to His family, He's faithful to His church He comes to church all the time, He helps whenever He's sometimes He even sees things that need to be done and He just goes ahead and does them let alone the times that He's asked to come help clean the church or put up the sound system, whatever [00:22:01] He's helping all the time, He comes to prayer meeting, He even leads out in prayer meeting He studies. His Sunday school lesson, you can tell, he's talking all the time and he has comments to say and he's just on fire. He's kind and he's well-liked. Everybody loves him and he loves others. And, you know, there's all of his friends, you know, gather around him and, Oh, God bless you and come to my house to eat, you know, and everybody just really likes him. [00:22:32] Well, gradually, little by little, all of that is taken for granted. And little by little, he's just assumed that he will always be there. Then maybe because of somebody joking around, or it was just a joke, or maybe a word of sarcasm, some kind of remark is made that hurts his brother. It hurts him really deep that he withdraws away from the brethren and he turns cold. [00:23:14] So, since he withdraws, he withholds his love and his help. One day he's caught buying a six-pack of beer. Now it's out. Everybody knows he drinks. And, you know, because of this, maybe word of sarcasm or this little joke and this little gradual, it's not an all of a sudden thing. It's a little gradual falling away. [00:23:46] And it can be a chain of, it's not just, you can't just point your finger at one thing. Just a little hurtful word. And then he's hurt by it and that thing just sits there for a little bit and harbors and, you know, and he's not, he withdraws himself and so then because of that he's going to go out to his worldly friends and worldly pleasures and spend his money on worthless stuff and then this happens. [00:24:24] And now we find out that he's drinking. And then we start feeling a way. Well, since that's the way He is going to be, you know, we're not going to greet Him anymore. We greet Him coldly. You know, it's different. A warm greeting or a cold greeting. We lose that warm, tingly love feeling. That warm, you know, those warm emotions of love. We lose that. And we withdraw because He is struggling. [00:24:55] But I wonder, who's really struggling? If we withdraw, who's fault is it? Who's fault is it if he's struggling and we pull away? Who's the worst struggler? Oh, man. So then we think, no lunch for him. He blew it. He knew better. He doesn't deserve our love. At that point is when, or maybe before that point actually, is when He really needs our love. [00:25:32] He doesn't need our rejection. I had to think of a skunk. The other day we pulled into our lane and man, we smelled a skunk big time. And if you've ever seen some videos of skunk, you know, you'll see them spraying the dog or whatever. And the dog will go running, you know, turn. That's almost how we, I see, treating this brother, just like a skunk would spray a dog. We leave him. All of his friends step aside. [00:26:05] You know, when he is unloving, unlovely, that is when we need to love him all the more. God is calling us to love him divinely, divine love. And I know that one loses that feeling of love. I know all about that. Sometimes this divine love that Jesus had, that we are to have, [00:26:41] It lacks that warm emotional, that warm feeling, tingly, all the emotions and it is painful at times and it's painful to love in times like those. But it comes from a will to love. It comes when one decides to do the right acts of love in spite of the feelings. But the only way that that can happen is when we are connected to the true source. [00:27:18] You know, I'm thinking all this while, okay, so we're supposed to love like Jesus did. Well, how are we supposed to do that? How are we supposed to have the love like Jesus did? Jesus was perfect. We can't do that. I don't feel like loving him. He's not acting in a way. He said this about me, and I can't love him. As we love, I had to think of John 15, about being a branch. [00:28:02] Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. As we abide in Christ, Christ, God, is the source of divine love. So the only way that we can love like that is by being in him, being obedient to his word. [00:28:34] That is how we get that kind of love. It's not going to happen at a certain age. It's not going to happen because of a New Year's resolution. We're not going to read some for self-help book and we can love people better. It's not a thing about I'm going to turn over a new leaf and I'm going to love my brethren more. Divine agape love is a spirit fruit, Galatians 5 [00:29:05] The fruit of the spirit is love The fruit of the spirit is the result of a life totally committed to Jesus Christ Abiding in Christ The only way that we can have divine love, agape love, is being connected to the true vine, the true source of that love I wrote down some things that I thought I would pursue later. I'll just read down through them here in closing. [00:29:40] Divine love is patient. It doesn't slack even when the going gets tough. It sees hope in others. It sees potential in others. It looks past their sin and sees the person. I had to think of Jesus, the woman at the well. He looked past her sin, cared for her heart, and then she is the one that brought up her sin. [00:30:13] He loved her, no matter what. He was patient. He didn't just go up to her and say, hey look, you're doing this, this. No, he loved her and he was patient. Divine love is not jealous or proud, where we should be happy to see when others succeed. We need to help others to succeed. Isn't that kind of hard? When somebody else can succeed and succeed in what? Anything. And maybe in business, I don't care what it is. [00:30:46] Maybe in their spiritual growth. Do you ever jealous of somebody that succeeds in their spiritual growth? They're just groaning in the Lord and they're all excited and we're jealous. You know, it's an okay thing to be encouraged. Hey, it's great. But when we're jealous, it's not good. Love is not selfish. It's not irritable. It doesn't keep track of wrongs so we can use them on that person later on down the road. Do you hold a grudge? [00:31:19] Jesus didn't hold no grudges. If you're holding a grudge, I don't care who it's against. I don't care if it's against a wicked person. If you're holding a grudge, you need to check your heart. Because you don't have love. Divine love is not happy with evil, but loves the truth. will not pass on evil about others. When we hear some evil things said, some not so kind words about others, do we pass them on? [00:31:58] Divine love doesn't give up, stays to the end, just like Jesus said. God's people are called to this high standard of love. Which reminds me, I didn't talk about, I want to turn to Matthew 5 real quick. You know, it's pretty easy to love people that love you. And we're talking about in our brotherhood. [00:32:28] It should be easy. What about our enemies? We haven't talked about loving our enemies. Now that's tough. Or is it tougher in the church? Matthew 5 verse 43 You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you [00:32:59] and persecute you that you may be called that you may be sons of your father in heaven For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. [00:33:33] Oh my goodness. You know, if we think we have such a hard time loving in the church, then we're never going to love our enemies. Because they don't love us. This is a challenge. God's people are called to this high standard of divine love. If you talk about a high standard, and I'm supposed to love my enemies, that's a high standard. [00:34:09] I'm supposed to love when people aren't loving. Brothers in the church are saying mean things. Maybe one little dinky comment and I hold something against them. I'm supposed to love them. I don't feel like loving. Suffer. You're supposed to love. We are called as God's people. We are called to be grounded in love, Ephesians 3.17 We are to speak the truth in love, Ephesians 4.15 [00:34:41] We are to walk in love, Ephesians 5.12 And as people should be knit together in love, knit together in love You ever see somebody knit, all the yarn and threads all tangled up together? Knit together in love, Colossians 2.2 And we are to let brotherly love continue. Hebrews 13.1 In closing, 1 Thessalonians 3, verses 12 and 13 [00:35:19] And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, Just as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all the saints. May the Lord make you increase and abound in love. That's my prayer for myself, for each one of us. [00:35:51] Let's pray. Lord I thank you for your word and oh God I thank you for your son for the example that he left here he lived here on earth Lord help us to be followers of him Lord help us to love each other the way that you have loved us Help us, Lord, to love our enemies the way that you loved your enemies, the way that you loved us and you died for us while we were yet sinners. [00:36:27] Lord, I thank you so much for your faithfulness and I pray, Lord, that you will teach us about your love. Help us to apply it to our hearts, Lord. Write it on our hearts and help us to walk in love. In Jesus' name, Amen.