Our Responsibility to One Another
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
By the grace of God, what I would like to do this morning is simply to underscore some of the main lines of Biblical truth relative to the responsibility that we have one to another in our Father's house. This is an area of Biblical concern that ought never, never to recede from the realm of our present consciousness, never. For we must never forget that it's truth that holds our minds, that molds our lives. The truth which holds the mind is the truth that molds the life.
That's why the Apostle Peter writes and says these words: "Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been strengthened in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder"—2 Peter 1:12–13.
And so, this is not an area that will come as something new to you. It is one of those things that is constantly set before us, but we need to be reminded of. It needs constantly to be set before us simply because it is so vital, so vital, so important an area of Biblical truth.
And as we consider the subject, I shall do so along the following lines. First of all, I want us to see together or seek to establish with you the nature of our relationship one to another because we are related as we are in the fellowship of this body of Christ that we are to act as we are to act. And then, in the second place, I will seek by the grace of God to set forth the primary responsibility that we have one to another. And then, the leading or major ways in which this responsibility is to be worked out in practical ways. And then finally, the source from which the grace needed for this responsibility is to be derived. So that's what we're going to do and that's where we're heading, Lord willing.
First of all, what is the nature of our relationship one to another in our Father's house? What is the nature of our relationship one to another? Let me state it negatively and then positively.
Our relationship one to another negatively in the fellowship of the church is not—let's begin with the negative—it's not.
It's not a relationship like unto that which exists between members of the local Conservative or Liberal or NDP parties. You see, they are bound together in a closely knit relationship, but they are bound merely by a common cause, a common political philosophy.
Our relationship is not like that which gathers together maybe a local astronomy club. They're bound together. They do some very specific things together, looking at certain stars and planets and clusters of stars, and they do things together. They share common sympathies, but that which binds them together is a common interest that is a hobby to them. And certainly the church must be something more than that.
And it is not like the relationship which exists between a group of avid cyclists. They get together, learn new skills from experienced riders, and they ride together and they share stories. You see, the church is not a relationship of this nature, nor is it like the relationship that exists perhaps in the Greek Canadian Community Association, where you have a group of Greek immigrants settled in a particular area, wanting to preserve their cultural background, cultural, religious practices, and so they banded together to form the Greek Canadian Community Association.
Now you see there's something different in all of these relationships, but none of them begin even to touch on the uniqueness of the relationship that Christians sustain one to another in the body of Christ. Are we bound together in common cause as the Conservative or Liberals or the NDP parties? Yes, but the church is something more, much more. Are we bound together by common interests as the Astronomy Club? Yes, but something more. Are we bound together like the cyclists by common hobby? Yes, but something more. Are we bound together like the Greek Canadian Community Association with a common heritage? Yes, but something more.
And when you press the thing down to its irreducible minimum, and you try to, as it were, to extract the living nerve of the uniqueness of our relationship in the light of the Word of God, what you will find is this: the nature of our relationship is nothing less than that of a living, throbbing, organic entity, where we are bound together by a common life—the life of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The church is a society of people bound together by a common life, the life of God.
Statements such as 1 Corinthians 12—turn with me to 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 and 13—are really a wonderful or an eloquent declaration of that fact. 1 Corinthians 12:12 "For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For also by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."
So here's the concept of the church as a body, constituted members of that body by the life-giving power of God the Holy Spirit, apart from Whom—Whose operation—we are never members of that body. But when He has worked in us and upon us, well, we are brought into that body.
And then Paul changes the figure. The Spirit is not only the powerful, efficient agent working upon us to put us into the body, but then we have come to drink of that one Spirit, and so we share a common life. Also, Paul in Romans chapter 12—Romans chapter 12—uses this terminology. Look at verses 4 and 5. Romans 12:4 and 5: "For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another."
There is individuality, yes, but there is also corporality. There is this shared life, this common life.
Our Lord Himself underscores it in that extended metaphor in John 15, where you remember He says, "I am the true vine"—verse 1—"and My Father is the vine grower," and "you are the branches;" (John 15:5) and the branches all share in a common life. Peter uses the analogy of living stone in 1 Peter. He says, "You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house"—1 Peter 2:5.
Now granted, this is not a common life without doctrinal substance. This is not a common life without organization, without structure, without discipline—granted, all of these things are certainly true and must be true. And a reading of John 17 and Ephesians 4 indicates that just as surely as there is one body, one Spirit, there is also one faith and one body of truth. And here in this place, this body of Christ, we do not by any means downgrade the importance of doctrine, but a gathering is not necessarily a church, ‘ecclesia’, simply because a group of people subscribe to the same doctrinal standards. No, no, it is something more than that, and the New Testament is clear with reference to the doctrine of the church: the church is this throbbing, living, organic entity bound together in a common life, the life of God.
Now then, our responsibilities grow out of the uniqueness of that relationship, and the Apostle Paul, when touching on some of the most practical areas of duty, reminds us of this. Look how practical this is. I will give you but one example as we conclude our consideration of this first point. In Ephesians chapter 4—turn with me there for a second and you can see it for yourselves—in Ephesians chapter 4, here are some people who came out of a pagan background, where they are living immersed in a pagan lifestyle, where there is lying and deceit at every level: in the political sphere, in the economic sphere, in every sphere, in every realm—lying, lying, lying. And beloved, nothing changed in our day, has it? But this was true of the pagan world in which the gospel came in that first century, and so Paul says in Ephesians 4 verse 25, "Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor." Why, Paul? Look at the reason he gives: "for we are members of one another." Do you see it? "For we are members of one another."
What a terrible thing if my finger begins to lie to my hand on this side, or my eye begins to lie to my foot. You see what Paul is doing? Taking the most practical exhortation to ethical, moral behavior, and he says the necessity of this behavior arises out of the nature of your relationship one to another. Don't lie, but speak truth because of the relationship you sustain one to another in the body of Christ.
And of course, you have this in Romans 12 and in 1 Corinthians 12, and I don't want to belabor the point. I just want to underscore it—something that I'm sure many of you, if not all of you, are aware of: the nature of our relationship as believers in the body of Christ one to another determines our duty and our responsibility to one another. We are bound together in a common life, joined to Christ, the Head of this church, Head of this body, joined to one another, joined by the Holy Spirit, and we're constituted members of the household of God.
Alright then, having established, I trust, the nature of our relationship, well, what is the primary responsibility that we have one to another? What is the primary responsibility that you and I have one to another? Now, if you have any acquaintance with the New Testament, you know that you and I have many responsibilities to one another as believers, right? There are many one another's in the New Testament, and beyond that, in fact, you read through the epistles and you read what? Do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that, do the other, do the—oh, what a great complex of responsibilities.
So whenever you find a little booklet, a 35-page booklet or book that says "The Christian Life Made Simple," don't waste your money on it. We have the whole Bible to spell out the whole duty of the whole Christian for the whole of his life, and the people that have been best at applying the whole Bible to the whole of their life, when they came to the end of their life, would say something like this: I've just begun to learn and to do it. So I'm not saying what is your only responsibility and my only responsibility; I'm addressing myself to this question: what is our primary responsibility one to another?
Now, do you have something coming to your mind, anything that comes to your mind? If you have this, that's the heart of it. If you have this, that's the heart of it, and everything else flows out of it. Everything else flows out of it. All the other one another's, they flow out of it.
Okay, well, just tighten your seatbelt and we're going to go from Romans to 1 John very quickly. Not the whole, by the way, not the whole, but just a few passages along the way. Turn to Romans 13, first of all, Romans 13. In this section of great doctrinal presentation or dissertation on the gospel, laying out to God's people the responsibilities that rest upon them as bearers of the name of Jesus, the name of Christ, Paul in Romans 13 verse 8, he says, "Owe nothing to anyone except to"— what? — "love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,' and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does not work evil against the neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
You see what Paul is doing, did you grasp it? He says now there are many duties, but if we have to reduce them all to one central duty, a duty which is a delight for the Christian and all the others flow out of it, he reduces it to the duty of love one to another. Love one to another.
Turn to Galatians 5, the passage that we opened up with, verse 13. Galatians 5:13, "For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Not just serve one another, but through love serve one another. "For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" That is the whole section referring of the law applied to horizontal relationship or responsibilities, not the entirety of the law, which is in its first part deals with our vertical responsibilities, but the whole law as it impacts my relationship to my brothers and sisters, he says, is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.
Turn to Ephesians 5, turn to Ephesians 5, and as you do that, all we're seeking to remember, all we're seeking to do is to see if the Bible approaches this matter of our responsibility one to another in terms of a concept of primary duty. Ephesians 5, verses 1 and 2: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." He says be imitators of God, be imitators of—imitate God, be imitators of God. What does that involve? Well, many things, but primarily involves what? Walk in love, walk in love, even as the God who is revealed in Christ has loved us.
Now, the book of Colossians, chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3, again, the Apostle's giving us many practical exhortation, he brings it, as it were, to a summary and sharp focus in verse 12. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 12: "So, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, so also should you."
Now, stop here for a moment. You look at these verses, and bound up in these verses you have a big hunk of duties laid upon us—I mean, this is tremendous, that's an awful lot of responsibilities laid upon us as God's people—but notice what he says next. Now, (verse 14) "above all these things" — you see that? — "Above all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." You see, he doesn't say forbearance is the perfect bond of unity, he doesn't say forgiveness is the perfect bond of unity, or a heart of compassion. You see, these are all but what? Manifestations of love, right? The fruit of the Spirit is first love, right? Love—and then everything else comes after, and these are all but manifestations of love. And so he says, above all these things put on love, and as love is indeed put on, then love in its exercise will be manifested in what? Humility and compassion and forgiveness and long-suffering, even as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
Now then, turn over to 1 Thessalonians. He's exhorted them concerning many things, now he says in chapter 4, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 9, verse 9: "Now concerning love of the brothers, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are what taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brothers who are in Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel still more"—excel still more, more and more in what? In this love one to another, which was taught to them by God's mighty work in their heart in regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
Then go over to 1 Peter chapter 4. Again, the apostle has been giving many exhortations, warnings against conformity to the former pattern of life, exhorting them to so walk that unbelievers—unregenerate believers, unbelievers—may see the difference, their different lifestyle, and ask a reason of the hope that is in them. Now he says in verse 7, 1 Peter 4:7, "The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound thinking and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer." — Verse 8: — "Above all" — you see there is a supremacy to this duty, a primacy — "above all keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." And then he goes on to tell us what love will do, all the way from the opening the door of my home, the opening of the door of my heart to my brothers and sisters, to finding out what my gift is and investing it for the good of my brothers and sisters, not wrapping it in a napkin of selfishness, burying it in the earth of my own apathy and indifference. He says above all things keep fervent in your love.
And then we come, of course, to the first epistle of John, 1 John. It's so full of this, so much so you don't know where to begin and where to end. 1 John chapter 3, verse 11. 1 John chapter 3, verse 11: "For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." Same chapter, go down to verse 16: "By this we have known love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth."
Then, of course, the capstone passage over all of these takes us back to John 13. John 13 and verse 34 and verse 35. John 13:34. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." For by this all will know that you are My disciples, if you are unwavering, unbending defenders of the truth. Is that what He says? Now let me say this. If you come to this place any length of time, you know we're absolutely, absolutely not downplaying the centrality of truth. Absolutely. It's a hill to die on. So if you're visiting with us, don't put what we say today in any other context than the context of the total ministry of this congregation. We do believe we need to be precise and fastidious about the truth. And to obscure any area of God's truth is to obscure some aspect of the glory of Christ, who is the sum and substance of that truth.
But Jesus here does not say, "By this shall all will know that you are My disciples, if you are unwavering, unbending defenders of the truth." Nor does He say, "By this shall all will know that you are My disciples, if this or that." Rather He says, If you have love one to another or for one another. Indicating that it must be a love expressed in visible deeds—visible deeds that even the godless can see and discern. Right? By this all will know that you are My disciples, by the love that you have for one to another. Well, they can't know it if it's simply something that is supposedly resident in the heart. But they know it in its visible expressions in the life and in our interaction with one another.
Now I don't think anyone would dispute the conclusion that the primary responsibility that we have one to another within this unique relationship of being members of one another is this: it is to abound in love—this biblical love. It is to abound in love to one another, and increasingly to manifest the fruit of that love in our relationship to one another in the real world in which we live. May I give it to us again? What is your primary responsibility to me as your brother in Christ? And vice versa? What is your primary responsibility one to another in the body of Christ? It is this: to abound in this love. To abound—abound to overflow—to abound in this love, in love one to another, and increasingly to manifest the fruit of that love in our relationship to each other in the real world in which we live.
That is love doing the thing that love demands in every situation given. And that may vary a hundred times in any given day. But the demand is that we love not with word or with tongue but in deed and truth. And having established something of the uniqueness of our relationship one to another—we are members of one another, we share a common life—having established, I trust, that the primary responsibility we have one to another is to love one another.
Now in the third place, what are the essential activities of this brotherly love? What are the essential activities of this love? Now there is no great significance in the order in which I am going to give them. Picture them not as a pyramid—the top one being the most important and then the bottom is the lesser one or the least one—but picture them rather as a pie. It is all cut up in slices and it does not matter where one begins. The same pie, same slice. The points are slices in a pie. So take them as that.
And the first one we are going to deal with is—well, I am going to split them under positive and negative. So let us deal with the positive ones. The essential activities of this love which is paramount. Number one, the first activity of this brotherly love in a positive vein is this: it will constrain us. It will constrain us. The love of Christ constrains us. It will constrain us to mutual forgiveness and to be blanket makers. Mutual forgiveness and to be blanket makers.
Ephesians 4:32: "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, graciously forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has graciously forgiven you." Earlier in this chapter, in verse 25. "Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak the truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another."
It will constrain us. You go back to Peter's word in 1 Peter 4:8, "Above all" —here is the primary grace, here is the fundamental grace—"keep fervent in your love one to another,". Now notice, having underscored fervent love as the primary grace, he then is going to underscore the primary activity of this primary grace. And what is it? "Because love covers a multitude of sins."
Love will cause you to be a blanket maker. It will constrain you to cover a multitude of sins. If love is the primary grace, then Peter assumes that that grace will come into its primary demand as fellow sinners redeemed. But redeemed sinners live with one another. And guess what? Fall short of perfection before one another. And of necessity, they need to let go and throw the blanket of love over mild offenses in their relationship one to another.
And if we abound in this love. This love that we saw is our primary duty. We will find ourselves constrained to not only mutual forgiveness, but also to be blanket makers. We're all beloved. All of us. You look around and you see all of us are in a state of imperfect sanctification. We call it progressive sanctification. And love is that blessed grace that will enable us, by the grace of God, instead of focusing upon each other's faults and warts and moles, and amplifying those faults, and parading those faults, and allowing them to become breaches in our relationship one to another—we'll have that ability to cover them and put them out of sight.
Now, is Peter saying that if there's a scandalous sin, we ought to just act like it isn't there? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what he's saying. There are other passages in the Word of God that teach us: if we see a brother's sin, the nature of that sin is such that demands a rebuke, that we are to go and tell him his sin and bring that rebuke. We're to rebuke him. In Luke 17 verse 3, our Lord tells us. In Matthew 18 verse 15 and following, there's ample instruction to do that.
But, beloved, that which ruins churches—that which ruins churches, that which brings internal blight, when God has promised that all the armies of hell cannot assail the church from without—that which brings internal blight again and again is not the presence of those scandalous sins that need to be dealt with by mutual reproof and discipline. It's allowing those many little areas of common fault to become festering sores in our relationship one to another. And if false doctrine and scandalous sin has slain its hundreds, the absence of love that caused people to cover a multitude of sins has slain its ten thousands.
Oh, I entreat us, brothers and sisters, beloved, as our family grows, the capacity to sin in the house of God grows. Because every person attending or brought into the membership is a partially sanctified sinner. And the more partially sanctified sinners you have, the more possibility for sin you have. So the more love there's got to be to cover a multitude of sins. And without that—without that—do you know what's going to happen? We're going to become unglued at the seams. We will become unglued at the seams, and we will find ourselves with those attitudes that drive us farther apart rather than draw us closer together.
Well, in the second place, the essential activity of this brotherly love that's described in scripture—this primary grace—is that which not only constrains us to mutual forgiveness and being blanket makers, but also it constrains us to mutual forbearance. Mutual forbearance. Forbearance. Turn with me to Ephesians 4, verse 2. Start with verse 1. Verse 1.
"Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have called, with In love all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another" — But how? How? "In love". In love. ‘Anechomai’, the word translated bearing. ‘Anechomai’ It is the right response to the faults and the weaknesses and the flaws of other brothers and sisters. The Greek word literally means to hold oneself back. To hold oneself back. It came to mean in Greek—in the Greek language—what we often say in English, and that is put up with someone. Put up with someone.
Paul is saying, put up with one another in love. Put up with one another in love. You know sandpaper people, right? Sometimes, put up with one another in love. I just can't put up with that any longer. I mean, yes, I mean, yeah, but that one person—God says, well, you just better have a little more putter upper put in you. You need a little more putter upper put in you. Work on that. I will help you. Work on that. Bearing with one another in love. Forbearing one with another.
Now, what is the whole assumption? What is the whole assumption of this exhortation? Well, just as Peter assumes that there will be multitude—a multitude of moral imperfections amongst the people of God—here Paul is assuming there will be a multitude of things that will demand that I put up with you and you put up with me in love.
If that's not the assumption, then the exhortation is meaningless. Is senseless. By the way, there will be no need for forbearance in heaven. No need for forbearance in heaven. You'll be so perfect, I couldn't help but love you all the time. And I'll be so perfect, you couldn't help but love me all the time. There will be no need. No need. That's one grace that won't be needed in heaven. That's a sinner's grace. Forbearance. Right? It's a sinner's grace. Any wife here has got a perfect husband, you don't need to forbear with him. Any husband in here got that perfect—don't answer. That's why we need to forbear with one another. Well, that's true in the house of God. And what is it that motivates us to forbearance? What is it? It's love. It's love. It's the love of God. The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Now this is true because not only are there moral imperfections, but there are also intellectual imperfections here. Let me explain. Our understanding of the application of the truth of God is different in a body of Christ like this. You see, we're moving in areas of sanctification at different rates of speed. We need to be aware of this. And we, by God's grace, perhaps have gone 60 kilometers an hour down this particular avenue of sanctification, and our brother or sister who has been on the road as long as we have, they've been only moving at 20 kilometers an hour in that area. And we tend to be what? Impatient. Impatient.
But keep in mind there are areas where he's been going 60 and you've been going 10 kilometers an hour. Perhaps you're reminded of what forbearance is when you walk with your loved one, perhaps your spouse.
Or perhaps you're taking your little one for a walk and you have to put up in love with their speed. Now love demands that you do. Right? You may be trying to teach your son or daughter how to drive and they don't seem to catch on and you just want to hold on. You need to bear with their slowness in love. That's what we're talking about.
And what is it that will give us grace to do so? Love. The scripture says, "bearing with one another in love." When you find yourself unable to bear with your brothers and sisters in these areas where their thinking lags behind yours, their experience, their advance in grace, then cry out to the living God. Cry out to the living God. Oh God, flood my heart with love that will enable me to forbear with them.
It constrains us to mutual forgiveness, covering a multitude of mild offenses. It constrains us to mutually forbear with one another. And thirdly, this love flowing out along biblical channels will constrain us to mutual burden bearing. Mutual burden bearing. Romans 15 and Galatians 6, pivotal passages. And I want to clinch it really. I want to hook this one and clinch it with two rather than one passages because they balance out each other.
Romans 15. Romans 15. You're familiar with this passage. Romans 15 verse 1: "Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his building up." — His edification, the building up — "For even Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.'"
The context, very briefly of course, is the matter of Christian liberty. And here's the man who's coming into such clear light of the truth of the gospel that in Christ all that he has and all that he is, is indeed redeemed. There's no such thing as an unclean meat and a clean meat, clean drink, unclean drink. He can take all of God's gifts, receive them with thanksgiving and partake in them with joy or of them with joy. And here's this poor, scrupulous brother. He's all the time wrestling in agony, wondering, will this please the Lord if I eat this? Will this please the Lord if I drink this? He's always just so full of scruples.
Now what's the tendency? The tendency of the strong brother is to say, come on already. Come on. Just get with it. Don't you understand the gospel? You're free in Christ. Now why are you going around like you're still half under the ceremonial law? Scruples about this, scruples about that, scruples about the other thing. Enough of this already.
Paul says, wait a minute. Just wait a minute. Are you strong? Are you strong to understand all of your great inheritance in Christ? Then you ought to be strong to understand that you're a Christian because Jesus Christ stooped to bear your burden. He could have looked upon you in your sin and in your filth and rebellion and wanted nothing to do with you, but He condescended, stooped to you in your ignorance, in your darkness, in your blindness, in your wretchedness and rebellion.
He says, now can't you do that with someone who is your brother? "Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength." Paul intends us here to understand that we are not to just put up with those who disagree with us. We put up with love, obviously, but not just to put up in terms of being angry with them and have a weak, overly sensitive conscience. Instead, we are to shoulder the load. We are to help carry their burden.
Now that doesn't mean—let me in parenthesis—it doesn't mean that we are to let those with weak consciences control how the church operates entirely. All the decisions in the church were all bound by their scruples. No, no, no. Paul says we ought to bear their weakness. Don't put them down. Don't criticize them. Don't come down hard on them. Don't dismiss them. We ought to bear with their weakness and we ought to be measured in the exercise of our liberty. As we interact with them, we ought to carry their weakness with us. We are to make sure that we consider them and come alongside of them and help them have a sanctified conscience that aligns with the word of God and that takes time and patience. To make sure that that weak conscience becomes informed with the truth of God's word.
And I say again, beloved, the more our church family grows, and God brings into it more and more cultural diversity, backgrounds that have conditioned our consciences, traditions that have molded our thinking, there are going to be more and more areas where we're going to need that grace to bear each other's burdens in the realm of Christian liberty.
But then in Galatians chapter 6, we have another line of burden-bearing. Galatians 6, look at verses 1 and 2, and this is wonderful. "Brothers, even if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each of you looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
Now, we need to understand that the nature of the burden that we're to bear in verse 2 is colored by the instruction given in verse 1. Don't separate the two. I love what Pastor MacArthur said concerning this quote, "The second responsibility of a spiritual believer who seeks to restore a fallen brother is to help hold him up once he's back on his feet. In this context, the reference suggests burdens that tempt a sinning believer to fall back into the trespass from which he has just been delivered. A persistent oppressing temptation is one of the heaviest burdens a Christian can have."
Does it ever occur to us, beloved, that maybe some of the sins that you see so evident in your brothers or sisters are really a burden to them? If they're Christians, truly Christians, those sins are a burden to them, because no Christian can carry sin lightly. The greatest burden to a true Christian, if he's five years old or 50, if he's been on the way a day or 20 years, his greatest burden is his sin. His sin. The sin that adheres to him, that clings to him, and, sad to say, at times overtakes him, cripples him, and how easy it is to throw stones at the brother who's been wounded, crippled by his sin.
Beloved, if we're joined together in a common life, then your burdens are mine and mine are yours. And brothers and sisters, when that happens, that's costly. That's costly. When you begin to make other people's burdens yours, that's costly. He doesn't say, bear one another's light straw loads. He doesn't say that, right? Bear one another's what? ‘Varos’, the Greek word. ‘Varos’ refers to a heavy load, heavy load, that is difficult to lift and carry. And when thing, the thing that bows my brother, my sister over, is now on my shoulders, it's going to bow me over. It's costly to bear each other's burdens.
To have a hearing ear, a sympathetic heart for the needs of your brothers and sisters is costly. Costly. But isn't that the nature of true love? To spend itself for the sake of the object loved? It's the very nature of love to spend itself for its object. And I pray that God would give us fervent love among ourselves. Love constraining to mutual forgiveness and blanket making. Love constraining to mutual forbearance. Love constraining to mutual burden bearing.
And fourthly, love constraining to mutual exhortation and admonition. One of the things that is such a joy for us who are, by the grace of God, given this privilege, undeserved privilege, to be undershepherds, elders of this congregation, is that there is the recognition that the official admonishers and exhorters of the flock are the undershepherds. "...know those who labor among you, and lead you in the Lord and admonish you." First Thessalonians 5:12.
But we must never allow that to cloud this other clearly taught biblical principle that you have a responsibility of exhortation and admonition one to another without any official bearing capacity. And two texts that come to mind. Romans 15 verse 14. Romans 15 verse 14: "But I myself am also convinced about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, having been filled with all knowledge and being able also to" — here it is — "admonish one another."
I love this. Paul here says that as they grow in knowledge, right, as they grow in knowledge, that is what we might call the intellectual development of the Christian. You know, your knowledge of who God is in the Christian life and all of that. And as they grow in goodness, that's the growth of virtue. As there is enlargement, we can put it this way, of heart and head. How will it find expression? "Able also to admonish one another." You see it? "Able also to admonish one another."
You see a man who comes to admonish you who's got an empty head, lack of biblical knowledge, has nothing worthwhile to admonish you about, right? The man who's got a full head but an empty heart, well, he's not in the proper frame to admonish you, right? But when he's full of goodness and filled with knowledge, he comes with the proper attitude to grant you the necessary insights. That's a wonderful balance.
Go over to Hebrews chapter 3, a similar exhortation. Hebrews chapter 3, the writer to the Hebrews warns in verse 12, "See to it, brothers, that there not be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God." The first steps of apostasy are always steps of unbelief, always. And unbelief always is a step away from God. That's why he says, "unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God." We must dread as the plague, the plague of plagues, an evil heart of unbelief that would cause us to turn from our God.
But now by what means? What are the means that God will use in helping us that we will not fall away? Verse 13, but here's the opposite: "But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
So here we are, all of us in our uncommon place of danger. The seeds of unbelief are part of the remaining corruption within all of us. And now he says beware, take heed, there must be constant vigilance lest the spirit of unbelief gain ascendancy and wreak havoc.
Now he says there's a wonderful preventative at your disposal. What is that? He tells us mutual exhortation.
Now you see why this is laid upon all the people of God? Because it is impossible for the recognized, duly appointed, official, exhorters, the undershepherds, the elders to have the kind of intimate and close proximity to every single member of the flock, that the members of the flock have various ones with each other. And many times when an issue has developed to a place where the undershepherds have discerned it, the gangrene has already spread. And it could have been dealt with so much sooner by some brother or sister who saw the thing months before, but who either out of a false sense of timidity or out of a lack of love did not perform their biblical responsibility.
Now I know this is liable to abuse. I know. You're always going to get someone who thinks he's the Lord's chief high inspector, going around sure that he sees in this one and that one the evil heart of unbelief, but such a person is self-condemning and the whole congregation recognizes him or her and they just learn to live with him and forbear with him or her in love. You have them in every congregation. You have to live with them. You know what I call them? Moss. M-O-S. Means of sanctification that God uses in our lives. They think they're full of knowledge but they lack goodness and sometimes they think they're full of knowledge when they're just full of hot air.
Now granted this is open to abuse, but beloved, beloved, let not the abuse of it keep us from the proper use of it. Right? And periodically this exhortation must be given. You have a responsibility to each other to exhort one another. You have this God-given responsibility. We as elders are not the only ones who have this responsibility and this undeserved privilege of doing that. You have that responsibility one to another.
And if you're in the home, for example, of a brother or sister and you notice over a period of time a pattern of unruliness among the little ones—and it may be months and months before one of the elders or pastors before they would have that opportunity to observe that pattern—you prayerfully, over time, as you see this is a pattern. It's not a one-on-one time off. Just giving an example. You take that brother aside, put your arm on his shoulder—if he's a brother—and say, "Brother, I know you want to please God, don't you?" You don't come out and say, shame on you, you're failing as the head of your household. No, no. You come with humility, with kindness and tenderness. You put your arm around him. "I know you want to please God, don't you?" "Of course I do." "And you want God to bless you in your role as a father." "Well, of course I do." "I know you do. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps—" and then you bring the loving, gentle exhortation.
"Do you realize that that pattern in your child is willful rebellion?" "Oh no, I never realized it. I just thought that was a stage of kids go through." And you sit down with him and you open up the scripture, and maybe he wasn't reared in a home where there were patterns of biblical discipline. You see, beloved, love will constrain us to exhort, to admonish one another in love, in kindness, in humility. Love constrains us to do so.
You see, love is willing—love is willing to jeopardize the friendship. Love is willing to jeopardize the friendship when it's done in this context. Proverbs 27 verse 6: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." And may the Lord grant us this abounding in love that will constrain us to this mutual exhortation.
And one more of the positive things this love will do, very briefly: it will constrain us to the mutual sharing of our substance when necessary. We share what God has blessed us with, right? Acts chapter 4 is the classic example. Now let me clarify something. It's not put there as a pattern to follow. It is not prescriptive, it is descriptive. It's just put there as a statement of what happens when love—biblical love—just breaks over its banks.
Acts 4:34, "For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of lands or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need."
The situation was dire. Many of the pilgrims converted to Christianity and faced persecution, loss of jobs, and all of a sudden you had this crisis. You had a tremendous need that needed to be met all of a sudden, and the church came along to do that.
The next verse does not say—when you read this, "and they lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would distribute them to each as any had need"—the next verse does not say and you go and do likewise. This is simply a statement of what happened. The love they bore one to another moved them to meet their brothers and sisters needs. Do you see what their love did? That's the point. Their love caused them to move to the tangible needs of their brothers and sisters and that's the exhortation that we read from 1 John chapter 3 and verses 17 and 18. "But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth."
And think of God's love to us in Christ. What we needed was someone to come amongst us to live as a man, a perfect man, a perfect life to live that perfect life of obedience to the law and as a man to die the cursed death that the law demanded. And yet he needed to be something more than man to give an infinite worth both to his obedience and his sacrifice, his death that could apply to an innumerable company of the redeemed. And so our need was precisely that and the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son came and met that precise need because he loved us. And so if we have this love abounding one to another it will compel us, it will constrain us even to the sharing of our substance where this is needed. And may the Lord grant to us that measure of love that will constrain us to practical expression.
Well, I was hoping to deal with the negative—what this love will restrain us from. You see, love not only constrains us to certain things, but it restrains us as well. But my time is gone, so I'll just give you one point of the many that I had hoped to give. I'll leave it at this, and this is really self-explanatory: this love will restrain you from harming your brothers and sisters. It will restrain us from harming our brothers and sisters.
Romans 13 verse 10: Love, he describes it negatively here, "Love does not work evil against a neighbor." It doesn't—it doesn't. Love works good, that's the positive, but now he states it negatively: "Love does not work evil against the neighbor." You see, love will be the monitor, the rein upon my tongue. Love will be the monitor upon my attitudes. Love will be that great purgative that will keep me from harboring bitterness and resentment. Anything that harms my brother, my sister—love will restrain me from moving in the direction of that which will harm my brother or my sister.
And what is the source of this brotherly love? Well, we've seen that our relationship is that of a shared life. Our primary duty is that love—love for one another. We've looked at five channels that love will cut in the life of God's people.
What is the source of this brotherly love? Well, in conclusion, number one: the presence, the presence of this love is an indispensable accompaniment of regeneration. The presence of this love is an indispensable accompaniment of regeneration. It's part of being a Christian. It happens at conversion.
That's one of the primary lessons of the book of 1 John chapter 2 verses 9 through 11, chapter 4 verses 7 through 8, chapter 3 verse 14, where we read, "We know that we have passed out of death into life" —how?—"because we love the brothers." You see it? You see, we are brought into the body of Christ, the body of that shared life, and there's that reflex sense of responsibility and attachment to those who share that same life, and it's an indispensable accompaniment of regeneration.
Paul could say to the Thessalonians, I don't need to write to you to love one another, you are already taught of God to love one another, right? 1 Thessalonians 4:9. That's one of the blessings of the new covenant: They shall all be taught of God. Isaiah 54:13. You read that quote also in John 6 and verse 45.
We love one another because we're Christians, because we're born again by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is shed abroad in our hearts—this love—Romans 5:5, by the Holy Spirit.
And if you're here this morning and find, well, I'm in this building, I can sense that these people here sitting around me, you know, share something in common, something special in common together as they sing, as they listen, and the truth is being taught, and obviously their hearts are being—I can sense it, I can see it, people responding, there's something going on here—but I feel I'm like on the outside. Am I talking to someone like that today? You feel that you're on the outside because you are on the outside.
That's why a Christian can go into a group of people who don't even talk his language and in 30 seconds feels that he's on the inside. Their shared life—even though they can't share the same language—and they're conscious of that shared life, they click, they mesh. And you may be here today and feel like you're out, you're not part of what's going on here—that is a shared life. My friend, the reason you're not part of it is because you're not part of it, and you'll never be part of it until you are born again by the Spirit of God, and until the life of God becomes in your heart, comes into your heart, into your soul. And it cannot be until you have direct dealings with the One who's given that life, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." And so I point you to Him this morning.
Seek Him, call upon Him, come to Him.
And then finally, then for you and for me who are Christians, the growth and increase of that love is the consequence of walking in the Spirit. I'll close on that. After Paul exhorts to this love in Galatians 5, his next word is what? Walk by the Spirit, for the fruit of the Spirit is—what?—love.
You see, many times next to coldness in our vertical longings, our love for the Word and for prayer, the first manifestation that we've grieved the Holy Spirit of God is that we begin to have problems with our brothers and sisters. Things that we could overlook suddenly now begin to be magnified. Burdens that once were such that we felt we had to bear them and we bore them in love, now we can behold them with polite indifference, at times feel aggravated.
Oh, may God speak to us and cause us as His people to abound in this love more and more to the end that all men will know that we are His disciples. Is it too much to believe that our growth numerically need not be the relinquishment of the intensity of mutual love? Is God's grace able to extend itself, and I speak reverently, to the new dimensions of His body? Does He give the increase in order to give decrease of spiritual life and vigor? Unequivocally I say absolutely not. Let us look to Him for the grace needed that we may abound in love one to another.
Let's pray.
That's why the Apostle Peter writes and says these words: "Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been strengthened in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder"—2 Peter 1:12–13.
And so, this is not an area that will come as something new to you. It is one of those things that is constantly set before us, but we need to be reminded of. It needs constantly to be set before us simply because it is so vital, so vital, so important an area of Biblical truth.
And as we consider the subject, I shall do so along the following lines. First of all, I want us to see together or seek to establish with you the nature of our relationship one to another because we are related as we are in the fellowship of this body of Christ that we are to act as we are to act. And then, in the second place, I will seek by the grace of God to set forth the primary responsibility that we have one to another. And then, the leading or major ways in which this responsibility is to be worked out in practical ways. And then finally, the source from which the grace needed for this responsibility is to be derived. So that's what we're going to do and that's where we're heading, Lord willing.
First of all, what is the nature of our relationship one to another in our Father's house? What is the nature of our relationship one to another? Let me state it negatively and then positively.
Our relationship one to another negatively in the fellowship of the church is not—let's begin with the negative—it's not.
It's not a relationship like unto that which exists between members of the local Conservative or Liberal or NDP parties. You see, they are bound together in a closely knit relationship, but they are bound merely by a common cause, a common political philosophy.
Our relationship is not like that which gathers together maybe a local astronomy club. They're bound together. They do some very specific things together, looking at certain stars and planets and clusters of stars, and they do things together. They share common sympathies, but that which binds them together is a common interest that is a hobby to them. And certainly the church must be something more than that.
And it is not like the relationship which exists between a group of avid cyclists. They get together, learn new skills from experienced riders, and they ride together and they share stories. You see, the church is not a relationship of this nature, nor is it like the relationship that exists perhaps in the Greek Canadian Community Association, where you have a group of Greek immigrants settled in a particular area, wanting to preserve their cultural background, cultural, religious practices, and so they banded together to form the Greek Canadian Community Association.
Now you see there's something different in all of these relationships, but none of them begin even to touch on the uniqueness of the relationship that Christians sustain one to another in the body of Christ. Are we bound together in common cause as the Conservative or Liberals or the NDP parties? Yes, but the church is something more, much more. Are we bound together by common interests as the Astronomy Club? Yes, but something more. Are we bound together like the cyclists by common hobby? Yes, but something more. Are we bound together like the Greek Canadian Community Association with a common heritage? Yes, but something more.
And when you press the thing down to its irreducible minimum, and you try to, as it were, to extract the living nerve of the uniqueness of our relationship in the light of the Word of God, what you will find is this: the nature of our relationship is nothing less than that of a living, throbbing, organic entity, where we are bound together by a common life—the life of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The church is a society of people bound together by a common life, the life of God.
Statements such as 1 Corinthians 12—turn with me to 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 and 13—are really a wonderful or an eloquent declaration of that fact. 1 Corinthians 12:12 "For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For also by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."
So here's the concept of the church as a body, constituted members of that body by the life-giving power of God the Holy Spirit, apart from Whom—Whose operation—we are never members of that body. But when He has worked in us and upon us, well, we are brought into that body.
And then Paul changes the figure. The Spirit is not only the powerful, efficient agent working upon us to put us into the body, but then we have come to drink of that one Spirit, and so we share a common life. Also, Paul in Romans chapter 12—Romans chapter 12—uses this terminology. Look at verses 4 and 5. Romans 12:4 and 5: "For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another."
There is individuality, yes, but there is also corporality. There is this shared life, this common life.
Our Lord Himself underscores it in that extended metaphor in John 15, where you remember He says, "I am the true vine"—verse 1—"and My Father is the vine grower," and "you are the branches;" (John 15:5) and the branches all share in a common life. Peter uses the analogy of living stone in 1 Peter. He says, "You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house"—1 Peter 2:5.
Now granted, this is not a common life without doctrinal substance. This is not a common life without organization, without structure, without discipline—granted, all of these things are certainly true and must be true. And a reading of John 17 and Ephesians 4 indicates that just as surely as there is one body, one Spirit, there is also one faith and one body of truth. And here in this place, this body of Christ, we do not by any means downgrade the importance of doctrine, but a gathering is not necessarily a church, ‘ecclesia’, simply because a group of people subscribe to the same doctrinal standards. No, no, it is something more than that, and the New Testament is clear with reference to the doctrine of the church: the church is this throbbing, living, organic entity bound together in a common life, the life of God.
Now then, our responsibilities grow out of the uniqueness of that relationship, and the Apostle Paul, when touching on some of the most practical areas of duty, reminds us of this. Look how practical this is. I will give you but one example as we conclude our consideration of this first point. In Ephesians chapter 4—turn with me there for a second and you can see it for yourselves—in Ephesians chapter 4, here are some people who came out of a pagan background, where they are living immersed in a pagan lifestyle, where there is lying and deceit at every level: in the political sphere, in the economic sphere, in every sphere, in every realm—lying, lying, lying. And beloved, nothing changed in our day, has it? But this was true of the pagan world in which the gospel came in that first century, and so Paul says in Ephesians 4 verse 25, "Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor." Why, Paul? Look at the reason he gives: "for we are members of one another." Do you see it? "For we are members of one another."
What a terrible thing if my finger begins to lie to my hand on this side, or my eye begins to lie to my foot. You see what Paul is doing? Taking the most practical exhortation to ethical, moral behavior, and he says the necessity of this behavior arises out of the nature of your relationship one to another. Don't lie, but speak truth because of the relationship you sustain one to another in the body of Christ.
And of course, you have this in Romans 12 and in 1 Corinthians 12, and I don't want to belabor the point. I just want to underscore it—something that I'm sure many of you, if not all of you, are aware of: the nature of our relationship as believers in the body of Christ one to another determines our duty and our responsibility to one another. We are bound together in a common life, joined to Christ, the Head of this church, Head of this body, joined to one another, joined by the Holy Spirit, and we're constituted members of the household of God.
Alright then, having established, I trust, the nature of our relationship, well, what is the primary responsibility that we have one to another? What is the primary responsibility that you and I have one to another? Now, if you have any acquaintance with the New Testament, you know that you and I have many responsibilities to one another as believers, right? There are many one another's in the New Testament, and beyond that, in fact, you read through the epistles and you read what? Do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that, do the other, do the—oh, what a great complex of responsibilities.
So whenever you find a little booklet, a 35-page booklet or book that says "The Christian Life Made Simple," don't waste your money on it. We have the whole Bible to spell out the whole duty of the whole Christian for the whole of his life, and the people that have been best at applying the whole Bible to the whole of their life, when they came to the end of their life, would say something like this: I've just begun to learn and to do it. So I'm not saying what is your only responsibility and my only responsibility; I'm addressing myself to this question: what is our primary responsibility one to another?
Now, do you have something coming to your mind, anything that comes to your mind? If you have this, that's the heart of it. If you have this, that's the heart of it, and everything else flows out of it. Everything else flows out of it. All the other one another's, they flow out of it.
Okay, well, just tighten your seatbelt and we're going to go from Romans to 1 John very quickly. Not the whole, by the way, not the whole, but just a few passages along the way. Turn to Romans 13, first of all, Romans 13. In this section of great doctrinal presentation or dissertation on the gospel, laying out to God's people the responsibilities that rest upon them as bearers of the name of Jesus, the name of Christ, Paul in Romans 13 verse 8, he says, "Owe nothing to anyone except to"— what? — "love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,' and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does not work evil against the neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
You see what Paul is doing, did you grasp it? He says now there are many duties, but if we have to reduce them all to one central duty, a duty which is a delight for the Christian and all the others flow out of it, he reduces it to the duty of love one to another. Love one to another.
Turn to Galatians 5, the passage that we opened up with, verse 13. Galatians 5:13, "For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Not just serve one another, but through love serve one another. "For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" That is the whole section referring of the law applied to horizontal relationship or responsibilities, not the entirety of the law, which is in its first part deals with our vertical responsibilities, but the whole law as it impacts my relationship to my brothers and sisters, he says, is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.
Turn to Ephesians 5, turn to Ephesians 5, and as you do that, all we're seeking to remember, all we're seeking to do is to see if the Bible approaches this matter of our responsibility one to another in terms of a concept of primary duty. Ephesians 5, verses 1 and 2: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." He says be imitators of God, be imitators of—imitate God, be imitators of God. What does that involve? Well, many things, but primarily involves what? Walk in love, walk in love, even as the God who is revealed in Christ has loved us.
Now, the book of Colossians, chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3, again, the Apostle's giving us many practical exhortation, he brings it, as it were, to a summary and sharp focus in verse 12. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 12: "So, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, so also should you."
Now, stop here for a moment. You look at these verses, and bound up in these verses you have a big hunk of duties laid upon us—I mean, this is tremendous, that's an awful lot of responsibilities laid upon us as God's people—but notice what he says next. Now, (verse 14) "above all these things" — you see that? — "Above all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." You see, he doesn't say forbearance is the perfect bond of unity, he doesn't say forgiveness is the perfect bond of unity, or a heart of compassion. You see, these are all but what? Manifestations of love, right? The fruit of the Spirit is first love, right? Love—and then everything else comes after, and these are all but manifestations of love. And so he says, above all these things put on love, and as love is indeed put on, then love in its exercise will be manifested in what? Humility and compassion and forgiveness and long-suffering, even as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
Now then, turn over to 1 Thessalonians. He's exhorted them concerning many things, now he says in chapter 4, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 9, verse 9: "Now concerning love of the brothers, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are what taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brothers who are in Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel still more"—excel still more, more and more in what? In this love one to another, which was taught to them by God's mighty work in their heart in regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
Then go over to 1 Peter chapter 4. Again, the apostle has been giving many exhortations, warnings against conformity to the former pattern of life, exhorting them to so walk that unbelievers—unregenerate believers, unbelievers—may see the difference, their different lifestyle, and ask a reason of the hope that is in them. Now he says in verse 7, 1 Peter 4:7, "The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound thinking and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer." — Verse 8: — "Above all" — you see there is a supremacy to this duty, a primacy — "above all keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." And then he goes on to tell us what love will do, all the way from the opening the door of my home, the opening of the door of my heart to my brothers and sisters, to finding out what my gift is and investing it for the good of my brothers and sisters, not wrapping it in a napkin of selfishness, burying it in the earth of my own apathy and indifference. He says above all things keep fervent in your love.
And then we come, of course, to the first epistle of John, 1 John. It's so full of this, so much so you don't know where to begin and where to end. 1 John chapter 3, verse 11. 1 John chapter 3, verse 11: "For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." Same chapter, go down to verse 16: "By this we have known love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth."
Then, of course, the capstone passage over all of these takes us back to John 13. John 13 and verse 34 and verse 35. John 13:34. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." For by this all will know that you are My disciples, if you are unwavering, unbending defenders of the truth. Is that what He says? Now let me say this. If you come to this place any length of time, you know we're absolutely, absolutely not downplaying the centrality of truth. Absolutely. It's a hill to die on. So if you're visiting with us, don't put what we say today in any other context than the context of the total ministry of this congregation. We do believe we need to be precise and fastidious about the truth. And to obscure any area of God's truth is to obscure some aspect of the glory of Christ, who is the sum and substance of that truth.
But Jesus here does not say, "By this shall all will know that you are My disciples, if you are unwavering, unbending defenders of the truth." Nor does He say, "By this shall all will know that you are My disciples, if this or that." Rather He says, If you have love one to another or for one another. Indicating that it must be a love expressed in visible deeds—visible deeds that even the godless can see and discern. Right? By this all will know that you are My disciples, by the love that you have for one to another. Well, they can't know it if it's simply something that is supposedly resident in the heart. But they know it in its visible expressions in the life and in our interaction with one another.
Now I don't think anyone would dispute the conclusion that the primary responsibility that we have one to another within this unique relationship of being members of one another is this: it is to abound in love—this biblical love. It is to abound in love to one another, and increasingly to manifest the fruit of that love in our relationship to one another in the real world in which we live. May I give it to us again? What is your primary responsibility to me as your brother in Christ? And vice versa? What is your primary responsibility one to another in the body of Christ? It is this: to abound in this love. To abound—abound to overflow—to abound in this love, in love one to another, and increasingly to manifest the fruit of that love in our relationship to each other in the real world in which we live.
That is love doing the thing that love demands in every situation given. And that may vary a hundred times in any given day. But the demand is that we love not with word or with tongue but in deed and truth. And having established something of the uniqueness of our relationship one to another—we are members of one another, we share a common life—having established, I trust, that the primary responsibility we have one to another is to love one another.
Now in the third place, what are the essential activities of this brotherly love? What are the essential activities of this love? Now there is no great significance in the order in which I am going to give them. Picture them not as a pyramid—the top one being the most important and then the bottom is the lesser one or the least one—but picture them rather as a pie. It is all cut up in slices and it does not matter where one begins. The same pie, same slice. The points are slices in a pie. So take them as that.
And the first one we are going to deal with is—well, I am going to split them under positive and negative. So let us deal with the positive ones. The essential activities of this love which is paramount. Number one, the first activity of this brotherly love in a positive vein is this: it will constrain us. It will constrain us. The love of Christ constrains us. It will constrain us to mutual forgiveness and to be blanket makers. Mutual forgiveness and to be blanket makers.
Ephesians 4:32: "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, graciously forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has graciously forgiven you." Earlier in this chapter, in verse 25. "Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak the truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another."
It will constrain us. You go back to Peter's word in 1 Peter 4:8, "Above all" —here is the primary grace, here is the fundamental grace—"keep fervent in your love one to another,". Now notice, having underscored fervent love as the primary grace, he then is going to underscore the primary activity of this primary grace. And what is it? "Because love covers a multitude of sins."
Love will cause you to be a blanket maker. It will constrain you to cover a multitude of sins. If love is the primary grace, then Peter assumes that that grace will come into its primary demand as fellow sinners redeemed. But redeemed sinners live with one another. And guess what? Fall short of perfection before one another. And of necessity, they need to let go and throw the blanket of love over mild offenses in their relationship one to another.
And if we abound in this love. This love that we saw is our primary duty. We will find ourselves constrained to not only mutual forgiveness, but also to be blanket makers. We're all beloved. All of us. You look around and you see all of us are in a state of imperfect sanctification. We call it progressive sanctification. And love is that blessed grace that will enable us, by the grace of God, instead of focusing upon each other's faults and warts and moles, and amplifying those faults, and parading those faults, and allowing them to become breaches in our relationship one to another—we'll have that ability to cover them and put them out of sight.
Now, is Peter saying that if there's a scandalous sin, we ought to just act like it isn't there? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what he's saying. There are other passages in the Word of God that teach us: if we see a brother's sin, the nature of that sin is such that demands a rebuke, that we are to go and tell him his sin and bring that rebuke. We're to rebuke him. In Luke 17 verse 3, our Lord tells us. In Matthew 18 verse 15 and following, there's ample instruction to do that.
But, beloved, that which ruins churches—that which ruins churches, that which brings internal blight, when God has promised that all the armies of hell cannot assail the church from without—that which brings internal blight again and again is not the presence of those scandalous sins that need to be dealt with by mutual reproof and discipline. It's allowing those many little areas of common fault to become festering sores in our relationship one to another. And if false doctrine and scandalous sin has slain its hundreds, the absence of love that caused people to cover a multitude of sins has slain its ten thousands.
Oh, I entreat us, brothers and sisters, beloved, as our family grows, the capacity to sin in the house of God grows. Because every person attending or brought into the membership is a partially sanctified sinner. And the more partially sanctified sinners you have, the more possibility for sin you have. So the more love there's got to be to cover a multitude of sins. And without that—without that—do you know what's going to happen? We're going to become unglued at the seams. We will become unglued at the seams, and we will find ourselves with those attitudes that drive us farther apart rather than draw us closer together.
Well, in the second place, the essential activity of this brotherly love that's described in scripture—this primary grace—is that which not only constrains us to mutual forgiveness and being blanket makers, but also it constrains us to mutual forbearance. Mutual forbearance. Forbearance. Turn with me to Ephesians 4, verse 2. Start with verse 1. Verse 1.
"Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have called, with In love all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another" — But how? How? "In love". In love. ‘Anechomai’, the word translated bearing. ‘Anechomai’ It is the right response to the faults and the weaknesses and the flaws of other brothers and sisters. The Greek word literally means to hold oneself back. To hold oneself back. It came to mean in Greek—in the Greek language—what we often say in English, and that is put up with someone. Put up with someone.
Paul is saying, put up with one another in love. Put up with one another in love. You know sandpaper people, right? Sometimes, put up with one another in love. I just can't put up with that any longer. I mean, yes, I mean, yeah, but that one person—God says, well, you just better have a little more putter upper put in you. You need a little more putter upper put in you. Work on that. I will help you. Work on that. Bearing with one another in love. Forbearing one with another.
Now, what is the whole assumption? What is the whole assumption of this exhortation? Well, just as Peter assumes that there will be multitude—a multitude of moral imperfections amongst the people of God—here Paul is assuming there will be a multitude of things that will demand that I put up with you and you put up with me in love.
If that's not the assumption, then the exhortation is meaningless. Is senseless. By the way, there will be no need for forbearance in heaven. No need for forbearance in heaven. You'll be so perfect, I couldn't help but love you all the time. And I'll be so perfect, you couldn't help but love me all the time. There will be no need. No need. That's one grace that won't be needed in heaven. That's a sinner's grace. Forbearance. Right? It's a sinner's grace. Any wife here has got a perfect husband, you don't need to forbear with him. Any husband in here got that perfect—don't answer. That's why we need to forbear with one another. Well, that's true in the house of God. And what is it that motivates us to forbearance? What is it? It's love. It's love. It's the love of God. The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Now this is true because not only are there moral imperfections, but there are also intellectual imperfections here. Let me explain. Our understanding of the application of the truth of God is different in a body of Christ like this. You see, we're moving in areas of sanctification at different rates of speed. We need to be aware of this. And we, by God's grace, perhaps have gone 60 kilometers an hour down this particular avenue of sanctification, and our brother or sister who has been on the road as long as we have, they've been only moving at 20 kilometers an hour in that area. And we tend to be what? Impatient. Impatient.
But keep in mind there are areas where he's been going 60 and you've been going 10 kilometers an hour. Perhaps you're reminded of what forbearance is when you walk with your loved one, perhaps your spouse.
Or perhaps you're taking your little one for a walk and you have to put up in love with their speed. Now love demands that you do. Right? You may be trying to teach your son or daughter how to drive and they don't seem to catch on and you just want to hold on. You need to bear with their slowness in love. That's what we're talking about.
And what is it that will give us grace to do so? Love. The scripture says, "bearing with one another in love." When you find yourself unable to bear with your brothers and sisters in these areas where their thinking lags behind yours, their experience, their advance in grace, then cry out to the living God. Cry out to the living God. Oh God, flood my heart with love that will enable me to forbear with them.
It constrains us to mutual forgiveness, covering a multitude of mild offenses. It constrains us to mutually forbear with one another. And thirdly, this love flowing out along biblical channels will constrain us to mutual burden bearing. Mutual burden bearing. Romans 15 and Galatians 6, pivotal passages. And I want to clinch it really. I want to hook this one and clinch it with two rather than one passages because they balance out each other.
Romans 15. Romans 15. You're familiar with this passage. Romans 15 verse 1: "Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his building up." — His edification, the building up — "For even Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.'"
The context, very briefly of course, is the matter of Christian liberty. And here's the man who's coming into such clear light of the truth of the gospel that in Christ all that he has and all that he is, is indeed redeemed. There's no such thing as an unclean meat and a clean meat, clean drink, unclean drink. He can take all of God's gifts, receive them with thanksgiving and partake in them with joy or of them with joy. And here's this poor, scrupulous brother. He's all the time wrestling in agony, wondering, will this please the Lord if I eat this? Will this please the Lord if I drink this? He's always just so full of scruples.
Now what's the tendency? The tendency of the strong brother is to say, come on already. Come on. Just get with it. Don't you understand the gospel? You're free in Christ. Now why are you going around like you're still half under the ceremonial law? Scruples about this, scruples about that, scruples about the other thing. Enough of this already.
Paul says, wait a minute. Just wait a minute. Are you strong? Are you strong to understand all of your great inheritance in Christ? Then you ought to be strong to understand that you're a Christian because Jesus Christ stooped to bear your burden. He could have looked upon you in your sin and in your filth and rebellion and wanted nothing to do with you, but He condescended, stooped to you in your ignorance, in your darkness, in your blindness, in your wretchedness and rebellion.
He says, now can't you do that with someone who is your brother? "Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength." Paul intends us here to understand that we are not to just put up with those who disagree with us. We put up with love, obviously, but not just to put up in terms of being angry with them and have a weak, overly sensitive conscience. Instead, we are to shoulder the load. We are to help carry their burden.
Now that doesn't mean—let me in parenthesis—it doesn't mean that we are to let those with weak consciences control how the church operates entirely. All the decisions in the church were all bound by their scruples. No, no, no. Paul says we ought to bear their weakness. Don't put them down. Don't criticize them. Don't come down hard on them. Don't dismiss them. We ought to bear with their weakness and we ought to be measured in the exercise of our liberty. As we interact with them, we ought to carry their weakness with us. We are to make sure that we consider them and come alongside of them and help them have a sanctified conscience that aligns with the word of God and that takes time and patience. To make sure that that weak conscience becomes informed with the truth of God's word.
And I say again, beloved, the more our church family grows, and God brings into it more and more cultural diversity, backgrounds that have conditioned our consciences, traditions that have molded our thinking, there are going to be more and more areas where we're going to need that grace to bear each other's burdens in the realm of Christian liberty.
But then in Galatians chapter 6, we have another line of burden-bearing. Galatians 6, look at verses 1 and 2, and this is wonderful. "Brothers, even if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each of you looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
Now, we need to understand that the nature of the burden that we're to bear in verse 2 is colored by the instruction given in verse 1. Don't separate the two. I love what Pastor MacArthur said concerning this quote, "The second responsibility of a spiritual believer who seeks to restore a fallen brother is to help hold him up once he's back on his feet. In this context, the reference suggests burdens that tempt a sinning believer to fall back into the trespass from which he has just been delivered. A persistent oppressing temptation is one of the heaviest burdens a Christian can have."
Does it ever occur to us, beloved, that maybe some of the sins that you see so evident in your brothers or sisters are really a burden to them? If they're Christians, truly Christians, those sins are a burden to them, because no Christian can carry sin lightly. The greatest burden to a true Christian, if he's five years old or 50, if he's been on the way a day or 20 years, his greatest burden is his sin. His sin. The sin that adheres to him, that clings to him, and, sad to say, at times overtakes him, cripples him, and how easy it is to throw stones at the brother who's been wounded, crippled by his sin.
Beloved, if we're joined together in a common life, then your burdens are mine and mine are yours. And brothers and sisters, when that happens, that's costly. That's costly. When you begin to make other people's burdens yours, that's costly. He doesn't say, bear one another's light straw loads. He doesn't say that, right? Bear one another's what? ‘Varos’, the Greek word. ‘Varos’ refers to a heavy load, heavy load, that is difficult to lift and carry. And when thing, the thing that bows my brother, my sister over, is now on my shoulders, it's going to bow me over. It's costly to bear each other's burdens.
To have a hearing ear, a sympathetic heart for the needs of your brothers and sisters is costly. Costly. But isn't that the nature of true love? To spend itself for the sake of the object loved? It's the very nature of love to spend itself for its object. And I pray that God would give us fervent love among ourselves. Love constraining to mutual forgiveness and blanket making. Love constraining to mutual forbearance. Love constraining to mutual burden bearing.
And fourthly, love constraining to mutual exhortation and admonition. One of the things that is such a joy for us who are, by the grace of God, given this privilege, undeserved privilege, to be undershepherds, elders of this congregation, is that there is the recognition that the official admonishers and exhorters of the flock are the undershepherds. "...know those who labor among you, and lead you in the Lord and admonish you." First Thessalonians 5:12.
But we must never allow that to cloud this other clearly taught biblical principle that you have a responsibility of exhortation and admonition one to another without any official bearing capacity. And two texts that come to mind. Romans 15 verse 14. Romans 15 verse 14: "But I myself am also convinced about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, having been filled with all knowledge and being able also to" — here it is — "admonish one another."
I love this. Paul here says that as they grow in knowledge, right, as they grow in knowledge, that is what we might call the intellectual development of the Christian. You know, your knowledge of who God is in the Christian life and all of that. And as they grow in goodness, that's the growth of virtue. As there is enlargement, we can put it this way, of heart and head. How will it find expression? "Able also to admonish one another." You see it? "Able also to admonish one another."
You see a man who comes to admonish you who's got an empty head, lack of biblical knowledge, has nothing worthwhile to admonish you about, right? The man who's got a full head but an empty heart, well, he's not in the proper frame to admonish you, right? But when he's full of goodness and filled with knowledge, he comes with the proper attitude to grant you the necessary insights. That's a wonderful balance.
Go over to Hebrews chapter 3, a similar exhortation. Hebrews chapter 3, the writer to the Hebrews warns in verse 12, "See to it, brothers, that there not be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God." The first steps of apostasy are always steps of unbelief, always. And unbelief always is a step away from God. That's why he says, "unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God." We must dread as the plague, the plague of plagues, an evil heart of unbelief that would cause us to turn from our God.
But now by what means? What are the means that God will use in helping us that we will not fall away? Verse 13, but here's the opposite: "But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
So here we are, all of us in our uncommon place of danger. The seeds of unbelief are part of the remaining corruption within all of us. And now he says beware, take heed, there must be constant vigilance lest the spirit of unbelief gain ascendancy and wreak havoc.
Now he says there's a wonderful preventative at your disposal. What is that? He tells us mutual exhortation.
Now you see why this is laid upon all the people of God? Because it is impossible for the recognized, duly appointed, official, exhorters, the undershepherds, the elders to have the kind of intimate and close proximity to every single member of the flock, that the members of the flock have various ones with each other. And many times when an issue has developed to a place where the undershepherds have discerned it, the gangrene has already spread. And it could have been dealt with so much sooner by some brother or sister who saw the thing months before, but who either out of a false sense of timidity or out of a lack of love did not perform their biblical responsibility.
Now I know this is liable to abuse. I know. You're always going to get someone who thinks he's the Lord's chief high inspector, going around sure that he sees in this one and that one the evil heart of unbelief, but such a person is self-condemning and the whole congregation recognizes him or her and they just learn to live with him and forbear with him or her in love. You have them in every congregation. You have to live with them. You know what I call them? Moss. M-O-S. Means of sanctification that God uses in our lives. They think they're full of knowledge but they lack goodness and sometimes they think they're full of knowledge when they're just full of hot air.
Now granted this is open to abuse, but beloved, beloved, let not the abuse of it keep us from the proper use of it. Right? And periodically this exhortation must be given. You have a responsibility to each other to exhort one another. You have this God-given responsibility. We as elders are not the only ones who have this responsibility and this undeserved privilege of doing that. You have that responsibility one to another.
And if you're in the home, for example, of a brother or sister and you notice over a period of time a pattern of unruliness among the little ones—and it may be months and months before one of the elders or pastors before they would have that opportunity to observe that pattern—you prayerfully, over time, as you see this is a pattern. It's not a one-on-one time off. Just giving an example. You take that brother aside, put your arm on his shoulder—if he's a brother—and say, "Brother, I know you want to please God, don't you?" You don't come out and say, shame on you, you're failing as the head of your household. No, no. You come with humility, with kindness and tenderness. You put your arm around him. "I know you want to please God, don't you?" "Of course I do." "And you want God to bless you in your role as a father." "Well, of course I do." "I know you do. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps—" and then you bring the loving, gentle exhortation.
"Do you realize that that pattern in your child is willful rebellion?" "Oh no, I never realized it. I just thought that was a stage of kids go through." And you sit down with him and you open up the scripture, and maybe he wasn't reared in a home where there were patterns of biblical discipline. You see, beloved, love will constrain us to exhort, to admonish one another in love, in kindness, in humility. Love constrains us to do so.
You see, love is willing—love is willing to jeopardize the friendship. Love is willing to jeopardize the friendship when it's done in this context. Proverbs 27 verse 6: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." And may the Lord grant us this abounding in love that will constrain us to this mutual exhortation.
And one more of the positive things this love will do, very briefly: it will constrain us to the mutual sharing of our substance when necessary. We share what God has blessed us with, right? Acts chapter 4 is the classic example. Now let me clarify something. It's not put there as a pattern to follow. It is not prescriptive, it is descriptive. It's just put there as a statement of what happens when love—biblical love—just breaks over its banks.
Acts 4:34, "For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of lands or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need."
The situation was dire. Many of the pilgrims converted to Christianity and faced persecution, loss of jobs, and all of a sudden you had this crisis. You had a tremendous need that needed to be met all of a sudden, and the church came along to do that.
The next verse does not say—when you read this, "and they lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would distribute them to each as any had need"—the next verse does not say and you go and do likewise. This is simply a statement of what happened. The love they bore one to another moved them to meet their brothers and sisters needs. Do you see what their love did? That's the point. Their love caused them to move to the tangible needs of their brothers and sisters and that's the exhortation that we read from 1 John chapter 3 and verses 17 and 18. "But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth."
And think of God's love to us in Christ. What we needed was someone to come amongst us to live as a man, a perfect man, a perfect life to live that perfect life of obedience to the law and as a man to die the cursed death that the law demanded. And yet he needed to be something more than man to give an infinite worth both to his obedience and his sacrifice, his death that could apply to an innumerable company of the redeemed. And so our need was precisely that and the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son came and met that precise need because he loved us. And so if we have this love abounding one to another it will compel us, it will constrain us even to the sharing of our substance where this is needed. And may the Lord grant to us that measure of love that will constrain us to practical expression.
Well, I was hoping to deal with the negative—what this love will restrain us from. You see, love not only constrains us to certain things, but it restrains us as well. But my time is gone, so I'll just give you one point of the many that I had hoped to give. I'll leave it at this, and this is really self-explanatory: this love will restrain you from harming your brothers and sisters. It will restrain us from harming our brothers and sisters.
Romans 13 verse 10: Love, he describes it negatively here, "Love does not work evil against a neighbor." It doesn't—it doesn't. Love works good, that's the positive, but now he states it negatively: "Love does not work evil against the neighbor." You see, love will be the monitor, the rein upon my tongue. Love will be the monitor upon my attitudes. Love will be that great purgative that will keep me from harboring bitterness and resentment. Anything that harms my brother, my sister—love will restrain me from moving in the direction of that which will harm my brother or my sister.
And what is the source of this brotherly love? Well, we've seen that our relationship is that of a shared life. Our primary duty is that love—love for one another. We've looked at five channels that love will cut in the life of God's people.
What is the source of this brotherly love? Well, in conclusion, number one: the presence, the presence of this love is an indispensable accompaniment of regeneration. The presence of this love is an indispensable accompaniment of regeneration. It's part of being a Christian. It happens at conversion.
That's one of the primary lessons of the book of 1 John chapter 2 verses 9 through 11, chapter 4 verses 7 through 8, chapter 3 verse 14, where we read, "We know that we have passed out of death into life" —how?—"because we love the brothers." You see it? You see, we are brought into the body of Christ, the body of that shared life, and there's that reflex sense of responsibility and attachment to those who share that same life, and it's an indispensable accompaniment of regeneration.
Paul could say to the Thessalonians, I don't need to write to you to love one another, you are already taught of God to love one another, right? 1 Thessalonians 4:9. That's one of the blessings of the new covenant: They shall all be taught of God. Isaiah 54:13. You read that quote also in John 6 and verse 45.
We love one another because we're Christians, because we're born again by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is shed abroad in our hearts—this love—Romans 5:5, by the Holy Spirit.
And if you're here this morning and find, well, I'm in this building, I can sense that these people here sitting around me, you know, share something in common, something special in common together as they sing, as they listen, and the truth is being taught, and obviously their hearts are being—I can sense it, I can see it, people responding, there's something going on here—but I feel I'm like on the outside. Am I talking to someone like that today? You feel that you're on the outside because you are on the outside.
That's why a Christian can go into a group of people who don't even talk his language and in 30 seconds feels that he's on the inside. Their shared life—even though they can't share the same language—and they're conscious of that shared life, they click, they mesh. And you may be here today and feel like you're out, you're not part of what's going on here—that is a shared life. My friend, the reason you're not part of it is because you're not part of it, and you'll never be part of it until you are born again by the Spirit of God, and until the life of God becomes in your heart, comes into your heart, into your soul. And it cannot be until you have direct dealings with the One who's given that life, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." And so I point you to Him this morning.
Seek Him, call upon Him, come to Him.
And then finally, then for you and for me who are Christians, the growth and increase of that love is the consequence of walking in the Spirit. I'll close on that. After Paul exhorts to this love in Galatians 5, his next word is what? Walk by the Spirit, for the fruit of the Spirit is—what?—love.
You see, many times next to coldness in our vertical longings, our love for the Word and for prayer, the first manifestation that we've grieved the Holy Spirit of God is that we begin to have problems with our brothers and sisters. Things that we could overlook suddenly now begin to be magnified. Burdens that once were such that we felt we had to bear them and we bore them in love, now we can behold them with polite indifference, at times feel aggravated.
Oh, may God speak to us and cause us as His people to abound in this love more and more to the end that all men will know that we are His disciples. Is it too much to believe that our growth numerically need not be the relinquishment of the intensity of mutual love? Is God's grace able to extend itself, and I speak reverently, to the new dimensions of His body? Does He give the increase in order to give decrease of spiritual life and vigor? Unequivocally I say absolutely not. Let us look to Him for the grace needed that we may abound in love one to another.
Let's pray.
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