All right, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to John chapter 13 and put a finger in John 13, and then flip over to 1 Corinthians 13 and put a finger there. John 13 and 1 Corinthians 13. Last Wednesday night, we started a new teaching series called Cultivating Covenant Community. And what we're really doing in this study is going through the one another commands of scripture, the various places in the Bible where we're taught how to treat one another in the body of Christ. And last week we really went through what is covenant community? Why is the church so essential? And what does it mean for us to have the communion of the saints? And we kind of laid the theological foundations for the one another commands. And tonight we'll be looking at the first and really the most important of the one another commands, and that is love one another, which is a very simple command, but as you know, we often don't obey this command in the body of Christ, and so we need to repent, and also we need to strive to love one another well in the church. And so we'll be looking at that tonight. Just to get us started, we'll start in John 13, the verses are verse... 34 and 35, and then I want us to look at the love chapter in 1 Corinthians 13, and we'll pray and get started. So John 13, verse 34 and 35, it says this, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And then 1 Corinthians 13. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity for us to be together as your people and to study your word. We thank you for the one another commands of scripture and the way that these commands show us how we are to relate to one another. in the body of Christ. We pray that your Holy Spirit would teach us, help us to understand how we can love one another better. We also pray that you would convict us where we need to be convicted, encourage us, and reaffirm things that we are, by your grace, doing well. And we ask that you would produce a loving community and grow a loving community here at Christ Prez. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So tonight we're gonna look at three different sections. The first is we're gonna talk about the priority of Christian love, the importance, you might say. Secondly, the characteristics of Christian love. And then thirdly, the motivations of Christian love. I don't really anticipate us finishing all these notes tonight, but we'll see. But there's a lot here and a lot for us to think about. If you're looking at the John 13 passage, one of the things you can see there is that Jesus affirms, and He raises the standard of the Old Testament law. So, in the Old Testament, we were taught to love one another, we're taught to love our neighbor as ourself, and Jesus affirms that. He didn't come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. He affirms the Old Testament law. But he also raises it. If you look at the way it's phrased there in John 13, he doesn't say, love your neighbor as yourself, but he says, love one another as I have loved you. Do you see the difference? So in the Old Testament, the emphasis was really on yourself. The assumption was you love yourself and love others as you already do love yourself. But here, Jesus says, love one another, not as you love yourself, He affirms that, but He takes it up, and He affirms it more, and He says, love one another as I have loved you. So, His love is what primarily informs and inspires our love for one another. And you can see that what Jesus says here when he gives this new commandment is that basically our love for one another is supposed to be the defining characteristic, the defining mark of the community. And so when you look at the church or when you look at disciples of Jesus, the main way the world recognizes us is supposed to be our love for one another. And so that's how highly Jesus speaks about love, and so we should think of love very highly. This was in fact said of early Christians. that they loved one another greatly and they were known in this way. There was a man who lived second, third century named Tertullian in North Africa. He's known as the father of Latin Christianity. He's actually the theologian who coined the term Trinity for the concept that's in the Bible of one God and three persons. And Tertullian was once describing about what the pagans who became Christians, what they felt so compelling was about this Christian movement. And one of the things that they said was, see how they love one another. So as the pagans watched those early Christians relate to one another, they said that is the defining characteristic of their community, is that they love one another. Francis Schaeffer referred to love as the final apologetic. So when you think about the defense of the Christian faith, the most important apologetic is not an intellectual one, but it's love. When others see that we love one another and we imitate the love that Christ has for us. And when you think about love, pretty much everybody you meet, there are sociopaths, there are exceptions, but pretty much everybody you meet will say, yeah, we need love. We know it's real, we know that love's a thing, we know it exists, and we know it's desirable. And so it's something that really speaks to a watching world when they see that supernatural love that Christians have for one another. And you think also in our world today where many people have a materialistic outlook, where they see people kind of just as the result of a cosmic accident, and they've just evolved over time, and we're just all chemicals, basically, we're matter in motion, that depersonalizes human life and experience, and it doesn't provide a proper worldview to show the importance of love. But when we love one another, not just in talk, but also in word and deed, a world that is very materialistic, a world that doesn't find meaning in human relationships, is able to see that true love that comes from God alone. Jesus emphasized the priority of love when he summarized God's law. Remember the Ten Commandments? How do you summarize all of them? He said what? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Now, that wasn't brand new when Jesus said that. He's taking Deuteronomy 6, 5, Leviticus 19, 18, and He's saying that summarizes the whole Old Testament. It's all about love. And so love is very important because it's basically the theme that runs throughout the whole Bible. And then, of course, we know the gospel, the good news that we preach, the good news that saves us is all about love. For God so loved the world that He gave His Son. that whosoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life. We think about God demonstrating His love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and we think about love is really what happens when we're converted. The Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts, and that is love. And so it's pretty easy to see from John 13, it's pretty easy to see from just kind of surveying the major passages that love is really, really important. I mean, Jesus says, by this, all people will know you're my disciples. By your sound doctrine, no. By this, all people will know you're my disciples because of how compelling intellectual arguments you can make. No, by this, all people will know you're my disciples by the love, right, that you have for one another. That speaks of how important it is, how significant it is, and it should be a priority in our lives. So we should ask ourselves, is love a priority? Is that something we think about often? How, not just do I love God, but also how do I love my brothers and sisters in Christ? Is that something that we remind ourselves often? What are the demands of love? What does love look like in this situation? Is our community here at CPC, is it loving? I would say I believe it is, but obviously we need to be reminded, don't we? And we need to be encouraged and constantly stirring up one another to love and to good deeds. I once heard a story. about a pastor of a small Presbyterian church. And there was a man in the church who took it upon himself to make a pamphlet to broadcast and publicize the church in a local community. And the man wrote up this pamphlet and he brought it to his pastor. And he said, what do you think? And the pastor read through it. And basically the whole pamphlet was about the reformed theological distinctives of the church. And all the distinctives were very true. But then the pastor asked the man, he said, Why does this pamphlet say nothing about love? Why does it say nothing about how we're a loving community? Here's a place where you will be welcomed. Here's a place where you will be cared for. Why is there nothing there about that? So not to downplay theology. Theology is important. I don't think I'd be preaching to the choir if I said that. Everyone knows that I believe theology is very important. But what Jesus is putting here at front and center is love for each other. Love for each other as Christians and how significant that is. And so is that a priority in our lives? So let's move then to, okay, we know it's important. Jesus sets it out for us. What are the characteristics of Christian love, biblical love? And specifically here, we're not talking tonight about love for God, but love for one another. In the body of Christ, how should our love for one another be characterized? Twelve characteristics. Take a deep breath. Twelve characteristics of Christian love, but very, very important for us to know these. Number one, Christian love is a pursuing love. It's a pursuing love. Think about 1 John 4, 19. We know this verse, don't we? We love because he what? first loved us. So what is primary in the Christian life is not my love for God, it's not my love for others, but it's his love for me. What is the nature of that love? It is a pursuing love. Think about the hymn we sing. From heaven he came and sought her, to be his lovely bride. With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died. And so the gospel is about God coming down, God pursuing us. The Son of Man, Jesus says, came to, what? Seek and to save that which was lost. He initiated, he pursued others. We know the verse, Romans 5, 8. He demonstrates his love for us. while we're still sinners. So while we're His enemies, while we're not pursuing Him, He is pursuing us. Of course, in our Reformed theology, it really emphasizes the pursuit of God, the initiative of God. He chose us. He came and opened up our blind eyes and opened our deaf ears so that we would embrace Christ as Savior. So what does that mean? It means that in the body of Christ, we need to be pursuing our brothers and sisters. It means that we need to be seeking after them. to love them. Often we distance ourselves from one another when we're hurt or when we're frustrated or when we have problems in our lives. We distance ourselves and we set up walls and fences. But the reality is we're called to seek out one another. So one of the things we can think about when it comes to pursuing love is who have you reached out to recently? Who have you called on the phone? Who have you texted? Who have you invited for lunch or coffee? Who have you reached out to? Maybe they shared something that was on their heart in a small group. Later on that week, did you follow up with them and ask them how it went or, you know, and reach out to them? Pursuing is something that requires our initiative. And so biblical love means that we are looking for those we can love. in the body of Christ, and we're going out of our way to seek them as the Lord went out of his way to seek and save us. Secondly, we see that Christian love is a sacrificial love. So remember, Jesus says, love one another, how? As I have loved you. He's loved us by pursuing us. He's also loved us by dying for us. He sacrificed himself for us. You think about when in the Bible, when it talks about husbands loving their wives, How do they love their wives? As Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? He died for the church. He sacrificed himself for the church. And so that's not just true of husbands and their love for their wives, but it's also true for our love for one another. True Christian love is cruciform. It means we die to ourselves, we die to what we want, we die to asserting our own rights. so that we can serve others. Ephesians 5, one says, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself a sacrifice to God, a fragrant offering, pleasing to God. And so that's the standard, Christ on the cross, Christ giving himself away. So one of the questions we can ask when we think about loving one another, fulfilling this command, is what kind of sacrifices have we made lately for our brothers and sisters? You know, it's easy to say, yeah, I'd die for you, but it's like, yeah, but would you spare 15 minutes to talk about something in my life? So sacrifice can be a sacrifice of time. It can be a sacrifice of providing something to someone else that you give up of your resources and you sacrifice that for their good and you give it to them. And so sacrificing is at the heart of the kind of love we're supposed to have. If love were easy and if it was always felt like we were affirming ourselves and fulfilling ourselves, I mean that, of course the world does that, loves those who love them, and doesn't really require any sacrifice, but Christian love requires us dying to ourselves. Thirdly, Christian love is a persevering love. Think about, again, the love of Jesus for us. Does he stop when we sin? Does he back away when we go through trials and we're complaining? Jesus' love is a pursuing, enduring love. We saw it in that 1 Corinthians 13 passage. Verse seven, I think, captures the spirit. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. You see that passage then is essentially saying true love doesn't stop when a brother or sister is caught up in sin, or falling into a trial and might be hard to be around. Think about Job's friends at the beginning. At the beginning, they don't leave Job, right? They sit with him in his trial and they weep with those who weep. One of the most painful things that can happen in life of the church, we alluded last time to personal wounds that can make people withdraw from the church, but one of the most painful things that can happen, I hope it's never happened to you, This is when a fellow Christian cuts you off. Maybe you've had that happen before, they just drop you. They stop pursuing you, they stop talking to you, they stop interacting with you. And so one of the reasons that's so hurtful is because it's so antithetical to who Jesus is, right? Because Jesus doesn't stop pursuing and loving and caring for others. He doesn't cut off the relationship. That's true love that we're talking about. Fourthly, it's a tenderhearted love. God's love for us, Jesus' love for us, is actually drawn to us in our weakness. So because he's a savior and he loves to save, he's drawn to sinners. Not because he loves sin, but because he knows he came to seek and save the lost, right? Because Jesus is merciful and compassionate, he's drawn to people who are hurting. You think about Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is what? Near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. And that's how God's love works. He's not repelled by people who are hurting, but he's drawn to them because of the kind of God that he is. And so our love is also supposed to be like that. Scripture says we're to weep with those who weep, right? There's a kind of tenderheartedness that's involved there. So one of the things that would mean for us is kind of one way to think about this is that When you look out on Christ Prez and you look out on the other members of the body of Christ, your church family, ask yourself the question, who's hurting? Who's lonely? Who's frustrated? Who's doubting? Who's depressed? And that's a good clue to where you need to be pursuing, right? And concentrating efforts towards those parts of the body that are in those situations. And so, because Christian love is a tender-hearted love, Jesus has a tender heart for those who are hurting. Fifthly, Christian love is a sincere love. Romans 12, nine says, Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. So when he says, let love be genuine, what it literally says in the original is, let love be free from hypocrisy, without any kind of hypocrisy. It shouldn't be feigned. It shouldn't be pretend. It shouldn't be fake. Love should not be, have you ever been on the side, on the receiving side in a church context of someone who's loving you with ulterior motives? Sometimes I see this, for example, with people who are networkers. They're really successful in their job because they're outgoing and they're relational, they're highly relational, and they have good people skills. And so they are constantly just trying to get to know as many people as they can, and they appear friendly, right? Often that's the case. But what they're trying to do in many cases is form a relationship to improve their network, to leverage people for whatever purposes they have. I'm not saying all networking is wrong, but you know, you feel like when it is a mercenary spirit, the science behind someone's pursuit of you, as opposed to real sincerity. There's a guy who calls me probably once or twice a year from a certain organization that shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. And he always tries to sound like he really cares about me, and he asks questions, and I believe he's a Christian, but I also think he's doing his job, right? And I don't believe that he's sincerely concerned about me. I think he's trying to get me to support his organization, right? And sometimes in the church, it can be like that. Another kind of fakeness that is often passed off as love is like Southern politeness. Now, I'm for Southern politeness. We should mind our manners, right? Just like Mama says. But that's not love, necessarily. When I was in Minnesota, people called, it was not just in the South, but it's a human problem. In Minnesota, they called it Minnesota nice. It's like someone who's nice to your face, someone who's polite, they're kind, they show courtesy, but there's not necessarily that depths of sincere love. We are actually called to truly love one another. Not just be nice, nothing wrong with being nice, but also truly be concerned about the welfare of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Truly want what is best for them. It's sincere. So Jesus' love for us is sincere, right? There's nothing feigned or fake or underhanded. He has no ulterior motives. He wants us because he genuinely wants us. And he wants a relationship because he genuinely cares. Sixly, Christian love is brotherly love. It's brotherly love. We get this from Romans 12 in verse 10, where it says, love one another with brotherly affection. So the idea there is, we didn't talk about this a lot last week, we could have, probably should have, I blame the speaker, but the church is a family, right? And so if you think the dominant image of the church is a family, that tells you how we're to treat one another. We're to love one another like we love our own flesh and blood. were to love one another as family members. And the Bible uses that imagery, so we know what a family's supposed to be, we know the natural affection we have for flesh and blood family members, and that's supposed to affect the way that we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ. So 1 Timothy 5, verses 1 and 2 says this, do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father. then it says, younger men as brothers, women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. You see what Paul is doing when he's writing to Timothy there? He's using the family and the love that's supposed to exist with the family to the different members of the family, and he's saying that's supposed to be how you relate to other individuals in the church. You treat them like a mother, you treat them like a brother or a sister or a father. The family model is what is there. And so one of the things that we can ask is when we interact with others in life at the church is, is this how I treat my dad? Is this how I treat my grandfather? Is this how I treat my sister or my brother, right? You think about it, make the necessary changes for who the person is, right? But you think about it as you would a family member. And that's because the church is your family. One third. Alistair Begg preaching on this concept of the church as a family, and you know the song where it says, I'm so glad I'm part of the family of God. You know that song, I'm so glad I'm part of the family of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood, I think is how it goes. Well, Alistair Begg says sometimes we might sing that like this, I'm surprised you're part of the family of God. And sometimes that is the way it is, but we're called to family, has drama sometimes, sometimes there's conflict, but when you have those natural ties, you want to make it right, you want to pursue, and we have a stronger tie than flesh and blood, right? We have a stronger tie than that because of our union with Christ and one another, the communion of the saints that we talked about last time. Seventhly, Christian love is a sanctifying love. So the idea here is that true love desires what's good for a person. True love desires what is good for a person and what's the highest good for another person, their holiness. And so true love is always going to be pursuing, for our brothers and sisters in Christ, their holiness. When we think about our relationship with others, our highest desire for them is for them to be made like Christ. I once saw a book by a theologian on God's love, and it was subtitled this, and I thought it was a good description of God's love. It says, God will do whatever it takes to make us holy. Isn't that a good description of God's love? I mean, it's not sentimental, right? It captures that, purpose of God and his love for us. He's willing to do whatever it takes to make us holy. Well, what did he do? He died for us, right? I mean, so he's pursuing us to make us holy. And so Christian love for one another is like that. Think about 1 Corinthians 13, where it says there, love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. So love celebrates righteousness. It hates sin because those things are bad for us. When Christ died for the church, he cleansed her. He died that he might sanctify or cleanse her by what? The washing water with the word. So Christ's love for the church was pursuing, it was initiating, it was sacrificial, it was genuine, all these things, but it was also sanctifying. Jesus died to sanctify us. He died to purchase a people who would be zealous for good deeds. And so our love for one another is supposed to be like that. You think about Proverbs 27, 5, and 6. Remember, this is one you'll know, you don't have to look it up because you'll know it, where it says, faithful are the wounds of a friend. An enemy multiplies kisses, but faithful are the wounds of a friend. Well, why does it say that? Why is a friend, someone who loves you and cares for you and want what best, will wound you, but an enemy will just multiply and make you feel good, smother you in kisses? Because the love that we're called to have for one another is a love that's willing to wound you to help you. It's a love that's willing to say hard things to help you promote holiness out of genuine care and concern. So that's an important aspect of the love that we have for one another. It's not just trying to make other people feel good. That's like humanistic love, making people feel good, making people feel validated. yeah, there's a place for encouragement, but the encouragement is to be holy and to strive to be like Christ. Eighthly, I don't know if I've ever said that before, but eighthly, probably, probably have. Christian love is universal love. Now this is the adjective that I chose. It's kind of It's kind of antiquated in the way that I'm using it. The Puritans would speak about how our love for one another is supposed to be universal. And what they meant by that was like in Colossians 1, 4, Paul is thanking God because of the faith that the Colossians have. And he says, and the love that you have for all the saints. That's what I mean by universal, all the saints. Our Ephesians 1.15 says, for this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. So what the idea of universal love means is basically you love all other Christians because they are Christians. So think about when Jesus gives the command to love our enemies. And one of the things he says when he says that is he says, if you love others who love you, what reward do you have? It's like everybody does that, right? He says, you know, even Gentiles, even tax collectors, they love who love them. They love people who are the same race, the same political ideas, the same skin color, the same socioeconomic class, the same hobbies. Anybody does that, right? But Jesus says, you know, the hard thing is to love people who aren't like you, right? Now he's talking about enemies, but you see that it can apply to the church as well. There's not really a true test of Christian love when we just are bound towards people who are like us in this world, right? Who are just like us. But rather, the thing that you see is these two people, you know, whatever differences they have, they're brought together and the only thing that's bringing them together is Jesus. because of that love that they have for Christ, and that he has for them, and they have for one another. So we love Christ, and we love his body. The world will say things like this. They'll say, well, I can love Christ, but not love Christians. Gandhi said something like that. People quote it all the time. I love Christ, but not your Christians, right? We know, actually, the Bible says you can't do that. Because Christ in his body, the church, yes, Christians sometimes do things that make us not like what they do, but Jesus loves them, even though Jesus doesn't like everything Christians do, because it's his body. He doesn't hate his flesh, he nourishes it, and he cares for it. And so we are supposed to love other Christians as we would our own flesh and blood. Differences with regard to age, gender, race, social standing, all of these things, our love in Christ transcends those things, right? We even saw last week in our own Westminster Confession that there's a Catholicity to the church, meaning the church is universal, it's not just one denomination that is the church, that even transcends denominational boundaries, where we disagree about important things, but there's a love for other Christians who are Christians, and they're wrong on some stuff, or whatever it might be. So there's a love that transcends those things. It's not sectarian. It's not just people who are like me. And so one of the applications we can ask here is, is that reflected in the way that we love one another? Let's just apply it to our own church. Do you always kind of go gravitate towards the same people at church? We all are gonna have friends. We're all gonna have affinity groups. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm saying we can get comfortable doing that where we don't reach across the aisle, right, to someone else around the church we don't normally interact with. Do we only interact with people who are in our age demographic? If we're older, do we only interact with the older people and we don't ever say hello to the children and get to know them? Or if we're younger, do we ignore the older people, right? If we're men, do we ignore women? You know, those things can happen, right? But there's supposed to be a love that ties. The Bible says it's the perfect bond of love that binds everything together. And there's supposed to be that bond of all of us together. Universal love is the idea. Ninth here is Christian love is a forgiving love. Lots of verses we could use on that. And we've heard some good teaching in Sunday school not too long ago on forgiveness. And so we won't say everything, but just notice that's part of Christian love, is there's forgiveness for one another. Ephesians 4.32 says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted. We saw tenderhearted love earlier. Forgiving one another, how? As God in Christ gave you. So God and Christ has forgiven us, we're forgiven, and we're to forgive others. When we know how much we've been forgiven, we know how much grace God has shown us, our disposition, our posture, is to be ready to forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ. Obviously there's complexities about some of that with how that works out in terms of reconciliation, but I just wanna try to capture the spirit of that is that do we have that forgiving posture towards our brothers and sisters in Christ? I mean, one of the things about the church is that sinners go here. And so if you go to a place where there are sinners, you are going to get sinned against some. You're probably gonna do a little sinning yourself. and we need forgiveness. Jay Adams, in his book on the family, says that one of the things we know about the Christian home, sinners live there. And so there's gonna have to be grace, there's gonna have to be forgiveness, there's going to have to be bearing with one another. You know, one of the things that we can do that's very practical, we're about to celebrate communion this upcoming Lord's Day. And you may have noticed that in our bulletin, it will say, communion is coming up. And why do they always announce that? We know it's the first Sunday of the month, right? But one of the reasons why is our book of church order requires us to, but that begs the question, why does our book of church order require us to, is because we're supposed to prepare for receiving the Lord's supper. And one of the ways that we can prepare is by asking ourselves, as we approach the table, am I bearing a grudge? against another brother or sister? Am I harboring bitterness in my heart? Even if you're not able to reconcile with that person, maybe they're not repentant, or maybe there's other reasons why reconciliation can't happen, you still don't have a right to hold on to the bitterness, right? You don't have a right to hold on to the grudge. And so what is the disposition of my heart? If there's an opportunity for reconciliation, have I done everything on my end to pursue that person and try to reconcile with that person? The table of the Lord is something we have to face in our community love. It is communion with Christ, but it's also communion with others. And there's a kind of hypocrisy that happens when we come to the Lord's table. and we have serious dysfunction in our relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we don't seek to deal with those things, right? Because we are called to do that. And so that can be a reminder whenever we have the Lord's Supper that we need to be thinking about those things. Tenth is Christian love is an overlooking love. Overlooking, what do I mean? Well, look, Proverbs 19, 11. Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. So good sense means you restrain your anger, right? You don't lash out when someone offends you or annoys you or irritates you. But on the other half of that, it says it's to your glory to overlook an offense. Now there are some things that can't be overlooked, right? Like that need confronting and correction and all that. But there are also things that we need to be able to overlook in our brothers and our sisters. To flesh this out a little bit more, Proverbs 10, 12 says, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. So love covers and hides offenses. First Peter 4.8 kind of echoes that, it says, above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Imagine if the Lord pointed out to us every single sin we ever committed. You know, Psalm 103 tells us, thankfully, he doesn't do that, right? It says he doesn't treat us as our sins deserve. Our Psalm 130 also talks about that. It says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Right? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Imagine if you're in a relationship where Let's say a marriage relationship and your spouse was always picking out every little thing that you do wrong, every little thing. That would be an unsustainable relationship, right? It would just be impossible. And so love doesn't keep a record of wrongs, it says in 1 Corinthians 13. True Christian love, think about it on the receiving end, true Christian love is not highly sensitive, vindictive, and incapable of letting any wrongdoing go. Everything another person does to offend us doesn't need to be confronted. You don't have to confront every little thing. There's an overlooking of offenses. So we have to ask ourselves when we're thinking about our relationships with others, Have we allowed that kind of attitude to develop in our heart where we have a cynical view of others' actions? We're suspicious of others' every motive. We have a list of the things that other people have done to us. People might characterize us and they say, don't get on his or her bad side. That's not a good thing if that's where our hearts are, and we should repent, and we should ask the Lord to soften our hearts, and change our hearts, and work by His Spirit to make us more loving to others. Are we able to look past some of the bad things that people do, or maybe the annoying characteristics that they have? Love does that. The Bible talks about bearing with one another. Part of this overlooking love is to have a charitable frame of mind towards other Christians. always notice a red flag when you start looking at another Christian at church and you immediately you know why they said that you know why they did that and it's always negative because you know better than than they know either and anyone else can tell you why they do what they do and looking at people in the worst possible light, giving unfair characterizations of their actions. If we're doing that, that's not walking in love. Now I'm not talking, I'm not saying we should be gullible, right, about people, or we should be discerning, or we shouldn't confront sin. Yes, all those things, yes, we should do, but we have to be careful when we interact with our brothers and sisters that we give the most favorable characterization of why they did what they did. We're charitable towards them. 11th we have here, Christian love is a humble love. Think about any time you've witnessed a breakdown at church or maybe outside of church, just around other Christians, we're thinking about our love for one another in the body of Christ, not our love for the world or whatever, but our love for each other. But when there's been a breakdown in that love, pretty much in every case you can find that the reason why was pride, right? self reared its ugly head. Because almost all conflicts in the church that are irreconcilable conflicts, it's pride. Someone's not willing to say they did wrong and ask for forgiveness. Someone's not willing to repent. Self-will, self-love, self-assertiveness, clinging to rights But Jesus shows us the better way, right? In John 13, what did he do? He washed the disciples' feet. He's the Lord of glory, and yet he took on the form of a servant. Philippians 2 says, you know, in the Carmen Christi, it talks about he humbled himself. He humbled himself by being born. He humbled himself by being born in a lone condition. He humbled himself by taking on the form of a servant. He even humbled himself. He didn't have to die, but he became obedient to death. And then he humbled himself by that death being the death of the cross. So Philippians 2 is just this humbling, condescending love of Christ, and that mindset, that attitude is supposed to be in us. And actually in Philippians 2, the emphasis there is that humbling love of Christ, that mindset, is actually what fosters unity in the church, that the humility is the way to unity. is if you look at Philippians 2, that's the context there, trying to unite the church. It's by humility when we humble ourselves. Nothing divides the church like pride, nothing unifies it like humility. When there's division, breakdown of relationship, there's pride every time. So we ask ourselves, do we think we're always right? Are we able to learn from others? Are we able to be corrected when we do something wrong? Are, do we have this attitude where there are acts of service that we're not willing to do for others because they're beneath us, right? Are we willing to admit when we did something wrong and go try to make things right? So love is a humbling love, it's willing to do that. It's willing to do that for the sake of unity. And then finally, 12th year, and we'll end with this because we're out of time and we'll finish this another time, but Christian love is practical love. It's practical. First John 3, 16 through 18 says this, by this we know love that he laid down his life for us. So we learn to love one another by Christ's sacrifice for us. We ought to lay down our lives for the brothers But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us love not in word or in talk, but in deed and in truth. So, in deed and in truth means you gotta really have flesh and blood on your love, right? It has to have action. It has to be practical. It's not just saying you love someone, but it's showing that you love them. True Confessions, when I was a kid, I used to listen to DC Talk. You remember the Christian band back when they did rap? And there was a song called Love is a Verb. And as cheesy as it is, that's a great way to capture it. Love is a verb. Our culture thinks love is what? Feeling. Love is an emotion. We live in a highly, a culture that's been influenced by romanticism, right? Love is a feeling. Even romantic love is the ultimate in marriage and all these kind of things. And people stop, people get divorced because they're no longer in love, right? The feeling, right? The feeling is paramount. Now we don't want to drain all emotional content out of the word love. Yes, there are feelings involved in love. There should be. But we need to emphasize that in the Bible, normally, when it's talking about love, it's not talking about a feeling, but it's talking about an action where you're trying to do good for someone else. So even in that passage, to go back to it for a moment, where Jesus says, love your enemies, if you look at the theological rationale that Jesus gives for that, it's essentially God loves his enemies. And how does God love his enemies? Well, he says he sends the sun to shine. indiscriminately, hear universal love, on the good and the bad. right? Sun shining, right? The rain falling on the just and the unjust, right? So what are those two things? He doesn't say, well, God just, he just loves in the sense of he has warm feelings in his heart for his enemies. No, that's actually not what it's talking about. It says, no, God treats them with kindness and goodness and wants what is best for them and provides them with all that's necessary for them to live and flourish by these actions, sun shining, rain falling. And so loving others means concrete action. It was popular a while back, and I don't endorse everything about it, but it was helpful to think through categories where they would talk about love languages. And I think one of the good things about the love languages talk, it was usually talked about within the context of marriage, there's different love languages. How do you communicate love to someone in a language they understand? And some of those things that were mentioned were like spending quality time with somebody, words of affirmation, that's words of encouragement for someone, giving someone gifts, showing physical affection, you know, acts of service. All of these are rooted in scripture, right? I mean, greeting one another with a holy kiss. You know, there's physical affection, right? Service. We've mentioned Jesus washing his disciples' feet. Quality time. Jesus calls his disciples and say, come, be alone with me and rest for a while, right? All of those things are different ways, concrete ways that we share our love for one another. So we're going to be going to our discussion groups. We'll finish this next time. But one of the things I want to encourage you to think about when you think about this is, Whenever you hear about the way a Christian community is supposed to be, we're talking about an ideal, right? So you gotta be careful that you don't hear all of this and say, yeah, they need to do that better, right? It's kind of like the way the proverbial woman is used in Proverbs 31 to make all women feel like they could ever totally be the perfect wife or whatever. So it's an ideal to which we're aspiring, but the first question we need to ask is, what's my role? You know, not listening vicariously to find out how other people should be loving me better, but how can I love my brothers and sisters that God has placed in my life here at Christ Prez better? What does that look like for me? And so think about that, right? I mean, even think about considering, take an index card and pray and ask the Lord, show me someone I'm not loving well. and think about, go through these things and think about how can I better love this person here, you know, and use these things to, who's hurting, who's lonely, who's jobless, who's grieving, you know, use those kinds of things to think through where God might be calling you and me to pursue others. Let's pray and we'll go to our discussions. Father, we humble ourselves before you and we acknowledge that Though we know that you call us to love one another, we confess that we miss the mark so often. We are so self-absorbed, self-focused. We are so wrapped up in what we want and what would be easy and comfortable and convenient for ourselves that we often neglect to reach out to our brothers and sisters who need help. your love through us to them. And so we pray that you would help us to grow and be in conduits of your love to others, that you would help us to grow in doing the thing that Jesus called us to do, the very thing that is to be the defining mark of our covenant community. And so we pray that you would forgive us for our sins, that you would cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but also that you would empower and motivate and encourage us to consider ways that we might show greater love to all those who are chosen by you, redeemed by you, and indwell by your spirit. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.