What a fun Sunday to be with you. I'll tell my wife I already went to the gym. Don't have to do my exercises today. She won't believe me, but I'll try. We're looking at a familiar passage of scripture today. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. It's known as the love chapter. Listen closely to the word of God. If I speak in the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong and 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 in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." The reading of God's Word. Please be seated. I'm asking you to think through this nature of love. It's a very common theme in the Christian church. But God expects us, having received His love, to love others the way He has loved us. So I've entitled the sermon, Understanding Covenant Love. Or we could rephrase it in saying, how the way God loves us is very different from the way we tend to love one another. And I'm hoping to encourage you to remember again, I don't think anything I'm going to say is going to be new to you. But I'm hoping to encourage you again to set your thoughts on what love is supposed to look like, the kind of love that God has for us, and seek to live it out with one another. Because we don't understand love as much as we think we do. Peter shows us a good example of covenant love. They've had the Last Supper, Jesus says he's going to be arrested, he's going to be crucified, and they all forsake him. And Peter jumps up and says, not so, Lord! I'll never forsake you. I'll die first." His commitment was a great commitment. He said, I love you no matter how much it costs me. I'll never turn away from loving you and living it out. Now, I've made similar commitments and fallen back from it. You've made similar commitments. You know, you ever sing the song, if ever I love thee, Lord Jesus, tis now. But then we go home and That slips away some, and we don't live out love with one another as fully as we should. But he was right to have that kind of commitment to Christ, to want to live his life that way. Now, when he got in a pinch, he found that he didn't have the wherewithal to live up to the commitment he made, and he denied Christ three times. But Christ came back to him and said, these aren't the exact words. But he said, in essence, Peter, I know you're still learning what love is about. I really appreciate that stand you took, saying you would love me no matter what. You would die first. That's the kind of commitment I want to hear. And I know you didn't find that you were able to live up to it. But you see, I am. It was hurtful. I was in the inner courtyard. You know, I was being slammed around and beaten and slapped and called names. And then I hear your voice claiming you never knew me. It was a hard time for me to hear that. You know what it did for my love to you? Not a single thing. Even though you disappointed me, even though you failed me, my love will never fail you. And he asked him the three times, do you love me? He confessed that he did love him and he reappointed him to ministry. These are good things. But the Bible calls us to realize there are two kinds of love. And if you're like me, you'll find that without trying to, you slip into the wrong kind of love at times. That is, we love those who love us. We show love to people who do what I want them to do when I want them to do it. Jesus said in Luke 6, 27, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. And from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you. From one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, so do to them. If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? Or even sinners do the same. And if you lend from those to whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. But love your enemies. Do good. Lend, expecting nothing in return. And your reward will be great. And you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. It's hard to show love to people who don't deserve it. And I get to decide who does deserve my love and who doesn't deserve my love. If that sounds a little selfish, it's because it is. But that's what we do at times, isn't it? See, if I'm not actively thinking about what a God-like love looks like and calling myself to stand up to it, I will slip back into a worldly kind of love. I will keep a record of wrong. Well, I told you so. If you just listened to me once in a while, you wouldn't get into these messes. Boy, that feels good to say. It's a fleshly pleasure and it's wicked. I'm really sorry that this happened. But let's see what we can do to help fix things. Yeah, did I warn them? Yeah, I did. Did they listen? No, they didn't. Because unlike me, I've always listened to every single warning I've ever been given and every piece of good advice I've ever heard, I have strictly followed. He lied. Who can do that? Of course, afterwards, I recognized what a fool I was. But they say, go with your strengths. It's easy to be a fool. It takes very little effort. We all fall into it at times. God says he wants us to love one another as he has loved us. And that comes at a great price. Think about how important it is. You remember the chief commandment? Matthew 22. Teacher, what's the great commandment in the law? And he said to them, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the grace and first commandment. The second's like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands depend all the law and the prophets. Yeah, love toward God, love toward others. But it's not an easy love. It's a love that costs us. Sometimes we do it automatically. Moms, you do that. You've done it. I've seen my wife do it some years ago. You have a newborn baby and they get up in the night and in the day and all the time. And you're laying there getting a little bit of sleep, because you've not been getting a lot. And the baby starts to cry. And you just say, oh, go back to sleep. I'm so tired. And the baby doesn't go back to sleep. So you drag yourself out of bed. And you go over to the crib. And the few steps it takes for you to get to the crib that God-like love sets in. Oh, sweetheart, what's wrong? Oh, you're soaking wet. Mom, you'll make it all better. Come on. Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry. I don't know what you're sorry for, but the baby's unhappy. You're sorry the baby's unhappy, and you want to do everything you can to make it right. You got to put that instinct within you, moms. It's a very good thing. Dads, once in a while, we do something similar. It's a very good thing. 1 John 4 verse 7 says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. And this love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. We love one another. God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. In our Christian fellowship with each other, as we love one another, we are showing godliness to one another. We're showing the Spirit of Christ to one another. These are things we should want to do. Now, the theology is easy to get a hold of. But I'm going to challenge you today. I have five applications. The explanation part of the sermon is pretty much done. We'll come back to some aspects of it. But let's talk about how we go living it out. Young people, children, I want to talk to you for a minute. How do you live out a God-like love? God says this is really, really important. If you learn this lesson, the whole rest of your life is going to be a lot easier. And if you don't learn this lesson, the whole rest of your life is going to be a lot harder. and that is to obey your parents. Ephesians 6, Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother, this is the first commandment with a promise, so that it will go well with you, and you may live long in the land. What's it take to be obedient? Self-control. Adults, don't you wish at times you had more self-control? That it was easier to do what you knew was wise and right. But sometimes it's really hard to do what you know is wise and right. And you've got to make yourself do it even when you don't want to do it. Well, young people, don't you find often that you don't want to do what your parents are telling you to do? That's how I felt when I was a kid. Time for bed. I'm not sleepy. I don't want to go to bed. Time for dinner. But my show's not over. I don't want to come to dinner. I want to watch my show. Time to pack up our stuff and go home from the beach. I don't want to go home. I like it here. All the time, when parents say it's time to do this or that, we are saying, I don't want to do that. Now, what does God say? Obey your mother and father. It takes a decision on your part. I'm going to obey even though I don't want to. And that is a very godly character that will serve you in many ways for years and years to come. Those of you who are a little older, don't you wish it was a little easier to make yourself do your studies? You're in college. Nobody's there saying, Johnny, sit down and do your homework. You either make yourself do it or you get a poor grade. And it can be very, very hard to make yourself do your homework. We learn these lessons early and it pays off later. Disobeying parents is a particularly evil thing, though we tend not to think of it that way. Dishonoring your elders, because obeying your parents and honoring your elders comes from the same commandment. And just as there are many wicked cities in the world today, well, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. He doesn't go around destroying every city that's wicked, but he said, I've given you a demonstration of the wrath you're storing up for yourself in the day of judgment. You can take that lesson or not. You can learn from it or not. But you can't complain. I didn't demonstrate how serious an offense it is if you're a wicked city like Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, he's done the same with young people. So, Elisha has just been taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, and his mantle fell down, and Elijah caught it, and he's going to continue on his ministry. So, we read in 1 Corinthians 2, he went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city, jeering at him, saying, Go up, you bald head! Go up, you bald head! And he turned around when he saw them. He cursed them in the name of the Lord. Well, what does that mean? He gave their wickedness over to the Lord. The Lord deal with you as you deserve. It's not a wrong thing to do. Sometimes the way we need to treat one another when we're wrong, the Lord deal with you. Remember in Romans 12, beloved, never take your own revenge for his written vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. So if your enemy is hungry, you feed him. If he's thirsty, you give him a drink. But God says, I might not be as kind. I might decide it's time for judgment." So, after these boys had mocked the prophet, and he had placed them in the Lord's hands, two she-bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. Two female bears came out of the woods. It says he tore the 42 boys. I don't know if he killed them, if he wounded them. Maybe some were dead and some were left alive. But God says, this is a great wickedness, and I'm going to show you what I think of it. In Romans chapter 1, Paul gives a long list. He says, just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, he gave them over to the depravity of their hearts, of their minds. and going, you know, they were disobedient to parents. There's a long list, you know, murderers, adulterers, thieves, and disobedient to parents. It's always kind of struck me. Who hasn't been disobedient to their parent? For all the sin comes short of the glory of God. But God says, this is a very, very serious thing. We should not take it lightly. And so, as the course of life goes on, and our children get a little older, and they enter their teen years, and they're feeling confident in themselves. They're getting ready to move out on their own, which is a good thing because we don't want our 40-year-old kids living in our basement most of the time. Sometimes there's an exception. They're pushing back at times. They don't want to do what they're told. They want to be argumentative. They won't give us a reason they don't want to do other than, I don't want to, which doesn't convince us as parents of anything. But from time to time, they'll behave that way. And see, parents, God has given you a new tool. Sweetheart, I love you to pieces. But if I were you, I would not go for a walk in the woods today. And we just let that sit with them and remind them their behavior has consequences. Thankfully, not every time, or I wouldn't be here, and most of you wouldn't be here. But God takes it seriously. Married couples, we have to think through the difference between romantic love versus covenant love. Statistically, spouses argue with each other the most the first year of marriage. Because when we are dating, We are conjuring up a romantic love for each other. Being with you makes me feel wonderful. Being with you makes my life better. And we would go on dates and we would spend time together. And time after time, I found out that being with you was one of the greatest things I've ever experienced. And I thought, I want this for the rest of my life. So I said, will you marry me? And you said, yes. And we're guaranteed eternal bliss with each other. Because just look how great it is to be with each other. And then we get married. And it's not quite the same. Soon we dated, I would shower and have my hair as nice as I could get it. I'd put on clean clothes. I'd take all the fast food packages out of the car and throw them away so it looked like I was a tidy person. And I would compliment you on how you look because you went through the same kind of trouble. And we would spend a few hours together and that was great. And then we would be apart from each other again. Now we're together all the time. Being together all the time does not foster romantic love. And now we have to live with each other by covenant love. So God says, love is patient and kind. When you don't understand why the other person is doing what they're doing or thinking the way they're thinking, and it seems nonsense to you, it's hard to be patient. God says, You want to talk about somebody not doing what they're doing or not having straight thinking? I'm looking right at them. Well, yeah, but this is different. How so? It's annoying me. Yeah, you don't get away with that. You're not allowed to be impatient. You're not allowed to be unkind. Because when you got married, you swore an oath. You said, I'm going to love you. And that love was not romantic love you promised. That was covenant love. For better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health, when dinner is late, when money is tight, when we don't quite agree on how we ought to discipline the kids, I'm going to love you. That's hard to do. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant. or rude? When is it okay to be rude? Of course, the theological answer is it's never okay to be rude. But we have a different set of rules. You may not have thought it out. You live by this rule, but you probably never put it into words. There are three parts to it. It's okay for me to be rude if you're rude first. Part one. Part two. When I'm rude After you've been rude first, my rudeness is your fault, not my fault. If you hadn't been rude first, I wouldn't have returned it. It's all your fault. It's called blame shifting. None of this holds water, but it's the way we allow ourselves to behave. And then the very last part, which is the most important part. I always get to decide who was rude first. It's always you. That's how our hearts work. Stop to think about it. Next time you get in a little spat and you think the other person behaving rudely, see if that's not where the flesh wants to take you and how you look at situations like that. But love is not rude. We have to stir up covenantal love for each other. And when we do, we experience a lot more of the romantic love. Romantic love is wonderful. It should not die out in our marriages. But it does when we don't give it a proper basis of covenantal love. Parents. It's Father's Day. So I pick on Dad. Sorry about that. Ephesians 5. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We're told to bring them up with discipline, but we're told to bring them up with instruction. And you know, the younger a child is, the more instruction they need. But we often make the mistake of using discipline instead. Here's some things about children. See if you would agree with me. Children often do not understand cause and effect. They don't know if they do this, that will happen. They don't know if they throw the ball to their sister, that balls don't always go where you intend them to go, and sometimes they hit lamps instead. I had no intention of knocking over mom's lamp when I threw that ball. I was throwing it to my sister. I was being very careful. And some evil spirit made it go over there and hit the lamp. No. They don't understand cause and effect. It may surprise you, but children are childish. They behave in childish ways. How can they help it? They're children. Do adults sometimes behave in childish ways? Uh-huh. Especially when we're sick. We're big babies. Men. So I've been told. I'm not, of course, but others. See how we want to exempt ourselves from all these things? Well, yeah, that's true for somebody else, but not for me. Children often learn slowly. That's hard for us to understand because they get to a certain age and they can carry on a conversation with us and it would seem as though they're nearly on the same level I am. But they're far from it. They don't understand a lot of things. And it's slow going. Children are forgetful. I can explain it to them and go, you understand? Uh-huh. And minutes later, The same problem is occurring. Didn't I just tell you what? Now, if we don't learn to recognize the difference between childishness and rebellion, we're going to be disciplining childishness when we should teach, instruct childishness and discipline rebellion. Childishness we patiently correct, and rebellion we discipline. This is how we show covenantal love. Does it take a lot of patience and gentleness and kindness to live that way with our children? Yes, it does. They can push our buttons so easily. They're not intending to. It's just their nature at that age. Let's move on to church members, then I conclude everybody. For this is the message you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another. 1 John 3, and this is the commandment that you believe in the name of Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us. Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Over and over the scriptures encourage us to cultivate a strong love for one another. But that means we have to tolerate each other. You know, our doctrine has to be sound but it doesn't have to be identical. Some of us hold different views on what it's going to look like when Christ returns. You say, well, what do you agree about? Well, I agree that Jesus was with his disciples, and he ascended into heaven bodily, and they stood there and watched him until he was taken up into the clouds. An angel came and said, what are you staring at the clouds for? The same one you saw going up will come back again in the same manner. Jesus is coming back. Now, there are myriad schemes about exactly what that's going to look like when it happens. They're not all right, because they don't agree with each other. Now, I could tell you my opinion of the matter, which, of course, is the correct position. But that's not our topic today. And as I get older, I begin to wonder, maybe it's not as correct as you thought. Maybe there is room for looking at it a little differently. Our doctrine has to be sound, but it doesn't have to be identical. Our lifestyle has to be godly, but it doesn't have to be identical. People live their lives differently. Some parents let their children do things that you don't let your children do. And of course, your children see that, and they go, what? Yeah, but Billy's parents let him. That's nice for Billy, but that's not the way we're living. And if you want to sit down and discuss it, I'm happy to explain to you why we have different rules. But Billy's a good kid. We love his parents. And we're not going to let these differences sow discord between us. You know, churches have split over the silliest things. It was a traditional church. Row of pews on that side, row of pews on this side, and a row down the middle. For the last 30 years, they had red carpet leading up to the stage, which was also red carpet. But it had gotten a little threadbare, and so they established a committee to research it and get new carpet for the center aisle and the stage area. And the committee installed carpet that was royal blue. thereby denying the blood of Christ by which we are saved, because that's what it stood for. You know, we come into church and we walk on the blood of Christ because that's what we're supposed to do, depending on Him. And they put in this blue carpet, denying the basis of our salvation. And it's kind of a stretch, isn't it? But people do this kind of thing. And the committee said, well, we thought blue carpet would be good because it's royal blue and celebrating the kingship of Christ. No, it's red. It's always going to be red. And anybody who would change it can't call themselves a follower of Jesus. Churches have done these kinds of things. You might not like something that somebody does. They're told, you take care of this. You organize the kitchen for this event. They don't organize it the way you would have organized it. Fall in line. They're doing the work. Come along and help. We have to fight to maintain our unity with one another. Therefore, Ephesians 4, therefore a prisoner of the Lord, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. The devil is like nothing better, but to sow discord among you. And he'll use trivial things to do it. and we have to be committed. God has loved me with a covenantal love that's hard for me to understand. I can come to Him and confess a sin, and come five minutes later and confess the same sin, and He goes, certainly. Your sins are forgiven. And I can come five minutes later, and I've been impatient again, and I've not been gentle or kind the way I should have, and He says, your sins are forgiven. And we're going, who is this? Who is this that loves this way? It's different than so much of my experience. This is what the love of God is like. It's greater than I can imagine. And it's right that we push ourselves to go there. Lastly, I want to speak to people who struggle with security of their salvation. Over the years as I've talked with people who have wrestled with being secure in their salvation, I find as a rule, they know their Bibles very well. They're sound in Christian doctrine. And for the vast majority of them, the reason they couldn't be secure in their salvation was because they couldn't understand what covenant love was about. The love they experienced in their life was always a purchased love. If I do exactly what you want me to do, you will love me. And when I don't do what you want me to do, you quit loving me. And I have to confess to God all the time, I haven't done what you want me to do. So obviously, God can't love me if there's any degree of sin in my life. This is very sad. Some people have experienced a godlike love from other people very, very seldom in their life. Sometimes they grew up in a home that was abusive or overly strict. Sometimes in the workplace, there was no grace being shown. It was a dog-eat-dog world. Sometimes their marriage was the same. And God comes along and says, I want you to know, I have loved you in a way that is hard for you to imagine. There is nothing from you that my love depends upon. I don't love you because you do what I want you to do. I loved you when you were my enemy. I loved you when you were dead in your trespasses and sins. And no matter what happens in your life, whatever struggles come along, I will never stop loving you. And they're just scratching their head and going, huh? That's not the way it works. People love you if you do what they want, when they want you to do it. And they're very mean to you if you're not doing what they want you to do. That's a worldly love. There's no Christ in it. We're all guilty of giving that kind of love at times. Christ calls us back. to a love of commitment, not of ease. John 10, Jesus said, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. But God showed his love for us, and while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. So we're thinking through covenantal love. Take the challenge. Read through 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 through 7. Commit it to memory, or at least make it very familiar. So the Spirit will use it. When you are falling into a worldly kind of love, the Spirit will nudge you and say, oh yeah, you know, love is patient. Oh yeah, love is patient. I want to be patient. Being patient is good. And the flesh is saying, being patient is bad. And God's Word says, being patient is good. Okay, it's good, but it cost a lot. Yeah, well, what did it cost God to love us? The father had to sacrifice his son. The son had to die on the cross. And maybe the one that gets the toughest deal of all is the Holy Spirit has to come in and dwell us at all times. With all of our failures, he is present in our being. God pays a huge price to love us unconditionally. I want to strive to do that more. And I don't want to play tricks with myself to say, yeah, you're really good at that, Ken. You go. I want to say, no, by God's grace, sometimes I get it right. But sometimes I get it wrong. And I don't want to let that slide. And I hope that's what you'll do as well. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. And we pray that you would convict us of sin and righteousness, that the desire of our hearts to love one another the way you've loved us would grow. Bring glory to yourself from the reading and preaching of your word. We pray in Jesus' name.