-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Thank you for joining me today. Hope you’re doing well.
00:40 Welcome to the cafe. Hey, it’s the season here of love. We’ve been talking about love here lately on the program and how much we try to show love to those that we care about and how good it would be for us as Christians to show love to God.
00:58 And God gives us some ways, some interesting ways to show love to Him. One, you know, one way that you wouldn’t quite think is loving your brother. The idea that to show God you love him, you should love your brother and sister in Christ.
01:15 You should love those in your life, those that you interact with. You should show them great love, not surface-level love, not just talking about love, but actually in action and deed, in word and truth. 1 John 4: 19 -1 John 5: 3 is our passage of Scripture here that we’re basing this message off of in the series of messages off of showing love here to God through His commands and the way that He wants it done.
01:45 We love Him because He first loved us. If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
02:04 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.
02:22 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. Okay, so here we see some ways that we can show God we love Him. And as Christians, we need to do more than just say that we’re Christian and go to church or give our tithe or do whatever other things that we do.
02:42 We need to actively work on showing God that we love Him, we care about Him. The Bible here says in 1John 4:19, we love Him because He first loved us. If someone did a great thing for you, an unspeakable thing for you, in creating you and then redeeming you, would you not want to show them love every day? Absolutely.
02:59 And so we should show God love. And God the Father, while He’s a spirit, He desires to be worshiped in spirit and truth, which the deepest part of our spirit, our soul and spirit, I believe, inhibits this love that we’re talking about, has this love, inhabits that love, I should say. And we should showcase this love through our actions to show Christ that we love Him, to show God that we love Him.
03:23 Because His eyes are on us, He watches us. The Bible tells us that He is near and that He watches us, Amen. Those that love the Lord, those that are righteous, those that have been saved, Amen. And what we see here is that we have a directive that we should love our brother. And it says, you know, in the command we have, have we from Him, which is in the Old Testament, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
03:49 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. This is verse 5 of 1 John 4. And everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him. And this is saying if we love Father God, then we love Christ, because this is the same.
04:09 And if we love the fact that we’ve been redeemed, and we love what God has created anew in us, we should love others that the Lord has saved. And we should love others as part of the body of Christ. We are all part of one body.
04:20 Paul writes about this as like, you know, the eye and the hand have different features and functions, but they’re both part of one body. The eye doesn’t hate the hand, and the hand doesn’t hate the eye. So why would we hate other Christians when we are all part of the same body? Maybe you’re called to be a Sunday school teacher.
04:38 Maybe you’re called to the music ministry. Maybe you’re called to mission work. Maybe you’re called to ministry within the business or corporate world.
04:48 Maybe you’re called to ministry in the arts, or media, or on and on, or publishing, and so forth. Well, whatever you’re called to do, amen, you should love those that are called to do other things that are in the body of Christ, because God has called us to do it. It makes me think of the verse there, when we are to love our spouse, because, you know, think of that kind of love as a very deep love, and that, you know, if we do wrong to our spouse, and I’m paraphrasing here, we’re doing wrong to ourself.
05:16 If we were to do something, cheat on our spouse, or steal from our spouse, we’re actually cheating on ourself, or stealing from ourself, right? And so what we need to know here is that we are called to love each other, love the brothers and sisters in Christ. We talked recently about Romans 12:10, be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor, preferring one another. The idea of even putting others needs before your own, not easy, but oh so important.
05:46 Hebrews 13:1, let brotherly love continue, and I gave the example of sometimes love can be kind of like a tank on a car, a gas tank on a car that is on a long trip. At first it’s full, and then as that trip goes, that tank starts to dip down lower, and lower, and lower. You’re saying, brother Clark, I got an electric car.
06:04 Okay, your battery starts to drain lower, and lower, and lower. Whatever the case may be, you got a bike, okay, the air in your tires start to get lower, and lower, and lower. You get the idea, as the duration of that journey goes on, things start getting a little low, Amen, tank can get a little low.
06:20 You’ve all been there, I’m sure, on long days in the ministry, or in church, or with brothers and sisters in Christ, doing things together, and we don’t always agree. In the Bible, they didn’t always agree. There was some conflict in the Bible of people that all loved God, Amen, and there were some people that had to agree to disagree, Amen.
06:41 That’s part of how God made us. He made us a peculiar people collectively and individually. We all have different peculiarities, different idiosyncrasies, different ways about us.
06:53 God made some this way, God made others that way, amen. God deals with us all uniquely. I had fun preaching on that not too long ago, but the point here is that we should show our brothers and sisters in Christ great love.
07:07 I’m here to remind you of that, Amen. That’s really the crux of the message today, is to remind you of that. And what does that look like? 1 Corinthians 13, 4- 8 gives us a picture of what that looks like to show this kind of love, because again, we’re not just about words, we’re about actions.
07:25 And so we see in 1Corinthians 13:4, excuse me, 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, charity or love suffereth long and is kind, charity envieth not, charityvaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. And so we see here that charity suffereth long, and charity, that word could be like that sacrificial love, giving love, and it’s long-suffering. And we need to be long-suffering with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
07:50 We need to not have that hair-pull trigger where we’re just instantly upset with somebody or frustrated with somebody. Ask a preacher how they feel about the congregation when they walk in late, right? They’re like, oh, man, they’re so bad, or how they feel about someone didn’t practice for the song or whatever it is. This is something for the preachers too.
08:15 We need to show love. And for the congregation, maybe the preacher is sick, or maybe the preacher has got a lot of counseling or something on their lap, on their shoulders, and the devil’s fighting them like crazy, and maybe they’re not perfect, and they’re struggling, and you need to be long-suffering with them. You see how it goes both ways, Amen. We need to be long-suffering with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
08:34 And we need to be kind. That’s not easy to be kind, is it? To be kind. It’s real easy to criticize and critique.
08:43 It’s much harder to compliment, to edify, to love, to encourage. I view my job in our small congregation as chief encourager because we have a small congregation, the adults, from their testimonies. I understand that they’re all saved, amen? We’ve got some kids that I’m working on, little kids, preaching the gospel message to them, altar calls to them, and so forth.
09:05 But I view my job is to edify these folks, to get them suited up in the armor of God, and to encourage them. Hey, what’s going on in your life? That’s great. I’m really happy for you.
09:17 You got promoted. I like what you’re doing here with this artwork or this, that, and the other. Do you understand? I’m trying to love them because we are to be kind, and I’m not bragging on me.
09:25 I’m bragging on God. God knows I got a lot to work on. Ask my wife.
09:29 She’ll tell you all about it. Charity envieth not. We shouldn’t envy others.
09:36 You know, what is the root of almost every argument that you could ever think of, including between the brethren? It is often pride, is it not? Pride. And pride can lead to envying and coveting, right? The idea that, oh, man, so-and-so, dot, dot, dot. There’s an envy.
09:54 I mean, we are called as Christians to be happy for them. You know, if we’re part of the same body, and a Christian brother or sister is blessed by God with something, okay, and you fill in the blank with what that thing is, could be a talent skill, could be a material blessing, could be an opportunity, it could be, I don’t know, you know, Betty the baker gave them the cake instead of you, anything, whatever it is, okay, when they are blessed by God, we should celebrate as if we had been blessed by God. You know, isn’t that what you do with someone that you love greatly? I oftentimes think of like a literal brother.
10:32 I had a brother growing up that was a year and a half older than me, and he kind of toughened me up. I guess I thank him for that, but we were also just very different. Even though we’re so close in age, we were very, very different, polar opposites, and we fought like cats and dogs all growing up, Amen. And if something good happened to him, it’d be hard for me to be like, oh, man, that’s great, you know? But that’s what we’re called to do with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
10:58 We should celebrate as if we’ve been blessed because we’re all part of one body, amen? Charity vaunted not itself is not puffed up. The idea is we shouldn’t be striving. We shouldn’t be walking around, trotting around like a peacock, Amen. Have you ever seen that? Unfortunately, it exists among Christian brothers and sisters in Christ.
11:19 We need to be humble and meek, and we need to be to the point of putting others’ needs before our own when it comes to our brothers and sisters in Christ, you know? And think about this. Think about if you’re really hungry, and all you want to do, say, after church, when you’re with your church family, all you want to do is go eat, and someone’s got a flat tire sitting next to you, and you don’t really know them, but they’re there at church, okay? Are you going to just go run and eat, or are you going to help change their flat tire? I know it’s a simple example, Amen. but the idea is that we need to have that sacrificial love. Do you think that God’s not going to make sure that you get necessary food after you go ahead and help that brother and sister in Christ fix their tire? Oh, He will, Amen. The Bible says that He knows about our needs and that we shouldn’t worry about our needs, and specifically, the Bible mentions food and raiment, clothing, and I always add in there, shelter.
12:13 I mean, God knows our needs, and God will provide them, and we aren’t to worry. The birds are fed, and they’re not over there on the farm planting the seeds. They’re just over there plucking them up, Amen. They’re fed.
12:24 They’re taken care of, Amen. And if the birds are taken care of, how much more so, the Bible says, will we be taken care of? Or the lilies, amen, and the flowers. Now, one day, they’re beautiful. Next day, they’re mowed up with the grass, and if they’re so beautiful and they’re okay, how much more so will we be taken care of, like I said, like the birds, Amen. We are provided for, and so we need to understand that we have to have that sacrificial love, which is not always easy.
12:51 Do not behave itself unseemly. Seeketh not her own. You know, behaving yourself unseemly, you know, looking for some gain, Amen. Looking for what’s in it for me or what do I get out of this is oftentimes a very dangerous way to approach others in the church, and think about this.
13:10 God helped me to say it correctly, but there are some very giving people in the church, and so others will know this and go about trying to milk what they can off of those that have a penchant for giving because they’re called to give, and so we need to protect against this by asking ourselves our own motivations for loving others and treating others with respect and doing things for others, not looking to gain because our reward is in heaven. It’s not here on earth, not looking to gain, but just truly living for God, Amen. Living for God, doing what He’s called us to do. Remember, this is how we show love to God.
13:45 How do we show God we love Him? We love our brothers and sisters in Christ, which, by the way, is also how we show others that He is the true God. It’s all a fruitful cycle, but it starts with us. We’re the hands and feet of Jesus here, Amen. We are called to do this.
14:01 We’re commanded to do this, and we’re not to seek our own. We’re not to be thinking about evil. We’re to be loving our brothers and sisters in Christ.
14:08 I hope this is helpful to you. I hope you put it into action. Thank you so much.
14:12 Take care. God bless and Amen.