Greg Chandler - Lesson 1: A Picture of Holiness: Brotherly Love

9:14PM Jun 25, 2024

Speakers:

Greg Chandler

Keywords:

love

brother

god

peter

talking

word

brotherly love

verse

jesus

thought

point

holy

jesus christ

relationship

family

imperishable

born

holiness

good

christ

If you'd like, you can go ahead and turn over to First Peter, chapter one. We're going to spend a lot of the first part of our study here this morning. I don't know how wise it is to start a study like this out with a quote from a 14th century French poet, but I'm going to anyway. He said, there's two things you cannot suppress, love and a cough. So about two weeks ago, I returned from a trip abroad and hoped I had missed all of the massive pollen of North Alabama, but it kind of hit me and I thought, well, I've got two weeks before [the lectureship]. Anyway, I'm going to do my best today.

You know what it's like if you got a cough and you're trying your best not to have to get up and go out, and so you're trying to keep it back, and you just can't do it. And maybe there's someone in our audience this morning who's done that with love, that you fell in love, but for whatever reason, it just was not the time you wanted to let everyone know about it. My guess is you probably weren't successful in keeping that suppressed. Because when we love someone, we want to let everybody know about it. When we fall in love, and maybe this is the person we're going to eventually marry, we want the world to know about that. But here's what I know for certain, when we think about suppressing brotherly love, that cannot be done. And the reason I can state that so emphatically is because the Lord Jesus Himself said that it cannot be done. And so this morning, I want to explore that idea with you, and I really appreciate the invitation to be here with you. I go way back with College View. I felt kind of at home sitting up here on the third row where a long time ago the college students used to sit. And several of you I know from then or even earlier, and it's so good to be here. Looking forward to getting to know these other men who are participating. I don't know any of them, at least firsthand, and certainly looking forward to knowing them a little bit better as well.

So let's talk about this idea of brotherly love. What I'm going to talk about, first of all, this morning is just going to be a little bit of an introduction to tomorrow's lesson. But I feel like we need to cover it in both formats here to get the fullest point. So I'm going to fast pace it a little bit this morning as we go through the first part of this to get us to the point that really, I want us to drill down on and to talk about today. But I don't think we can talk about our topic without first considering what Peter is going to tell us has been done for us. And so as he opens up this epistle, this amazing writing. What he's going to do immediately is to show us the blessing we have in being a child of God, and in particular, to be blessed by what Jesus Christ has done for you and me. And so we look at this and he says, not only do you have this great blessing, but you also have a responsibility because of that. And so we'll not read it this morning, but verses three down through 12 are going to build this big, wonderful, beautiful case that we have for Christianity, as we've already heard so eloquently described this morning, of coming to know Jesus and who he is, and why we can have confidence in that, and why we can have trust in the salvation that God has given to us. And so we've got all of this being built. And then we come to this next verse, verse 13. And though I'm reading from the English Standard Version, I'm going to revert for the first part of this back to the old translations when Peter says, based on everything I've told you about Jesus Christ, "therefore gird up the loins of your mind for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." And so as we think about Peter building this case, he says, Now here's what you've got to do, just like this ancient runner. You got to tuck up your robe. You got to tie it up so you're not going to trip on it. And you got to get going, because this salvation is not something you put up on a shelf and look at. This salvation is now what is going to direct your life for the rest of your life here, in getting you ready for the life to come. And so he says then gird up the loins of your mind. Get ready because of that grace that's been revealed to you.

And he continues on. Then in verse 14, and he says, here's the other impact it's going to have. He says, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance." So we're not, we're going to have this not, but scenario here. He says, Now that you have come to know Jesus Christ, now that you're a member of his body, now that you've girded up the loins of your mind, now as obedient children, don't be, do not be conformed to this world. But what? Verse 15, "but is he who called you is holy, You also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy." That's a mouthful. Peter says to us, you look at how everything's going, you look at your culture, you look at the world, you look at people going away from God. Don't be like that, because you've been called to something much higher, and the standard that you have been given is what God has been telling his people since he called them out of Egypt and made them his nation, I want you to imitate me. And thus Peter is going to begin here with a pretty consistent theme of holiness that's going to run through his epistle. And so here we are. We're obedient children. We are children who are now going to be holy as God is holy. But then I want us to know what else he adds to this. He says in verse 17, "And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile." Peter has built this amazing case for Christianity. But he says, I need to put a note of caution in here. Simply because you have put on the name of Christ, don't ever think then that you can just live like you want to. That you can just say, I'm covered by the grace of God there's no real issue. I can do what I will please. He says that is not it at all, because the one who you're calling father is going to judge impartially. In other words, he's not going to turn his eye simply because of a decision that you made but failed to honor. So, a note of warning in the midst of all of this grand talk.

Now, after building his case here, he then is beginning to kind of shift to another point of emphasis in this case. He says, Now that you know the blessings, now that you know the responsibility of what it means to be a child of God, you need to live a holy life, and here's your motivation for it. And so he's going to continue now, and he's going to say, the way that you can be motivated when you feel the world pressing in, when you feel the culture coming down on you, the way that you can deal with that is to consider what's been done for you. So look at verse 18, "knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. Like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." What's one of the best ways to not fall to temptation? The best way is to think what you would be doing to the blood of Jesus Christ. That if I can really appreciate what's been done for me, and yet, here is this temptation that's pressing in on me. Peter says, what you need to do is to think about that precious blood, the blood that was shed so that you could be saved. And he continues on, then in verse 20, and he says this, "he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you." That's about as pointed as you can get, isn't it? His blood was shed. He was foreknown, but manifest in these last times, these last 2000 years. For the people then and for you and me.

Now, with that introduction, what Peter is then going to do is he's going to call us to action. And this is where I'd really like for us to spend the rest of our time this morning in thinking about what that call of action is, and that being to love your brother. I want to put the next two verses up on the screen for us to look at, because I want to emphasize something here. As Peter has introduced holiness, we said that that's going to be somewhat of a consistent theme through this. And if you look at verses 22 and 23 you see that concept coming up three times. He says, having purified. And then a little bit later on, he talks about the pure heart, and he says the seed, but of the imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. If you look up the definition of purity, it's almost identical to Holy. In fact, it would be hard to find just a huge amount of difference between them, maybe a little, but I don't know that there would be much. And so he's saying your holy soul, your purified soul, this soul that's set apart. Your heart that has now been made holy, that's been set apart for God. And while that term imperishable comes from a different word, it means the same thing. It means that here is something that is uncorrupted, that is unpolluted. Now he brackets all of this together with the concepts of obedience to the truth and through the living and abiding word of God. So with all that said, let's read these verses now he says, "having purified your soul by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God." I suspect that if you and I had read that first part of First Peter and we were then going to build a case, I suspect we would not have included brotherly love here. I think we would have considered, in our own way of thinking, that it needed to be something much more grand than that. Maybe how we're going to save the world, maybe how we're going to end poverty, maybe how we're going to build this great work for the Lord. But that's not it at all. In inspiration Peter says the way that you're going to see whether you're holy or not is how you treat your brother in Christ.

And so what we're talking about here is very serious business. So then, as we consider these things, as we think about this call to action that Peter is giving us, as we consider what he's saying that we need to do in loving our brother, he's saying this holiness that I've been talking to you about, this purity that I've been saying is now a part of you, is getting you ready for that. It's preparing you to love your brother as you should. So how do we do that? How is it that we come to love our brother as we should. Well, we first of all, need to see what Peter says about this love. How does he describe what this love is all about? How does he show us what it is that we're aiming for? And so he continues on, and he's going to say this love that you've got is sincere. This love is genuine. Now, if you've got an older translation, you may see this word, which I really like as well, the word unfeigned. You've got this unfeigned love for your brother, or, if you're not really good with the old English, just make up a word here, unfaked.

Several years ago, I was preaching a meeting, or VBS or something, and family had Pam and I over for lunch one day. And the man and I, we went way back so he knew me, I knew him quite well. And of course I taught for many years and part of that teaching was American government, so he knew I had an interest in that kind of thing and political history and he said there's something I want to show you. He took me to his hallway and he showed me this little frame on the wall that he had. And in this frame were all kinds of American political campaign buttons. Like the kind they'll give out for president if you're wanting to run for office. And they went way back like in the 1800s. There were some early 1900s. And when I looked at that I had a decision that I had to make because I had one just like it. He said I got this at a yard sale for $5. He was so proud of it. So I decided to tell him. I said I know, I've got one just like it. They're not genuine. I didn't say this but thought it, probably not even worth $5 really. Were they okay? They were okay. I mean they gave you a sense of what the originals would have looked like. They're worthless. They're worthless. Why? Because it wasn't Warren G Harding or Theodore Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln who was handing those out. They were reproductions made in a factory. And so what Peter says is, the love we're talking about is not some love you're going to try to fake. He says if you try to pass off some shoddy, faulty, imitation of what this genuine love is all about, you don't get it. You don't understand Holiness, you don't understand the sacrifice that's been made for you, don't understand the precious blood of Jesus. And so we go back then and we realize that what he says is is that God who is judging us is going to look not only at the face that we're showing to our brother, he's going to look at the attitude behind that face. What he's going to do is to examine not only our treatment but why we're treating a brother that way. Is it genuine? Is it real? Or is it some cheap imitation where I'm trying to maybe get an upper hand in some way over this brother? So he says first thing is, you got to make sure that that love is real, that it's not fake, it's this genuine love. And then secondly he says, you got to make sure that that love is earnest. I like the word fervent. Synonym. Because fervent gives us the idea of something that just is wanting to get out. Right? It's just the spirit that you've got within you that's saying I want to find my brother, I want to do what's right for my brother. I don't know who came up with this illustration but I like it. Someone said it's the kind of love with no slack in it whatsoever. In other words you're pulling that rope as tightly as you can. You're not leaving anything to chance because this is so important. Because this is what it means to be a child of God. And with that no slack, nothing then is left undone. Everything is being done for my brother's best interest.

So here we have it then. Here is what this kind of love looks like. It's real, it's fervent, it's seeking the best interest of my brother or sister in Christ. That's what Peter's talking about. And so then with this description of love, with our understanding that it's a signal of our holiness, he says one other thing I want you to consider is this: this kind of love is showing who you're a part of. It's showing to whose family you belong. Look at verse 23, "since you have been born again not of imperishable seed, not of perishable seed rather, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God." When we think about our physical families, as much as we love them, we understand that that relationship is going to come to a conclusion. When a child is born in into the world typically there's a great deal of excitement and and joy and happiness, but yet we all know that when one is born into the world that is for a finite period of time. It's not going to go on forever. And so that's why we talk about cherishing loved ones and not wasting any time with them and and my guess is every adult in this room has a story about that. We know what that means. So Peter says, the kind of love that we're talking about here is not a love that's born of perishable seed. A family that's going to die.

He says, this is the kind of love that's born of imperishable, the kind of love that's going to make up a family that is going to go on forever. That's how important this is. And so Peter is then showing us the motivation you've got now is that you are in this family of God. You're in a relationship that's never going to come to an end. And then he says, I need you to understand this, that the relationships that we're talking about here are essential for salvation. We need to, we need to chew on that one a minute. That what Peter is saying to us is that where we will be eternally is dependent on how we treat others who are on that same journey. That is a significant, significant thought. And that's why Peter is exploring this in such serious terms, setting it in the grandest theme possible of what's been done for us. Because he says, what this means is, is it's going to be this proof of your born again status, that if you have really come to know Jesus Christ, if you have really given your life to Him, if you have really come to him and been baptized and and you've put to death that old life, this is going to be your proof of how you treat your brother or sister in Christ. And to tie it in with this theme, it's going to be the proof of the desire to be holy as God himself is holy.

Now, that's all well and good. And when we speak about it in theoretical situations like this, we admit it, we agree with it. We know that's the case. Where it's put to the test is when it's in everyday life, when you're not reading the text and talking about it in a Bible class, when you're having to live this that's when the test comes. How much am I going to show love for a brother or sister in Christ when we're in the trenches, so to speak? For just a minute, I want to leave First Peter, and I'd like for us to go over to the book of First John. It appears here that the PowerPoint is playing a little havoc on my slide, so I may have to just kind of explain this point to you. We'll see what comes up here in a minute. But look at what he says here in, this is First John, chapter three, beginning in verse 11 or so that we're going to be looking at. And I tell you what I'm just going to turn over there right now, in case we can't get to all of this on the screen. He says, "for this is the message that we have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." If you ever want to read about brotherly love, read the Gospel of John and First John, especially First John. Because here John is saying, You know what I'm telling you is nothing new. This is stuff that's been around forever. I'm not having to give you some new command here. This is the love that we're talking about. And so he goes on then, and he says Next, we need to understand that we're not to be like Cain. As often times these New Testament writers do, they'll pull out some Old Testament storyline to make their point. And he says, We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous.

You remember the story. Dawn of creation. God comes to Cain like a loving father, and he says, Cain, what's going on here? If you do well, will you not be accepted? But if you don't, sin, lies at the door and it's desire is to rule over you, but you gotta rule over it. Cain, didn't listen, and he goes out and he slays his brother. That's our word here. Went out and slew him in the field, is what's going on. Now, John gets us to this point and then here, about mid thought, he gives us something else to contemplate. And he says to us, "do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers." So here he's been saying, Don't hate your brother. Love your brother. But then he says, Now wait a minute, but don't be surprised if the world hates you. If you're out here living the kind of life that you need to live, there are going to be some people who are interested in what makes you live that way. And there are some people who are going to be offended by it. And those who are offended by it are going to hate you, and so you don't need to worry about it. That's just more proof that you are no longer dead. That when you put to death that old man of sin and you became that new man in Jesus Christ, here is proof that you are now alive and you are well, because while they may hate you, you are so showing such love for your brothers.

Now, our text here is, is kind of getting a little out of wack [on the powerpoint]. Let's just go to our passage here and we'll read it from the pages itself. He's saying to these brethren we've got Cain who hated his brother. He murdered him because of it. Don't be surprised. If the world hates you, they may try to do that to you, but you pass from life to death, and you love the brothers. And then he continues on a bit further in all of this. And as he does that, what he's going to say is is really going back to that other point that he's been making. When we come down to verse 15, he says, "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." Now, John's done something very interesting here. He's changed the word for murder. When he talked about Cain slaying Abel, it was that word slew or slain. Here, he's changed it to a compound word that means human slayer. We might say that. Well, that's interesting, but that's no big deal. Well, I think it may be a big deal. Because that word is used only one other place in the New Testament, and that's in John, chapter eight, verse 44 when Jesus himself says the devil was a murderer, a human slayer, from the very beginning. And so what John does here is he links what the devil did to what happens when we don't love our brethren. So whoever hates his brother is a human slayer, just like the devil was a human slayer from the very beginning of our time. And thus John is saying, "By this we know love, that he has laid down his life for us." We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. See, it's the opposite. We don't kill our brothers. We say, I'll die for my brother. It's what this kind of love does. Because to kill your brother is to imitate the devil. But to be willing to lay down your life for your brother is to imitate Jesus Christ. So John then has given us this great idea here of what's going on with the kind of love that we need to have.

Now, with our language from First Peter one with our language from First John chapter three, there's some points we need to make. This holy love for our brethren cannot be cheap love. This is kind of a play over a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous German theologian. We're going to talk a little bit about his quote tomorrow. I came across somewhat of a takeoff on that. I don't even know to whom to attribute this quote, but I thought it was good to make our point. The writer says, "in addition to cheap love or cheap grace, rather, I believe there is also cheap love." Now she's going to talk about this in a romantic sense. She says, "when we first fall in love, we often see the object of our affection through a lens that removes faults, erases personal tics, and airbrushes away imperfections. This is cheap love. Cheap love can be good. It can hold a relationship together for some time, but it's not transcendent. Being loved by someone who knows you is costly love. This is a love that is worth something. Being loved by a person who can look at you knowing your human foibles, your tendency to exaggerate for the sake of a good story, to be a know it all, to need to have the last word in a discussion, to refuse to cook beets, that is a love worth everything." Those of us who are married know exactly what she's saying. When we first fall in love, everything is wonderful, isn't it? The birds are singing and the sun is shining, and if it's raining outside, it's okay, because the sun's still shining, right? It's just a happy time. That you marry someone, and it doesn't take too long to realize they're not quite as perfect as maybe we thought, as they're having that same realization about us. But a love that can take those things and to love someone in spite of that, is what she's referring to, is strong love. Isn't there an application for that with brotherly love? There have been times that I have seen people become Christians, and they are so excited and just bubbling with enthusiasm and energy, and they love everybody, because everybody loves them, and they're being congratulated for their salvation. And then that person sees something that's not quite so loving. And if not careful, it can destroy faith. Because what's happened is the person has somewhat of that cheap love idea, and those who are committing the wrongs, maybe they've got kind of that idea of cheap love. And what happens is, like a marriage that falls apart, what was very good at the beginning is not strengthened and made into something better. You try to rest the whole case on that, and it's going to end in disaster. That's what can happen with brotherly love.

And so as we think about our brethren, we all too well understand from our own foibles that we are all human. And when a brother sins against me, or a brother just does something foolish, I gotta realize who he is, because I know what I am. That love can never be cheap love, and we must understand that every redeemed person is worthy of love, not because of who he or she is, and not because of who I am, but because of God. That God has said, I have welcomed all of you mess ups into my family. I have thrown open the doors for every human that has sinned and fallen short of my glory, and don't you ever dare to look down on someone who is in the exact same boat you were in. That's holy love. And to have that kind of love like in any good relationship, there are certain requirements that are there, and one of them, if you go to a marriage counselor, you're going to hear this probably in the first session, you gotta spend time together. Why do a lot of marriages fail? It's because the couple drifts apart. They're not with each other, they're not talking together, they're no longer dreaming about the future together, and they grow weary and bored. Has that happened to brethren? That we have allowed what should be some of the strongest bonds that we could possibly imagine to become weakened simply because we're not dealing with each other on a regular basis. I'm sure you have heard it several times from this pulpit, and probably lots of others. You don't develop that kind of relationship in this building. What we do here is wonderful. What we do here is holy and good, but it is not coming to know one another's needs. That can only happen when we're spending time together outside of this building, talking, praying together, crying together, laughing together, building those relationships that God wants us to have. And as we've already indicated, takes a lot of patience.

You think about a brother or sister in Christ, and you're tempted to say, that's just an ornery individual. You have to be patient. There are some people who are very weak. Illustration I started using some time ago, but I think it still works. Congregations are a lot like that strand of Christmas lights on your tree. You know, the kind that one of them's kind of getting dim while other one getting bright, that goes on in a church. That, if you have a church of any size, there are going to be people who are thriving spiritually, while at the same time they're going to be those who maybe are not letting their light shine too brightly. And God's purpose in all of this is that we help one another. That in those times of weakness, if I'm having a time of strength, I'm there to help that person, because I realize there's likely coming a day when I'm going to need that person to help me. So we spend that time together. We're patient with each other, and we make an effort. It's not a future plan. One of these days when I have more time. You know, one of my retirement goals is. No. It's a right now plan. This very day, plan. Where, if a brother or sister needs me, I'm going to make the effort to be there.

So it's a holy relationship. It is not a cheap relationship. We also need to understand that it requires an evaluation of who I am. I got to think about my thinking when it comes to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Am I in control of my thoughts? The Lord addressed this maybe not in the specific context that we're talking about, but certainly fits it in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew chapter five, verse 22 he says, But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. There's the thinking process. Everyone who is angry with his brother. I will not stand up here and tell you I have no idea what that's like, because that would be a lie. There have been times I have allowed that anger to build, and yet what I must do in those situations is to come back to this verse and hear Jesus saying, you are getting In some very dangerous territory. Because what I think is then going to impact what I say. And so you look at this verse where it says, Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And so here is that idea of, Am I controlling what I say? I'll not ask for a show of hands, because I think I'd have 100% with the adults in here, so you can just raise your hand in your mind. How many of us wish we could go back and take back some words we said to a brother or sister in Christ to think about something that we said in anger to a fellow traveler on that narrow path, and likely our conscience gets the best of us, I hope so, and we go and apologize and we try to repair that, but it's always that pothole. There isn't there to think back to how foolish I was to allow uncontrolled anger to become uncontrolled words to damage a relationship in Jesus Christ, that masterful chapter that sits about halfway in the book of James, where James probably is talking to teachers of the gospel primarily. But he says, here's what you gotta understand, every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. What James is not doing is negating the point I just made. James is not saying you can't control your tongue, so just give it up. There's no hope. That is not what he's saying. What he's saying is you can't ever let it out of the cage. In the advent of the Internet, one of the most popular things out there is animal videos. I will admit I love them. If there's an animal video comes up the next 30 seconds to three minutes of my life is taken. I'm going to watch it because I like to watch them, but I'll see these at times where there's a lion or tiger or an animal of that magnitude, and you've got a trainer who's hugging on it inside the cage, petting it. And I think to myself, you're going to be the next headline. Because what they're thinking is, is that lion, you know, it's kind of like fluffy the house cat at home. But what fluffy can do is scratch you. What this lion can do is kill you. And how many stories do we know of someone who got so close to the animal they thought this animal will never turn on and one day, just like that, the animal snaps attacks and kills. That's what James is saying. He's saying every word coming out of your mouth needs to have a whole lot of thought behind it before you let it come and that is especially true when our temptation is to say something in anger.

The Lord's words continue when he says, "and whoever calls his brother a fool." Growing up, I was always taught to leave fool out of my vocabulary. You know, never call those idiots fools, right? It's kind of the implication of it. That if you could stay away from the forbidden word, you were okay. It's not it. In fact, Jesus himself called few people fools, didn't he, but I'm going to leave that to him. I was trained, and I'm not planning to add it back back into my vocabulary. What he's saying is it's the thought behind it. The word fool really means, I am looking at you as someone who's not even human. You're not worthy of my consideration. You're not worthy of my time. You're not worthy of my efforts. And so what that word is indicating is a very power charged idea in my mind, that I can look at a brother in Christ and I can say to him, You are unworthy to even be considered on my level. That's what's being forbidden. And so I control my thoughts and I control my words, and I control my actions. It's always good for us to kind of turn this around and to say, am I the person that other people have difficulty getting along with? Am I the person that people are going to go out of their way to avoid because they know I'm ornery and just negative and can't get along with people. That's a hard thing to see in ourselves, but so important. And I think about how many relationships in Jesus Christ have been destroyed by that. So, with this love that is holy and not cheap, with this love that requires an evaluation of who I am really, what it all boils down to is this, it is a love that is seeking to be like Jesus Christ. And I want you to understand that line is not a greeting card line. That line is not something you put on a poster with some nice scene of a mountain behind it. It's a line that has got to guide our relationships with each other, because when you look at the life of Jesus, what you find is someone who considered no one unworthy of his attention.

I think about what Matthew records for us, chapter 21 last part of verse 31, Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, the tax collector and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you." Isn't it interesting Jesus didn't avoid the bad neighborhoods? He went to parties in them. He feasted with the people that the good folks wouldn't associate with. Now I'm not saying that's got to be a model for us in every way, shape or form. What I'm saying is it's the kind of attitude where I don't look at someone and write them off and say, you know you're really not worthy of anything that I can share with you. No. It's not Jesus. And Jesus certainly corrected when it was necessary. You know, it was always out of kindness, out of love. You ever been corrected by somebody who likes to correct people? Usually starts out with two words: well, actually. Well, actually. This is what you should have said. We need to listen even when somebody who's not being very kind is correcting us. We need to pay attention to that. But how much better is the humble Christ-like person who comes to us and says, Look, I just want to talk to you about this, and when I'm in that situation, that's who I need to be.

Over the years, if you preach for any length of time, you're going to have people who disagree with you on something. And I've had both extremes. I've had people come red faced yelling. I've had people day or two later calmly say I'm not sure I got that point. Can we talk about a little more? And sometimes I can show them why I believe that, or sometimes they can show me where I maybe need to change my attitude about something, or my view on something. But that correction is always done in love. It's always done for my brothers betterment, not to make me feel superior, not to make me feel smarter than someone else. And it's the kind of love that encourages on every occasion. We would have a hard time over emphasizing the importance of encouragement. Want you think about what Matthew recorded about Jesus. He said, "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice." In other words, until everything's the way it's supposed to be to victory. How many times did Jesus do that? Now, he had some fiery conversations, but I think of the gentleness that he showed with the woman at the well, I think about his gentleness, even with Zacchaeus, bearing long with these 12 apostles who were having such difficulty grasping things. He put this into illustration.

There's a file that I keep. And in that file, I have cards that people have sent to me going back years. Some of these have been cards that you know, maybe a congregation, someone out of a congregation sent or several of them are students, or former students I had, they'll write me a note. No big deal. Thank you so much for -. And when I get into one of those blue times in life, I pull out that folder, because those people were doing for me what Jesus did for people. I want to be that to others, for my brethren in Christ, when they're having hard times, and not just in times of physical sickness. But when life just isn't going well, or they're troubled by what's going on in society, I want to be that light. Not because I want to glorify myself, but because I want to glorify Jesus Christ. And so, this expensive love that takes my time and my effort and my enthusiasm, Jesus says, is going to be the kind of love that's demanded of one who is holy as I'm holy.

Well, let's conclude these thoughts. Holy love is motivated love. It's a love to provide comfort and support to the family of God. But here's a point that I really want to emphasize as we close. It's the kind of love that is preparing for being with this family in God's eternal plan. The last time I really did just a huge, full blown study of brotherly love, a thought hit me that had really not hit me that way before. I just kind of sat back and asked the question, Why does God spend so much time on this? Why is this such a big deal? And the light bulb came on. It's because, like everything else, God expects of us here, this is the preparing ground.

I have no idea what all God has in store for us eternally, but I know we're not going to be sitting around on clouds playing harps. We're not just going to be wondering, well, what do I do now? We're here, so how boring this is. That's not going to be it. And I just suspect that whatever God is planning is going to be a family affair, where you and me and our brothers and sisters scattered all over the globe, and our brothers and sisters scattered all through human history, are going to be joined together, around our father, around our Savior, around the spirit, and we are going to be working in unison towards something that will show the grace of God, that will indicate his holiness, but will also require a family who loves each other. I don't suspect when we reach that point of eternal life that I'm going to be allowed to say to God, I know you put me in this room, have you got something on another floor away from this person? We didn't get along too well. What God is saying is you learn to love. Is it going to be filled with difficult times? It surely will be, because we can all be kind of ornery .But it's something doable, because A - God said it could be done, and B - He's given us the model for how to do it. And so I hope, as we think about our relationships with one another. We will be a people who, as Jesus, loves, we love. Thank you for your really good attention this morning.