1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

Everyone has a least favorite teacher.

I had professors in college who'd read their PowerPoint out

loud the whole class. That was it. 90 minutes of read

aloud. Let's just say on Tuesdays and

Thursdays. Not a lot of students found

their way to those classrooms. Everyone also has a favorite

teacher. By far my favorite teacher was

my finance professor. First day of class he told us

there's no textbook, no PowerPoints, no lecture notes,

no homework. Your grade depends on 2 tests,

one halfway through the course and if you pass that one at the

end. And he said everything you need

to know for those tests will be spoken by me in this classroom.

When those are your teachers first words, you have reason to

hang on their every word. Let me tell you, finance was not

a class that I skipped for any reason.

And it turned out my professor was also a great teacher.

He was engaging, he was clear. It was clear he cared about the

topic that he was teaching about.

It was clear he knew something about what he was teaching

about. He was even funny at times.

Most importantly, he was effective.

He'd learned finance himself. He was able to teach and train

others also. Multiple students, however,

still failed that first Test and had to drop the class.

By God's grace, I was not one of those.

I think the problem was with the students, not with the teacher.

If you're in Christ, the day of your conversion was your first

day in God's classroom. In God's classroom, there are

some subjects we must unlearn. There are other topics we have

yet to learn. There are also many lessons we

must keep learning. Turn your Bible to First

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

Thessalonians chapter 4. If you don't have a Bible, maybe

you forgot yours at home. Maybe you don't own one.

Just raise your hand. Somebody will bring you a Bible.

Just raise it high. Great.

We've been learning from Paul's letter to the one year old

church in Thessalonica. Paul was so concerned about this

suffering church plant that he sent his protege Timothy to

check on them. Paul was so comforted by

Timothy's report that he sent this letter to encourage them.

Last week we saw that Paul ended chapter 3 with a pastoral

prayer. He prayed for two things.

He prayed for their holiness before God and their love for

one another. In chapter 4, we saw Paul exhort

them to keep walking in holiness.

Today Paul exhorts them to keep loving one another.

Listen to God's word as I read verses 9 to 12.

Now concerning brotherly love. You have no need for anyone to

write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love

one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the

brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do

this more and more and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your

own affairs, and to work with your hands as we instructed you,

so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be

dependent on no one. Friends, notice how similar

these verses are to the previous ones we looked at to verses 1 to

8. Look at verse one.

Paul urges them to please God with holiness in their

sexuality. Paul encourage them, verse one,

that they're already doing this and to do it more and more.

Now look at verses 9 to 12. Paul reminds them to love one

another and Paul encourages them, verse 10 that they're

already doing this and to do it more and more.

In verses 1 to 12, we see two topics, holiness and love, that

belong together. Paul begins verse one with how

they ought to walk before God. Paul ends verse 12 with how they

ought to walk before outsiders. So really verses 9 to 12 are

kind of like Part 2 to the same question we asked last week,

which was how can you please God?

See the answer from verses 9:00 to 12:00.

So simple. Keep loving one another, keep

loving one another. Love for one another is the

heartbeat of this passage. There's 4 verses in the passage.

We'll take each of them 1 by 1 four points.

Here's the 1st 1.1. Love one another as God taught

you. Love one another as God taught

you. Look at verse 9 again now

concerning brotherly love. You have no need for anyone to

write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love

one another. Paul obviously shifts topics

from holiness to love. Not just any love.

Paul says. Brotherly love. 2 words in

English, one word in the Greek. Many of you are probably

familiar with it. Philadelphia.

We've got a city named after it, the city of Brotherly Love.

And as I mentioned earlier, Paul's previously prayed for

their love for one another end of chapter 3 to increase to

abound. In chapter 1, Paul thanked God

for their love. He called it a labor of love.

Apparently the Thessalonians love for one another excelled to

such a degree that Paul can say in verse one you have no need

for anyone to write to you about this.

Their love was observable, but to some their love was strange,

especially to non Christians. One second century Roman

rhetorician commented on the brotherly love of Christians.

He says hardly have they met when they love each other

indiscriminately. They call each other brother and

sister. Perhaps you're a non Christian

sitting here. Are all these people related?

I keep sitting here. Hey brother, how are you?

Hey sister, how can I pray for you?

To outside observers, this love was different.

It was familial love. For those outside your family,

it was a new kind of love. As I was doing the dishes

earlier this week, I heard one of my kids ran up the stairs to

tell me someone else wasn't using a gentle tongue.

That's a good phrase, I thought to myself.

That's a new phrase. So I asked my child to come

here, and I asked them, Who taught you that?

The answer learned it at school. This particular child is being

homeschooled, meaning their mother taught them.

Seems Hannah's been teaching the Proverbs.

Who taught the Thessalonians this new love?

Who taught them to love like this?

Look at verse one. The Thessalonians were taught by

God. You may be wondering.

Paul and his missionary team taught them, didn't they?

They taught them the scripture over 3 Sabbaths when they

planted the church. Paul continually taught them for

weeks or even months before he had to flee.

Yes, Paul is even going to instruct them on their love for

one another in these verses. But Paul was not their primary

teacher. They'd been taught by God.

The prophets prophesied a day when God would no longer write

on tablets of stone, but on his people's very hearts.

The prophets promised today when God would no longer dwell in

tabernacles or temples, but in his very people, by his very

spirit. Through Christ's death and

resurrection and ascension, that day has come.

Every believer is a student in God's classroom.

God is our divine teacher. Good teachers are lifelong

learners. God is the only teacher who

teaches others without being taught himself.

What man shows him his counsel? The prophet Isaiah asks, or Paul

wonders who has been his counsellor?

There's a little game we've played as a staff.

Who would be your top five counsellors, living or dead?

Top five? I wonder what you'd pick.

You know, Spurgeon's mentioned Augustine, John Calvin.

Who would be your top five? What wisdom would be displayed

in the men and women you choose to just have access to to call

up a quick phone call? God has no top five.

He needs no top five. Imagine if one of the staff were

to say top five counsellors don't need any.

We'd think what that is just pride for God.

To not need any counsellors is to be God.

Good teachers store up wisdom from the ages.

God is the only teacher whose wisdom has no source and no end.

How unsearchable are his judgments?

Paul says. How inscrutable his ways?

How good is God, our teacher? He always knows what to say.

He always knows when to say it. He has the answer for any

question. He never needs to prep a lesson.

He always gives each student individual instruction according

to their needs, according to his purposes.

Every teacher teaches better than they live, except God.

His teaching always perfectly matches his character.

Who is a teacher like him? Eli, who asks?

And how does God teach us? He doesn't teach us everything,

everywhere, all at once. He does not upload the 66 books

of the Bible into our brains upon conversion.

He teaches us slowly by helping us observe the world He made and

leading us slowly as we study the word that He's given.

He teaches us as we receive divine mysteries by faith.

He teaches us through loving encouragement and gentle

critique, through hopeful stories and heart piercing

rebukes. He teaches us as we meditate on

His law day and night, as we sit under sermons, and as we counsel

one another with His Word. He teaches us in the school of

suffering through pain, sickness, uncertainty, sleepless

nights. He even teaches some through

donkeys and others through encounters with large fish.

In teaching us, he tests us not to tempt us, but to show us our

sin, to help us learn to rely less on ourselves and more on

Him. In other words, friend, God is

creatively and consistently using every circumstance you

face today to teach you to grow your faith and your hope and

your love so that you could declare, like David in Psalm 18,

this God. His way is perfect.

What lessons has God tailored for you today?

Pray you won't be dull of hearing.

If you're not a believer, think of all the things you've learned

in life. You've likely learned a whole

language, maybe even one or two. You've learned how to walk.

You've learned culture. You've learned different foods.

You learn how to cook, different skills, how to drive, You've

learned the skills required for your job.

You've learned so many things. The most important thing you

need to learn are spiritual truths.

You need to learn to live your life according to God and His

Word, which is the problem. If you're not a Christian,

you're hard headed. You're a stubborn student in

ignorance. You've resisted this divine

teacher. You've forgotten his

commandments. You've walked out of his

classroom. You've preferred the wisdom of

this world to the wisdom of God. And what are the stakes?

Flunking a test in college? You might fail to graduate.

If you refuse this divine teacher, you invite His wrath

upon you. But here's the good news.

God has a way of teaching those who've proved unteachable in

love. He sent his only Son, Jesus

Christ, to reveal God's hidden wisdom.

Jesus obeyed the Father perfectly.

He died sacrificially for sinners on the cross.

He bore God's wrath. 4 hard hearted, stubborn sinners stuck

in their ways. And the cross is the greatest

lesson of love. If you want to learn love.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life

for his friends. But the cross was more than a

lesson on love. Jesus rose again and ascended to

the Father. And if you turn from your sins

and trust in him, you will have salvation.

God loves to soften hearts of stone and to write His law on

our hearts and to send us His Spirit to train us in

righteousness. Brothers and sisters, this is

the glory of the New Covenant, God writing His law upon our

hearts. Jeremiah said no longer will one

teach his neighbor or his brother, saying know the Lord,

for they will all know me from the least to the greatest of

them. You know your Creator, you know

the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Nothing could ever separate you believer from his steadfast love

in Christ Jesus. And now, with God as your Father

and the Spirit as your Teacher, you can be like your older

brother Jesus. You can not only love your

enemies, you can even love one another.

We love one another because he first loved us.

Consider the love of God. For the Christian, the deep,

vast, unmeasured, boundless love of the Trinity is like a mighty

ocean. We brothers and sisters are

swimming in it. So what should this love in the

local church look like? It looks like verse verse 9,

brotherly love. In other words, it looks like

the love of a family in God's common grace.

Families were created to foster mutual love and affection and

care. But not everyone grows up in a

loving family. Kids in the congregation, are

you contributing to the love and the warmth and the affection of

your home? Or are you contributing to a war

zone? Good question to ask your

parents after the service. This church, according to God's

Word, is a family. Not a family by blood, but by

grace. When God reconciled you to

himself, he reconciled you to a people.

Mom and dad adopt you from the orphanage.

They take you home, and what do you find?

You've got brothers and sisters. Look around this room,

Christian. Seriously, These are your

brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

By God's grace, we can see a picture of brotherly love at

work in our own church. Love in our local church looks

like a lot of things. Here's a few Christians

submitting to and joining the church, staying after the

service for fellowship. Last week I told a brother or

sister, I can't remember who. We cannot get these people to

leave. They won't do.

It seems they love one another. It looks like initiating

spiritual conversations. Scheduling rides so other

members can get to church. Bringing meals to one another

when a member's in need. A family having the same single

brother or sister over every single week.

A single brother or sister bringing a meal to a family.

Men gathered around the scriptures weekly in the early

morning before the sun rises. Sisters meeting together weekly

for fellowship, for prayer, to study the Word.

Texting another member that you're praying for them.

Rebuking a brother or sister when it's the last thing you

want to do. Regularly encouraging others by

the spiritual growth you see in their life.

Helping a family move that you don't know very well.

Opening up your heart and your arms to new members in the

church. Greeting visitors you've never

met in your life before. So ordinary and so supernatural.

We are fulfilling by God's grace, our church covenant.

We will walk together in love as brothers and sisters, a family

whom God is saved by grace. If you look around this local

church and you see evidence of love, thank God that we have a

good teacher. If you look around this local

church and see love lacking, pray because it just means we

have more to learn. Is there someone in the church

that your love has grown cold towards?

Pray for them, initiate with them.

Is there someone in the church you need to move towards today

in love? Remember the love of Christ for

you. Pray for yourself.

Pray that every action and motivation and intention would

be love for God and for this family.

We have not loved perfectly, but perfect love is at work in us.

God is perfecting our love for one another.

We've been taught by God to love one another.

Would Paul also say to us, as he says to the Thessalonians, that

indeed is what you are doing. Point #2 friends, .1 was the

longest. We're going to speed up for the

rest. Look at verse 10.

Point #2 love one another more and more, love one another more

and more. Verse 10 For that indeed is what

you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.

But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more.

God's love flows to the Thessalonian Church.

It fills them up, then overflows throughout the region of

Macedonia. Their love is a fountain.

Fountains don't just gush once and then stop.

They pump out water continually. Fountains were made to overflow

again and again and again. Or as Agustin says, 1 loving

heart sets another on fire. The fire that started in

Thessalonica was spreading throughout Macedonia.

How did the Thessalonians love travel throughout the region of

Macedonia? Some people speculate

Thessalonica was the economic and political center of

Macedonia. It could have been that

Christians from other cities needed housing as they were

passing through. When my wife and I lived in

Dubai, home to the world's busiest airport, we regularly

got texts calls, Hey I have a friend passing through, do you

have an extra room for them to say?

Paul could be referring here to Christian hospitality.

It's more likely, though, that Paul refers to the aid the

Thessalonians may have provided for needy Christians and

churches throughout the region. Paul mentions how the churches

of Macedonia in 2nd Corinthians 8 experience extreme poverty.

It could be that the Thessalonians heard about that

and sent help. Paul doesn't tell us, though,

exactly how the Thessalonians loved the churches of Macedonia.

He just tells us that they did, and he urges them, verse 10 do

this more and more. In other words, whatever they

were doing to love the other churches, they needed to keep

doing. Their love was already deep.

It needed to go deeper. It was already wide.

It needed to get wider. Now picture this.

The church in Thessalonica had its own problems, didn't it?

Lots of suffering, persecution. They could have just said we've

got enough issues here, we don't need to worry about what's going

on there. But the New Testament paints a

picture of the local church as both independent and

interdependent. Independent in that no local

church is subject to an outside authority.

Our church's authority is the congregation itself.

There are no bishops. There's no outside boards.

Interdependent, though, in that each local church must be

concerned about the health of other local churches.

Now, historically, the word used to describe churches caring for

other churches is catholicity. That's little C Catholic.

Catholic means worldwide or universal.

So what is Catholicity? I won't give you a definition.

Here's a description. It means, as one pastor says,

you are as interested in helping others win gold medals as you

are in winning them yourself. So there you are, competing at

the Olympics. You've worked years for this

moment, cheering as lane two over there passes you towards

the finish line. That's Catholicity.

In other words, it's praising God for revival when he sends it

to the church down the street. Or very practically for us,

praising God for rising Christchurch when He keeps

answering all our prayers for more collections at their church

downtown Chapel Hill. In our short life as a church,

we have been blessed by the catholicity of many local

churches. Praise the Lord when we consider

planting here, a number of a number of pastors encouraged us

to come. No feeling of competition.

There's more work to be done in this city as we raise money.

Lots of churches gave generously like Capitol Hill Baptist Church

in Washington DC, Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Mevin,

University Baptist Church in Fayetteville, AR, Redeemer in

Fuquay, Varina Denver Baptist Church in North Carolina, just

to name a few. Churches from all over the

United States partnered with us to see this little work become

reality. Many local churches generously

gave some of their best members you.

They sent out their best FBC. Durham was one of those

churches. They even hosted Us Weekly for

three months in their own building to help us get started

for free. Risen Christchurch, which was

just a year older than us, connected us with our first

meeting space, the Sheraton. Even the Anglicans helped us.

Cornerstone Anglican Church helped us find this current

meeting space here at Creekside. And I could go on.

It's an understatement to say that we've benefited from the

love of other churches. It's not been a trickle.

It's been a shower. Yet Jesus says it is more

blessed to give than to receive. We have received so much.

How can we grow in giving our love away to other local

churches? Here's some ways we try to love

and encourage and support other local churches.

As you've probably noticed, we publicly pray for other churches

in the Pastoral Prayer every single week.

We regularly recommend other churches to visitors.

If you're visiting today and live near Carrboro, Risen Christ

Church is a great church. I'd be glad to connect you with

one of the pastors there. If you're deeper into Durham,

FBC Durham and Mount Hermon Baptist Church also great

churches. It's not that we don't want you

to join our church, it's that there are other good churches

you could join. We regularly fellowship with

other pastors to strategize, to pray for one another, to

encourage one another. We send preachers like our

brother Joe Bird last week to other churches needing brothers

to preach. We have a pastoral internship

for brothers aspiring to pastoral ministry.

We hope to send out some of our best for the sake of the gospel

here and to the ends of the earth.

We want to grow in loving other churches.

Love either grows and overflows, or it wanes and then trickles

and then dies. A church could have a full

parking lot, a bustling children's ministry, and

expositional preaching. But if that church is an island

cut off from other churches, with no concern or affection for

other churches, it's a sick church.

It may look healthy on the outside, but something's wrong

on the inside. So how can we together as a

church, keep our hand on the pump and continue pouring out

love to churches in Durham and Chapel Hill and to the ends of

the earth? A couple things.

One, pray for other local churches in your family

Devotions. Get to know pastors and

missionaries at our evening service.

We regularly have them come through.

They usually stick around. Get to know some of those

brothers and sisters so you can pray for them better.

Be careful how you speak about other churches.

Build them up with your words when a critique is necessary.

Speak the truth in love. Imitate the faith, hope, and

love of other faithful churches and other faithful Christians.

I have met so many faithful pastors in this area, so many

other faithful Christians who aren't members of our church.

I've learned so much from them. Let's keep doing that.

Lastly, meditate on heaven, where every believer will gather

together in one assembly, a great multitude from every

nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.

Picture our love for other local churches five years from now, 10

years from now, even 50 years from now, when most of us will

be far gone. What would it look like?

It could look like helping revitalize dying churches in our

area, planting new churches in our region, sending out then

supporting missionary church planners to the ends of the

earth. Each one of those will come with

a great cost to us, but our losses will be the Kingdom's

game. As we love one another more and

more, our love will grow and overflow to North Carolina and

beyond. In verse 11, Paul zooms in on a

specific aspect of how we love one another.

Point #3 love one another by working with integrity.

Look at verse 11. Paul gets very specific, he

says. And to aspire to live quietly,

and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as

we instructed you. 3 commands. There you can see them.

Aspire to live quietly, mind your own affairs, work with your

hands. But why are those 3 commands

here? And what do they have to do with

love? Now one popular view is that the

Thessalonians got too eschatologically excited.

Perhaps they wondered, Christ is going to return.

Paul talked about that often. If he could return it every

moment, any moment, why should we work?

If that was their view, then Paul's message is get back to

work. The problem with this view,

however, I think, is Paul never mentions this is the reason.

In other words, it's just speculation.

Sure, he talks about the second coming and the next verse, but

as we've seen in every chapter he talks about the second

coming. I think a better option is

clarified in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians.

If you have your Bible, turn there briefly.

Second thoughts in mind. You just have to turn one page.

Second Thessalonians, chapter 3, verses 6 to 15.

2 Thessalonians 3:6–15

Here Paul addresses the sin of idleness in the church.

He says verse 11. Some were not busy at work, but

busy bodies. Paul exhorts them.

Do your work quietly. Earn your own living.

Verse 12. Some members weren't working

hard, but they were busy in other people's business.

They were lazy, living off the charity of others, Paul's

command to them. Verse 10.

If anyone's not willing to work, let him not eat.

Now back to First Thessalonians. In First Thessalonians 1

commentator says failure to work hard was a small flame, but it

had become a full blown fire by the time we get to 2nd

Thessalonians. In First Thessalonians, Paul

preached against idleness, and he practiced what he preached.

Like any good teacher, Paul's life proved his preaching.

Paul says First Thessalonians 2 verse 9.

1 Thessalonians 2:9

You remember, brothers, our labor and toil.

We worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of

you. Paul practiced what he preached.

Now how are Paul's 3 commands connected to brotherly love?

They flow from love. I don't know about you, but

personally I do not like water parks.

You could even say I hate water parks.

But I love the lazy river. It is a paradox, I do not

understand it. I hate water parks, but I love

the lazy river. You just sit in that thing and

you just float. All they are.

You'd have to do a thing. The local church is not a lazy

river. You need to paddle.

And Brian was correcting how I paddle you.

Apparently you do both at the same time.

Not one, one after another. Every church member has an oar.

Everyone needs to be paddling. That's the picture of the local

church here. So failing to work when you can

work is a failure to love. Picture all of us in a boat.

All of us are rowing the boat. One of us is chilling.

That is not loving to your brothers and sisters.

In other words, Paul's focus here on working with integrity

is that it flows from loving your neighbor.

Brotherly love includes working hard and not taking advantage of

your brother and sister's generosity.

Paul tells the same idea to the church in Philippi.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to

the interests of others. Brotherly love works in both

directions. It's like being willing to help

those in need and not taking advantage of those willing to

help. It looks like sharing with those

in need and working as you're able.

So you're not in need, of course, and you know this.

There are exceptions to the rule.

There are times where sickness or job loss or physical ailments

prohibit work. Paul is not talking about that.

Paul is not talking about those who can't work but want to.

He's exhorting those who can work but won't.

So the question for us is, are we someone who needs to forsake

idleness? Are we someone who needs to stop

taking advantage of other people's generosity?

If that's you, pay careful attention to Paul's 3

exhortations. Love for brother rolls up its

sleeves and gets to work. First command, Paul mentions.

Aspire to live quietly. Make it your ambition to be

faithful with small responsibilities.

Kids, do your chores without being asked, even without

complaining. Stay at home.

Moms, you live a life of quiet faithfulness.

Keep loving your husbands and your children.

It's pleasing to the Lord. Living quietly may feel like

you're shrinking, but you're actually exploring the caverns

of brotherly love. Second, mind your own affairs.

In other words, you could say, mind your own business.

Don't be a busy body. There are some questions that we

can ask which pry at answers and don't serve in the interest of

love. Don't be a meddler.

Don't be a gossip or a walking tabloid or a private

investigator. You have enough going on in your

own life. You don't need to comment on

every controversy. You should have a gentle tongue.

Don't # the keys spending your days adding to the noise of

social media. Third, work with your own hands.

Working with integrity is an act of love.

Working when you can work frees you up to serve those who truly

can't work. Deliberately giving up your work

when you can work is a breach of love.

It's being a parasite on Christ's body.

God gave the gift of hard work before work was tainted by the

fall. Since the fall, though, work is

subjected to futility. For many, work is not aimed at

loving others. It's twisted and contorted to

serving self. Our work is often distorted by

the black hole that is self love.

We take God's gift of work and try to suck everyone and

everything into the service of our own little kingdoms.

When work serves self, not others, it always yields losses.

Is your work serving your family, or is your family

serving your work? Selfish love is a bottomless

pit. When you throw work in, it never

finds the end. One more e-mail, one more phone

call, one more trip, one last project, the next raise, the

next promotion, the next career. But at what cost?

How does brotherly love need to be brought to bear on your work?

Is your failure to work hindering this church family, or

is your incessant work harming your own family?

Get to work at working with integrity.

And as you work, don't forget that God is the one by His

Spirit working in you. The Divine Teacher is a holy

gardener. He loves cultivating the

Spirit's fruit of love for him and for others in your life.

When you work with integrity, you are opening up your arms in

love wide toward your brother or your sister.

When you work with integrity, you are extending your arm to

your brother or sister in their need.

When you work with integrity, your love and sacrifice.

An example spills out into the congregation and as we'll see in

verse 12, even beyond to the watching world .4 Finally, love

one another because the world's watching, because the world's

watching. Here's the purpose of Paul's

commands, verse 12, so that you may walk properly before

outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Keep loving one another by working with integrity because

the world is watching. Paul's concerned about how the

family of God loves one another, and Paul is concerned about the

reputation of God's family before the watching world.

As Jesus says, by this all people will know that you are my

disciples. If we have love for one another,

the world's watching Trinity Baptist Church.

They're watching how we walk. They can tell if we're people of

integrity. In other words, the world is

pressed up against the window of the church wondering, are these

Christians any different? Is their love different?

Is their work different? And Satan himself is scheming

against this church's love because if our love is

destroyed, then our witness will be too.

What do your neighbors think of our church?

What about your Co workers or your non Christian family

members? Do they see a family filled with

love, working with integrity? Or do they see a group of

gossips, busybodies, a Church of consumers, of getting without

ever giving? Brothers and sisters, if that's

our billboard, it's a picture empty of God's love.

The local church is a display of God's love to the world.

Pray that our church would tell the truth about God's love.

Friends, it's been so simple. Love God, love one another, work

with integrity. Aren't these lessons first

things, the basics? Christianity 101.

And yet these are the daily lessons in God's classroom.

No one gets the test out of this class.

No one can avoid this teacher. You will never graduate from

this school of love, but one day our love for God will be

perfected without any rivals. Our love for one another will be

purified without any division on the other side of Jordan.

We will keep learning of God's steadfast love in Christ Jesus

forever and ever, and we will keep loving one another forever

and ever. Let's pray, Father, we are

eternally grateful for the love that you've shown us in Christ

Jesus our Savior. And we pray, Lord, that we would

be faithful to extend that love to our brothers and sisters in

this church, to brothers and sisters in other churches, even

beyond this city. Lord, may our love for one

another be seen in our work and in our witness to the watching

world. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.