Love of a Friend

Welcome to this week's message from the Church at Chelsea Westover.

Our core values are vibrant worship, intimate fellowship, fulfilling service, and clear biblical truth.

We pray that this message changes your life.

Let's tune in to today's message and see what God has in store for you.

But amen.

Well, praise the Lord.

You know what's exciting to see people get saved.

When you see people's lives radically change, it is an awesome thing to watch.

We've been preaching and teaching this month on bringing your friends to Jesus.

And today I want to close out this series, this month of messages with the title of the message, The Love of a Friend.

How appropriate for Friend Day.

The love of a friend.

And many of you, many of you today have invited friends here because of the love that you have for them.

I know that's the case for me.

And again, that is what our whole church is based on.

Our purpose statement, our purpose verse is Luke 10, 27.

Loving God, loving God, and what?

Loving people.

In fact, the verse says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself.

So what a beautiful, beautiful, foundational verse for us.

Now, if you're here this morning, you do not have an outline, would you please raise your hand?

We want everybody, if you uh please, to have one for several reasons.

We have a little saying around here, and I know we have a slide for this about the word of God around here.

There's three things about this book.

Keep your hands up if you need an outline.

What is it, church?

You know it.

We say about this book.

We, there it is.

We love the book, we learn the book, we live the book.

And the Bible verse, Psalms 119, verse 105, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Psalms 119:105

And boy do we not.

So today I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to or on your phone Bibles.

I'm still getting used to that.

Actually, I'm starting to use mine too.

But uh, or your iPad Bible, and uh it's amazing.

I still, you can tell I still wear my old leather book out.

I can't help it.

Uh I still like to hold it in my hand.

It's just something about this blessed book that I love.

But in John 13, 34 and 35, Jesus is speaking, and he's speaking here to the disciples.

We call it the Last Supper, we call it the example for the Lord's Supper, and the ordinances that we uh observe here are two: the Lord's Supper and Believers' baptism.

So the Lord is in the setting here, and he's really talking to the disciples, and he's really introducing them to a new commandment.

And most people say, now, wait a minute, that new commandment, he says, I give it to you that you love one another.

But they say, now wait a minute, we we had that commandment in the Old Testament.

This is not an old commandment that we're to love people.

In fact, the old commandment was that we're to love God and then love our neighbor as our what?

As ourselves.

So the new commandment was, no, we're gonna take it a step further than that.

In fact, instead of loving our neighbor like ourselves, we are challenged now to love our neighbors like Christ loves us.

And ladies and gentlemen, that takes it to a whole new level.

A whole new level.

And that's what it really means to love God with all your heart.

The way that you and I show God that we love Him with our whole heart is by loving people like Christ loved us.

And that's the whole premise this morning of the subject that I'm gonna be preaching and teaching to you: the love of a friend.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, if we love like Jesus loves, I'm telling you, we'll have so many people to love and to minister to that it'll be unbelievable.

In fact, every week that's all we do is minister to people and love people to Christ.

And it works.

I promise you, it works.

So, let's look at it.

He says, A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another, and by this shall all men know that you're my disciples by your love.

And then, Proverbs 18, 24 says, a man that hath friends must show himself friendly.

That's what he says.

And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

So, in context, we take John 13, 34, 35 as we go back there, Jeremy, and we are to love our friends like Christ loved us.

Now, what's important, most people don't understand the setting that Jesus stands up and makes this statement.

Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross.

He's getting ready to be betrayed by Judas.

And what you've got, you've got 12 disciples, and here's what is very interesting to me.

You know what's interesting to me?

They're up in this room, and usually, back in their days and the customs was to have someone in the room, especially if they had rented a banquet place to have a supper like they had, is to have someone at the door, and they as a servant to wash the people's feet as they came in.

Because they wearing sandals, dirt, dusty.

I mean, you know, so the what they would do, they would wash the disciple, I meant they would wash the visitors or the people that had come into the rooms, they would wash their feet.

Well, guess what?

There was no one there to do this.

They had not hired a servant to wash anybody's feet.

So what's going on here is the disciples realize that.

And they're starting to jockey for position.

In fact, I'm sure James, Peter, and John, the inner circle, said, Well, I'm not gonna wash the feet.

I mean, we're in the inner circle, not us.

So they started, and you know, and don't think funny of that because they'd already discussed with the mama, you know, who's gonna sit at the right hand of the father.

I mean, they were jockeying.

Hey, we're the better.

Even in the 12 disciples, disciples, they were pulling rank.

And all this bickering going on in the middle of all that bickering, well, I'm better than you.

No, well, hey, he's the lowest one.

I mean, he's just a fisherman.

I'm a tax collector.

Who does he think he is?

So, in all the middle of this, Jesus just stands up and he grabs the towel and he grabs the basin and he begins to wash the disciples' feet.

What an example of real love.

What an example.

And so, with that said, we're gonna be looking at what I think is the hallmark.

It's the badge by which all of us believers and disciples should be marked by.

You know, uh, as a chaplain, I have a badge when I'm on the scene.

I put my badge on.

Well, we as Christians ought to have a badge.

We have a mark.

We have a hallmark, and I really believe that the disciples and the believers were to be recognized throughout all the world by this hallmark and this badge, and we see it here.

In fact, I was thinking about that as much as I love our church.

The badge of true discipleship is not our doctrinal belief.

The badge of our true discipleship is not the kind of music we listen to this morning, and God forbid that people argue over some of the most minute things.

But that's not our badge.

That's not our, hey, that's not our hallmark.

It shouldn't be not our music, not our doctrinal beliefs, not our four core values, as important as they are, not our two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, as in as much as we cherish them.

Hey, hey, not our zeal for evangelism as important as that is, but our hallmark and our badge should be true, dynamic, Christian agape love for one another.

And by this shall the whole world know that we are his disciples.

Man, what a beautiful picture.

And that is what Jesus was saying right here.

And he said it so beautifully.

So let's look at three things today that describes this kind of love.

This kind of love, the love for a friend.

Number one, it has to be believers must always be known, or disciples must always be known by redemptive love.

Look at John 13, 34.

Love one another, commanded the Savior, as I have loved you.

When the Lord Jesus uttered these words, he had just, as I just introduced it to you, exemplified what true Christ-like love really was.

As he humbled himself, now watch, to wash the feet of Judas, who he knew was just about to go and betray him for 30 pieces of silver to turn him into the Roman uh guard, into the scribes and Pharisees.

He knew that.

He had just washed Peter's feet, who he knew was going to deny him three times and even curse that he never even knew him, and washed the disciples' feet, even though he knew the rest of the disciples were going to totally, totally reject him and leave him in his most painful, needful time.

He exemplifies this unbelievable love.

Not, hey, not caring about their failures, hallelujah, not caring about their faults, he loved them to the end.

Aren't you glad that's the way Jesus loves us?

Can I get an amen?

We've got a little saying around here.

We're not interested in your past, we're interested in your future.

Can I get an amen?

And he's got a wonderful, fantastic future for your life.

Jeremiah 29, 11.

He has, he thinks about you.

He has thoughts of you, and they're not evil, but they're of peace and of good and of a future hope.

He's got a fantastic life for you.

He really does.

He really does.

So this is what we see.

John 13, 1, Jesus says, I'm going to love you.

Watch this.

To the end.

Such love is more than human love.

Human love can't do that.

Most human love is conditional love.

Hello, come on.

Most human love is conditional love.

I love you if you love me.

I'll help you, you help me.

In fact, I had a man just recently said, you know, marriage is 50-50.

I said, poop, time out.

Nope, nope, nope, nope.

Marriage is a hundred percent.

You give and you give and you give and you give and you give and you keep on giving.

Well, what if I don't give you this in return?

Well, just keep giving.

Amen.

Just keep giving.

Because that's what it is.

It's a hundred percent.

It's not fifty-fifty.

Look, can I say something?

I never was, I love sports.

I was pretty successful in sports many years ago.

I told Malik I could have taken him in my day.

And Malik said, Well, why don't you take me now?

I said, I'm not stupid.

Amen.

Hey, John, I'm not stupid.

I'm a little smarter than that.

In fact, I'm having trouble with my knee now for doing workout class.

Don't you say anything, sis.

She's like, Well, why are you working out?

I know what you're thinking.

But anyway, why don't you go work harder?

And I know what she's thinking.

But listen, here's the key.

Here's the key.

Now don't miss this.

It's, hey, we don't.

Do you know you can't win if you give 50% at anything?

Amen.

Amen.

You can't win at anything if you give 50%.

It's 110%.

I used to have Elizabeth.

Miss Wanda, you remind me so much of Miss Elizabeth at Open Door Baptist Church.

David Christian members, she sat right back there.

And every once in a while on Wednesday night, I'd be talking about 100%.

Give me 100%.

And Miss Elizabeth would stand up and she'd say, Pastor Danny, 99 and a half won't do.

Won't do.

God wants 100% and he wants you.

And she'd just start pointing us all out.

Amen.

And that is so true.

50% won't do.

God wants 100% and he wants you.

And he wants me.

It's so important that we understand that.

And this is what Jesus is trying to tell the disciples.

In fact, he said in 1 John 4.10, herein is love, not that, hey, you love me.

No.

But that I loved you.

And that I what?

I came to be the word propitiation.

There means ultimate satisfying, debt, paying, what?

Gift for our sins.

He took our place.

He took our place.

Boy, what a beautiful picture of love.

Now, in 1 John, we have two things about this redemptive love.

The first thing John shows us is the absence of this redemptive love.

Look at 1 John 3.10.

In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.

Wow.

Uh-oh.

Can I say something that's pretty black and white, folks?

Pretty black and white.

You're either a child of the king or you're a child of the devil.

Uh-oh.

Hella.

Now, most preachers wouldn't tell you that.

But that's the way I read it, and I believe the truth.

Amen?

Now let's read it again.

That's what he said.

In this, the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.

That's what he said.

I didn't write it.

I'm just the paper boy.

Amen.

And then he goes on to whoever does not, hey, does not do righteousness is not of God.

That makes sense.

In other words, if you tell me you're a Christian but you live like the devil, the Bible says you're a liar and the truth's not in you.

Ooh.

Hello.

You okay?

That's what it says, 1 John 2.

Okay?

Don't tell me you're a Christian and you constantly live in sin.

That's not gonna get it.

Okay?

That's not what the book says.

But now notice what else he says, neither.

It's not just not living righteously, but if it's not of God, but neither he that loves not his brother.

If you and I do not love our brother, we are not a child of God.

Now that's pretty strong, folks.

It's very strong.

But that's the new commandment that Jesus introduced in the upper room.

So we see how important it really is that he says, and I love this.

Note again, look at uh 1 John 3 verses 14 and 15.

1 John 3:14

He who does not love his brother abides in death.

We know that we have passed from death into the life.

Now, how do we know we, hey, we get saved.

When you're dead in sin, you're dead.

You're living for righteousness, you're living for yourself.

But when you get saved, look at what he says.

We know that we pass from that sinful, unrighteous situation and that sinful nature, that old man, to the new man, to putting on that new man.

He says, because we, hey, and I love this, unto life because we what?

Love the brethren.

He that loves not his brother, look what he says, abides in death.

Now, watch what else he said.

Look at verse 15.

Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Folks, you can't hate anyone and be a Christian.

Hello.

Come on, come on.

I know that's tough.

And I I could give you three or four good excuses why there's a few people I'd like to hate.

Amen.

But I can honestly tell you this morning, I'm standing up here, even with some people that have tried to do me in, I can honestly tell you there's no malice, there's no anger in my heart toward them.

Now, I can't tell you I hadn't had to really work at it.

But I there's a verse that I really don't like.

There's several verses I don't like.

This is one, Matthew 5.44.

Love your enemies.

Now that's tough enough.

But notice the next phrase.

Love your enemies.

Throw that up there, Jeremy.

They need to see that.

Matthew 5.44, if you can.

Love your enemies.

Now what?

Watch.

Do good to them that hate you.

Did you get that?

Hey.

Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you.

And then he goes on and says, you know, to love them.

Now, love the ones that's doing evil to me.

Then he says, pray for them.

Good grief.

I mean, it's one thing I'm not retaliating, but now I'm to love them and then pray for them too.

No, I want to kill them.

I want to go whoop them.

But listen, love your enemies, bless them.

Bless them that curse you.

Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.

Now, Jesus said that.

Now, there's only one way you and I can do that.

That's when you and I are loving people through that redemptive love.

Can I get an amen?

Christ loving through us.

That is the only way we can do that.

It is so important we understand that.

Now, when he made this statement as murder, you know who he's thinking about?

Cain and Abel.

Remember Cain and Abel?

Cain, what?

He offered the what?

The bad sacrifice.

Abel offered the good sacrifice.

And Cain was jealous and there was hatred in his heart.

And what did he do?

He killed his brother.

He killed him.

So here's the examples he's using to look at what he says in 1 John 4.20.

This is powerful.

If someone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar.

There it is.

Folks, let me tell you something.

Now listen to me.

You can't be prejudiced and hate a different race or a different social group of people.

You can't do that.

You can't do that and have the love of God in your heart.

You just can't do it.

You can't do it.

Can't do it.

I don't care who you are.

Yeah, but you don't understand.

Don't need to understand.

I know what the book says.

Hey, I have that.

Hey, hey, the book says you can't, hey, hate people and love God.

God help us to see that all over America.

Can I get an amen?

Which brings me to the second part.

The presence.

We have the absence of redemptive love.

By the way, let me tell you when you know you're not loving like Christ loves people.

When it's all about you.

Amen.

I got one amen.

I'm going to try that again.

If you can't say amen, would you say, oh me?

Let me tell you when you know it's not, you're not loving people like Christ when it's all about you.

That's when you know.

Amen.

Look not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others.

Philippians 2.4.

So now look at the presence.

We've seen the absence.

The absence of redemptive love is all about you.

The presence of redemptive love is all about him.

Now watch this.

This is good.

1 John 3.14.

We know, John said, that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

And here again, look at 1 John 4.7.

He who loves his brother abides in the light.

Woo, that's good.

He abides in the light.

Now what does that mean?

Matthew 5 16.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

So when you're abiding in the light, you're doing good works.

To other people.

You're looking to do good works to other people.

Why?

It's not about you.

It's about others.

Amen.

Now, if we can get churches doing this, folks, I'm telling you, revival will break out.

Revival will break out.

And that's what he said right here.

In fact, it's so beautiful.

He says, abides in the light, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who love is born of God.

Now watch.

Redemptive love is the result of being born again.

John 3, 3, except a man be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God.

You cannot love like Christ loves if you're not born again.

Can I get an amen?

If you're not a Christian, if the Lord Jesus Christ is not dwelling in your heart, you can't love like I'm just expressed.

You can't love like Christ loves.

You love like you love, and that's nothing but fleshly love, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 8:8.

Romans 8:8

It's just that simple.

It's what the book says.

So we see how important the Lord shared this.

In fact, abiding in the light, human love may superficially impress men with words or the wag of the tongue.

But true biblical love impresses men with attitude and actions.

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

1 John 3.18.

Amen, church.

It's love in action.

It's real love in action.

1 John 3.18 tells us that.

I was reading, I love when I'm studying, and uh Rule Howie, who in his book, Agape Love, gave this illustration of a mother and her eight-year-old daughter.

Her eight-year-old daughter and she had gotten upset with one another, and her little eight-year-old daughter just was so upset that she just ran out of the room.

She ran upstairs.

She was going to a room.

She passed her mother's room.

And her mother had just went out and bought a beautiful dress for a party they were giving that night.

Well, the little girl in eight years old, in her anger, ran in and saw that dress and looked up on the dresser and saw scissors.

She took the scissors and she began to just cut holes in the dress.

Later on, the mother walks up and walks in and sees it.

Her mother started weeping.

Weeping.

Heartbroken.

And a little bit later, all of a sudden, the little girl walks back in the room and she whispers.

She says, Mother.

Mother just kept weeping.

She said, Mother, mother.

She kept weeping.

She said, Mother, mother, please.

The mother stopped weeping for a moment.

She said, please, what?

She said, Will you please take me back?

Will you please take me back?

And I thought, wow, wow, what love Jesus shows to us.

And that is a God they love.

When he wept over the city of Jerusalem, he was crying out, knowing that they had turned their back on him, but yet he still loved them to the end.

And all he was wanting them to say is, please, Father, take me back.

Please take me back.

And that's how close he is to each of us.

When we blow it, when we mess up and we do.

The prodigal son.

Amen.

We're not interested in your past.

We're interested in your future.

And that's what we see here in this powerful exhortation from the Lord Himself.

Notice the second thing.

Not only is this love redemptive, but it's reciprocal.

Big word.

It means cooperating love.

It means a fellowship love.

It means a joint operation.

We're together.

We're together.

John 13, 34.

Hey, love one another.

The world that knows only human love has bitterness and they have criticalness.

They're criticizing, they're blaming.

They're cutting people down.

They're trying to justify their wrong or manipulating so that they can get what they want.

But I'm here to tell you that's not God's love.

That's not the way Christ loves.

And we see that.

Totally.

But this attitude must never, that kind of bitterness and hatefulness and revengefulness, and I'm out to get you.

Attitude must never characterize we believers.

Can I get an amen?

Never.

Never.

Never.

Doesn't matter if we belong to different denominations.

It doesn't matter.

I have gotten so distraught over the years.

I've been doing this 35 years, I've been in the ministry, wonderful ministry for 35 years.

And you know what I've learned?

There's more critical people in the ministry than there are out there in the lost world.

Why is it that we have a church on every corner?

Have you ever thought about that?

Because we're critical.

And you know why?

We want it our way instead of his way.

Seriously.

That's it.

And God help us not to be like that.

God help us to love like Christ loved.

Now let's look at how this true discipleship love is and what reciprocal love means.

Here we go.

Number one, love shared in Christ.

Love shared in Christ.

John 13, 34, Jesus said, as I have loved you.

In other words, we are to love people like he loves us.

And how do we do that?

It's in sharing that love.

Look at Colossians 2.2.

I saw this.

What a power.

You know, I love word studies.

In Colossians 2.2, Paul is talking here to the Colossians.

And he had such a desire, a deep desire for the Colossians here.

I love the book of Colossians.

And he wrote in Colossians 2.2, the word knit.

He says right here, and I love this word.

He says that their hearts may be comforted being knit together.

Knit together.

Now watch what he says in love.

Now the word knit conveys two ideas.

Two ideas.

And here it is.

It means to bring together, like we've done today.

It means to bring together a group of people.

Then secondly, it means, and I love this part, for that the word knit together means to carry along, to come by your side and to help you along.

It's the same word that Jesus used when he was talking about the Holy Spirit when he said, I'm going to leave you, but hey, I've got to go away, but I am going to send the comforter, because what did he say in John 14, 18?

I will not leave you what?

Comfortless.

But I am going, or what he means by that, I'm not going to leave you as an orphan.

Okay?

That's exactly what that means.

He says, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is going to come alongside you and help carry you through what I've called you to do.

And that is what the love of Christ does.

We come together as a body, and then we bear one another's burdens, so we fulfill the love of Christ.

Galatians 6:10.

Galatians 6:10

As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially those of the household of faith.

And we carry along, we work through the problems, the disappointments, the discourages, the difficulties together.

The reason people kill themselves and the reason people have no hope, they're not knit together and they are not carrying one another along.

We need each other.

Amen.

We need each other.

And by the way, hey, when we have each other, when we blow it and we fall off the wagon, we don't have to go along and tell somebody, well, I told you so.

Don't you think they know that?

Hey, don't you think I know when I blow it?

Most of the time.

Thank you, honey.

That was good.

She enjoyed that too much.

You love me, though.

I know you love me unconditionally.

That's right.

But but seriously, that was good.

That was good.

But hey, but listen, that's it.

We're when you come to why do you think I'm so excited about our new church?

For you friends, you know, if you're in a good church, great church, stay in that church and you get in, hey, you need to knit together and you need to come alongside your church and you need to get involved.

But we need to reach our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

82% of the people in this county are not going to church.

I sat out there Friday night and spoke to I was horse.

People coming through, and I told where's Joel?

Is Joel here?

Yeah, I said, Joel, you handle the candy.

I'm going to work the people.

And I'm in there loving on them.

I'm Pastor Danny.

I said, hey, you know, are you going to church anywhere?

No, no, no, no.

Yeah, no, no, yeah, no, no, no, yeah.

I said, it it 82% of people aren't in church.

Why?

Because they don't feel knit together.

They don't feel that love.

They don't feel that family.

They don't feel that jointness together.

And if you're not in a church where you feel that, you need that in order to be carried along.

When you're down and out.

Paul and I was just talking to Paul and his wife, and we met with them and they signed the covenant.

And she just had surgery on her knee.

And you know, I I just wanted to call and I wanted to ask him, do you need food?

Your wife's laid up.

Somebody's got to cook.

And I figured Paul might be like me.

He's not a good, no, actually, he may be a good cook.

What I'm learning in our carnage is our men cook as well or better than the women.

That's pretty good.

But I don't cook.

I eat cereal for my wife's gone.

Fiber cereal, too.

It's healthy.

But so, uh, Benji, what you laughing at?

You you know where McDonald's is quite well.

Every time I see he's got a McDonald's.

Now, Sarah's a great cook, but but hey, what's this?

This is what I'm talking about.

You got to be knit together so we can carry each other along.

We're here to bear one another's burdens.

That's it.

That's it.

Hey, you know what I told Susan when she married me?

You got the good, but you got to take the bad too.

I like the whole package.

She liked the whole package.

That's a good rebound.

Now listen, listen to me.

When you join a church and you really mean it and you love it and you want to be your body of the Christ, you take the good with the bad.

Hello.

That's what's wrong with these people that aren't getting married or they're getting married and getting divorced so easy.

Somebody hadn't told them, you don't say I do for just the good.

You say I do for better or well, I don't like the worst.

Well, don't say I do.

Hello.

Amen.

A lot of them aren't.

They're just shagging up.

But let me tell you, that just brings worse things.

Because, hey, God's not gonna bless sin.

Amen.

He's not gonna bless sin.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I've tried it.

It never works.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

So it's love shared in Christ.

Another illustration out of a book I'd been reading was uh in her book, Living with Love, Josephine Robertson tells of a young, useful clergyman in his first actually missionary calling, Reverend Joe Roberts, arrived in a stagecoach in a blizzard out in the West in Wyoming in the late 1800s.

Soon after his arrival, the son of the chief was shot by a soldier.

True story.

Shot by a soldier in a brawl.

And the chief vowed that the first white man he saw, he was gonna kill him.

So the young Reverend Joe Robertson heard of that.

So he got a he walked, or as far as he could, actually ended up walking almost 15 miles up into the mountains where the chief's uh TP and his Indians were, his tribe.

And he went outside the chief's tent and he said, Chief, chief! And the chief came out.

And the young, useful reverend said, Joe said, I heard what you said.

You were gonna kill the first white man you saw.

Well, I'm here for you to kill me because I'm not married and I don't have children, and all my settlers do.

I want you to kill me.

The chief was so miserized by the courage of this pastor that he called him into his tent and he talked to him about it.

And hours later, the chief got saved.

And he said, No longer do I want to kill a white man.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, that's the love.

Be willing to give your life for your brother.

That's it.

That's it.

And that is exactly what we are seeing with this reciprocal love that God, it's love shared in Christ.

Galatians 3 28 says there's neither Jew nor Greek nor bond nor female, for we're all one in Christ Jesus.

Aren't you glad God loves red, yellow, black, and white?

They're all precious in his sight.

He loves everyone.

Everyone, everyone.

And that's what this church, it's a place for every race, it's a place for every generation.

Blesses my heart when I look out and already see that in our congregation.

What a blessing.

What a blessing.

What a blessing.

I told him last week, I said, you know, hey, Jesus died for the up and outers, he died for the in and outers, and he died for the down and outers.

He died for all of them.

Amen.

So we see this unbelievable presence of redemptive love.

Look at the look at the second thing, and not only the redemptive love, but this reciprocal love.

Look at the love shown in Christ.

Second thing.

What does it mean when we say the love shown in Christ?

There's three things here in John that I learned.

First of all, spiritually speaking, we show the love of Christ spiritually.

This is what he says in 1 John 3.16.

How do we do that?

We lay down our life for, hey, as he laid down his life for us, we are ready to lay down our lives for the brethren.

That's what it says.

That's what it says.

Listen to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 15.

He knew what it meant to lay down his life for the brethren.

He was left three times for dead.

And notice what Paul said.

This will break your heart, though, when you really see the true meaning.

He says, I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls.

I'll give you my life, everything.

Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

Ooh.

Ooh, ooh.

I wonder if Christ doesn't feel that way sometimes.

Would Danny love it?

Pastor Danny.

Because he did so much for me and he gave everything for me.

And sometimes I give so little back to him.

God help us.

Amen.

God help us, but Paul did.

And then Paul went on to say Aphroditus in Philippians 2.30.

He put the welfare of others before his own.

Listen to what Paul says of him.

For the work of Christ he came close to death, not regarding his life.

And then here's the exhortation Paul gives us in Romans 51.

One of the most powerful verses in relationship to this kind of reciprocal love that I think we could see.

He says, We then that are strong, we then that are, hey, hey, we're knit together.

We've together in one.

And we are able to come alongside and help and bear the burdens of those others.

Ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.

Let me repeat that.

You didn't get that.

Ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Not to look about and worry about ourselves first, but about our people.

Hey, in our congregation, our people in our family, our people in our work, our schools.

We are to be looking how we can bear their burdens.

That's a lost art in America today.

In fact, I did a little work on that verse.

Here's what it means we're to put up with the failings and the weakness.

We are to put up with the failings and the weaknesses of the immature.

Well, they ought to know better.

They ought to, but they're immature.

Come on, come on, help me now.

They're immature.

When somebody gets saved, hey, don't think he's going to be grown up in the faith overnight.

Amen.

They're babies.

Babies have to be grown up.

They start out with the milk.

You got a baby, then you got a child, then you got youth, then you got an adult, and then you got a wise adult.

And our ultimate goal is to get there.

But if we don't, guess what?

We're to love them wherever they are.

And we're not to cause, hey, and we're not to do things to cause those immature babies to stumble.

Well, they ought to grow up.

No, you ought to grow down.

I don't know why I said that, but actually, you ought to lift a hand down.

Amen.

No, you can't expect that.

And people grow at different levels.

Can I get an amen?

So we see that very, it's very important that we understand.

Folks, I'm telling you, this is it.

This is it.

We are to be a support to the weak.

We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak.

Let me tell you what that means.

I wrote this to me.

This is to Pastor Danny.

Here's what it means: helping when it's not convenient.

It means going to church, maybe when it's not convenient.

It'll never be convenient.

Because Satan will always give you an excuse or reason not to do it.

By giving Pastor Danny when it hurts.

By giving your energy to help others rather than yourself, Pastor Danny.

By receiving hurts and criticism from others without complaining or fighting back.

That is not my nature.

Guess what?

Jesus said, That's right, it's not your nature, but I've given you a new nature.

A spiritual nature.

Amen.

Amen.

Reciprocal love is then shown ethically.

Not only is it shown spiritually, it's shown ethically.

Watch this.

1 John 2.10.

It is John who says, He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling or scandal in him.

This means that the true disciple thinks love.

1 Corinthians 13 says, What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13 5?

He said, Love thinks, no, say it with me.

Evil.

Love thinks no evil.

What's the first thing?

You know, I was I have a policeman background.

My first thought is not to think evil.

When I revert back to the Policeman.

Yeah.

Hey.

Oh, I I I know how they did it.

You better watch them.

Our first thought.

Oh, they're just out for money.

I mean, is that not our first thought?

It thinks no evil.

Watch out.

Look what else it does.

It speaks love.

It has a controlled tongue.

Look at what he said.

Man, this is so good.

The Christian who lives in the power of the ungrieved spirit, look what it says in Ephesians 4.2.

Here's what it says it speaks love.

And then it, hey, it says it bears with one another in love, and it speaks the truth in love, and it edifies the body in love.

Ephesians 4, 2, 15, and 16.

That's what it says.

Another book I was reading this past month as I've been researching on these messages.

A newspaper in Wells once carried this headline.

Poison pen sends a woman to death.

Poison pen sends a woman to death.

The article went on to say that the lady committed suicide after receiving poisonous and anonymous letters and postcard for nine months.

Now you say, now wait a minute, how does that apply today?

Bullying with our teenagers.

Same thing.

Same thing.

We have teenagers killing themselves because of our kids ripping them apart and saying all kinds of nasty things about them.

That's not of God.

That's demonic.

Amen.

Satan's come to kill, steal, and destroy.

That's demonic.

But that's what we're talking about.

The bullying today.

The true disciple speaks love, thinks love, and then thirdly, acts love.

Peter says, above all these things, have fervent love, hey, for one another, for love.

Now watch, we'll cover a multitude of sins.

Now let me tell you what that means.

That doesn't mean we compromise the sin.

Don't you dare go out of here and think that.

No.

But what that means is we know how bad sin is.

We know that, hey, for the way Jesus sin is death.

But we also know the gift of God.

Can I get an amen?

We also know the love of God.

We don't have to kick a brother when they're down.

What we need to do is be there to bring them up.

When the righteous fall seven times, they get back up.

And the reason they get back up, man, this is good.

Because we are knit together and we're coming alongside to help them back up.

Amen?

That's why.

That's why we're here.

That's the purpose of who Christ was and who he is.

Oh.

In fact, 1 Timothy 5.20 says we're to rebuke sin openly so that the rest may fear.

So we're not talking about giving in and compromising sin.

The idea behind Peter's words, and I wrote this, I did a word study.

Here it is.

Peter's saying we need elastic love.

Isn't that good?

Elastic.

In our workout, we do these, we have those elastic things that we use.

And I mean, you just stretch and stretch and stretch till you can't stretch anymore.

You just give and give and give till you can't give anymore.

And you still give.

Amen.

That's exactly what Peter's talking about right here.

This is the love that is more ready to forgive.

Well, hey, this is a love.

Write this down.

This is a love.

Thank you, Lord.

This is good.

Hey, this is a love that that's more ready to forgive than to expose and to judge.

Wow.

That's good.

James 5.20.

Let him know that he which converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins.

Boy, that's good.

Man, that's good.

Well, hmm.

And then the last thing, reciprocal love, is practical.

It's practical.

Think of the beginning of the church.

We read that all who believe were together, had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need.

Remember that?

We talked about that when we first started this church 15 months ago.

That we want to be a church that helps people in need.

And then we get to the Jerusalem church in Acts 4, 33 and 35.

And the great grace was upon them.

Why was the great grace of God upon them?

Listen, church, don't miss this.

Once more, we reflect on the churches.

We see it.

It says that what?

Great grace was upon them, nor was there any one among them who liked, and they distributed it each as any one had need.

Wow.

Wow.

And then you go to the church in Macedonia.

They were, hey, they didn't have a lot of money.

In fact, listen what it says in 2 Corinthians 8.2.

We read that in a great trial of affliction, in other words, they were in some pretty tough times.

The abundance of their joy, now notice where their joy came from.

And their deep poverty, they're in deep poverty, abounded in the riches of their liberality.

They were poor, but in their joy came, but even though they didn't have a lot to give, they still gave.

Makes me wonder about us that have it.

And we think we do our duty when we give 10%.

Or we give some.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 16, we're to give as we've been blessed.

Wow.

Those that had none, they still gave.

John Wesley rule for Christian living was this.

He was the founder of the Methodist Church.

Back when the Methodist Church was dynamic.

Back at the beginning of the Methodist Church and Baptist, you couldn't tell the difference between them.

They both preached the gospel.

Now they had a little difference in the ordinance of baptism, it was a little different, sprinkle versus immersion, but the preaching of the word was powerful.

John Wesley was one of the most godly men ever lived.

Listen to what he said.

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

Wow.

Last thing, and I'm through.

Disciples must always be known by that reflected love.

Mm-mm.

You know, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples.

This is reflected in oneness of love.

Look at John 17, 21 through 23, what Jesus said.

The reflected in this oneness of love.

Look at it.

That they all may be one as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, and that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Verse 22.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one.

You know what's wrong with America?

You know why America's been blessed?

Because we love like God loved.

We love like Jesus loves us.

You know why we're in a mess right now?

Hey, used to the church made a difference.

The church's light is almost out.

You know why?

We're no longer loving like Christ loved us.

That's it.

God's given me this peace this week.

That's it.

We have quit loving like Christ loves us.

Because when we love like Christ loves, we help people, but we don't, hey, but we take a righteous stand and we help people in a loving way.

It's hard to condemn real love.

You know what's wrong with America?

We all laugh for ourselves.

It's what we can get, not what we can give.

The whole system.

What's in it for me instead of what can I give to help.

America's the most powerful, most wealthiest nation in the world.

Overnight, we could have a major revival, and overnight we could solve all our problems.

You said, What's the answer?

We turn back to God.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land.

Amen.

Amen.

There's a oneness.

There's a oneness.

Dolly Madison.

You know who Dolly Madison was?

Who?

The president's wife.

Right.

And what was she known for?

She was she was more popular than her husband.

And you know what she said?

This is exciting.

When they ask her.

In fact, I was, let me find the statement.

Yeah, here we go.

Was one of the most popular women in American history.

Why was the question.

Wherever she went, she charmed and captivated everyone.

How?

Asked to explain the secret of her power over others, she exclaimed, I have no power and I want none.

I love and care about people.

I love and care about people is my answer.

Wow.

Wow.

And then the last thing is the witness, the reflective witness of love.

1 John 4, 12 and 14.

If we love one another, God abides in us.

His love has been perfected in us, and we have seen and testified that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.

Nothing is so universal in its appeal, so powerful in its impact, and so wonderful in its effect as the witness of love.

The problem is we've lost our first love.

We've lost our first love.

Revelations chapter 2, verse 4 and 5.

Revelation 2:4

How easy it is to lose our first love.

May God rekindle our hearts and our fire again in America.

Listen to what he says.

Nevertheless, Jesus says, I have someone against thee that's lost the first love.

You've lost it.

You've left it.

Look at verse 5.

Remember, therefore, from whence thou art falling and repent.

Remember and repent of the first works, or else I will come into thee quickly and remove the candlestick out of the place except they repent.

Talking to the church there.

He's talking to the church there.

Church at Ephesus.

Church, let us never lose our first love.

Those core values.

Clear biblical truth, vibrant worship, fulfilling service here and abroad, intimate fellowship.

Loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves, yes, but more than that, as Christ loved us.

God's way is love's way.

Say that with me.

God's way is love's way.

And may we be characterized by the redemptive, reciprocal, and reflective love of God in this church.

And I'm here to tell you, hey, we'll need that 94 acres.

Because people will be coming from everywhere.

Because they want to be loved.

It doesn't matter how large we get, we're going to love people just like we're loving them now.

Amen.

You say, well, no, we can't.

Because if each one of us love this way, there's probably 180, 200 people here today.

If each of us love and we reach out and teach others to love, it becomes a domino effect.

People want to be loved.

Remember the song when we were growing up, my my group?

What the world needs now.

Love.

Sweet love.

That's the only thing.

Not enough of.

What the world needs now.

His love.

Sweet love.

God's love.

And he does it through you and me.

Thanks again for tuning into this week's message.

We pray that your life has been changed.

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