THE POWER AND NECESSITY OF LOVE

I was supposed to be in Memphis, Tennessee, today speaking at the Knight Arnold congregation in Memphis for their annual lectureship, but both I and the doctor decided that we weren’t really in the situation to do that so at least I am glad to be here to fill in for Ferman.

I want to talk today about a topic that I feel very deeply about, and that I believe God feels deeply about. In fact, there can’t be any question about it. I’ve entitled this study: “The Power and Necessity of Love” and the passage which was read just a few moments ago gives the basic information about it.

The apostle Paul made clear the absolute necessity of loving God when he said, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus let him be anathema, let him be accursed, if you do not love Christ” (1 Corinthians 16:22). The apostle Paul here makes clear that no man who does not love the Lord will be saved. Every phase of our lives involves in some way, this matter of love. What we think, how we conduct ourselves, what goals we set for ourselves, and many, many others. In fact, there is nothing in our lives that does not involve this point. Without love, even great things, that is, the things which with love are very great, without love they are not great but with love they are. Those that are without love are worthless.

Paul made clear that without love, first, even great oratorical abilities, men who are great speakers in preaching the Word (they may preach the Word, but there is something missing) become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal; so we learn in 1 Corinthians 13:1. Even if one has spiritual gifts which can result in great deeds, the possessor of those gifts is nothing, that is, not pleasing to God, according to 1 Corinthians 13:2, if he does not have love, and  third, even tremendously sacrificial acts of benevolence, giving goods to the poor, giving one’s body to be burned, and so on. We deceive ourselves sometimes into thinking that we are really loving servants of God when we are not. If these things are done without love they profit the sacrificing person nothing. This, God says in 1 Corinthians 13:3.

We have three basic divisions of our study this morning after this introduction. The first one is: No one can become a Christian without love. You cannot be a Christian without your having loved–loved God. It may be the case that some of us regard ourselves, as members of the church, as those loved especially by God. If we did not do however, what God had told us to do, then we would not be such. No man can be saved without knowing God (John 17:3). If you do not know God you cannot be saved, and if a man does not love God he does not know God, because God is love (John 17:2). Thus, if one does not love God, then he is not saved.

Secondly, in this particular division, I note that one cannot receive the remission of his past or alien sins, that is, those committed before he became a Christian unless he loved God. Loving God is essential to, is prerequisite to, one’s having been born again (1 John 4:7). Now the things that we are looking at here have to do not only with church situations, not only with religious situations, but every moment of our lives. God is looking to see if we’re this kind of person.

But the third division under that is: One can be a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and yet still be lost. I pray for all of us to think seriously about this. This is the case because one can be a believer and yet not be obedient. You can believe that something is the case, but you have not cast your life into it if you do not understand the role of God and your own. There were some rulers among the Jews who believed on the Lord but they would not confess it lest they be put out of the synagogue for they loved the glory of men more than that of God. No one can be saved who refuses to confess Christ (Matthew 10:32-33; Romans 10:9-10).

In the fourth place, if one loves the Lord he will obey insofar as he understands His will. Now sometimes we do not understand it. Sometimes people think they have it, but they do not. There are all kinds of religions that have been invented by men here on this Earth. They may read the Bible, but they do not conclude what it teaches and the fact that one is trying to be a Christian, but has not learned what the Bible really teaches and has not learned its absolute prerogatives to do this or that, then he is not a proper person. Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). He made clear that it is the man who knows and keeps, that is, obeys His commandments, who truly loves Him (John 14:21).

You see, Christianity is not just a game of play. It is a life of recognizing the existence of Almighty God. God, who has always existed and who created the world and all things that we see, created the first man. Our nation is allowing itself to be convinced that human beings did not come by the creation of God, but simply by evolution. There is no way to demonstrate that, either faith or love, other than in obedience to His Word. You cannot prove it any other way.

The man who claims to believe in, and love the Lord, but who refuses first, to honestly, sincerely, and diligently study His will; and second, having learned that will to obey, does not really love the Lord. And let it be repeated, no man who does not love the Lord can become a child of God. If you are not today a Christian, but you still do not love God, you cannot become a Christian until you come to love God. Or, having become a child of God, to be saved, he must continue and even grow in loving God with obedience. It is not a matter of just starting. It is not a matter of being baptized and then saying, “Oh well, I can do anything I please now.” It is a matter of faithfulness, a matter of submission to God in completeness. That is the Christian life in a nut shell.

The second point is: No one can live a faithful Christian life without loving both the Lord and his own brethren in Christ. Love is at the very heart of the Christian life. The apostle John said, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love.” How could you know God, if God is love, but you don’t know anything about love? You are not a part of it (1 John 4:7-8).

John goes on to say: “If a man says, ‘I love God’ and hateth his brother he is a liar.” Now we do not like to use terms like that, but God did. He put it right there in the Scriptures. If a man says he loves God while he hates his brother, he is a liar. He may not be intending to do it but he is a liar. “ . . . For he that loveth not his brother. . .” the Scripture goes on, “. . .whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” You see, we give ourselves credit for knowing all about God and that we are loving Him, whereas, we may hate those about us, even those in the same congregation of God’s people. First John 4:20 makes that clear. Thus, it is clear in the light of this passage, and common human practice, that it is among the worse of self-deception for one to give himself credit for loving God while he is jealous of, envious of, and malicious toward his fellow man. I believe that this may be the most besetting sin among members of the body of Christ (emp. added).

We all face the possibility of falling into this kind of decision, this kind of action. This pretending to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength while we have petty differences with members of the body of Christ and do not treat one another as we ought to treat one another. It is clear to me from observations during my years of preaching the Gospel that one of the most disgusting scenes to behold is one with the following elements: A man standing for a time in the pulpit preaching, apparently with great love, on the necessity of loving one’s fellow man, especially his brother in Christ (Galatians 6:10), only to step down from the pulpit to engage in a veritable campaign of hatred and destruction of the reputation and life of a faithful Gospel preacher, elder, other brother, or other members of the church.

I said the last time I spoke here that I believed we have a very well trained and a great preacher in Ferman Carpenter. We ought to give him every help that we can, and we ought to give that same kind of help to everybody in the congregation. It is not a matter of just picking out one or two. Can one truly be a lover of God Almighty, which he must be to be pleasing to God, while he is a hater of his brother? Absolutely not. The Bible makes clear that such is impossible (1 John 4:20).

While recognizing clearly his own sins, and thus his own needs of God’s mercy daily, I am possessed with the fear that some brethren seem to be able to give themselves credit for righteousness, that is, recognizing no real need for mercy in their own case at all, while they dig constantly in the garbage cans of gossip, rumor, half-truths, and so forth, seeking to find something with which to strike at the reputation of another brother. This ought not to be (emp. added). I do not know of any instances in this congregation. I am only speaking in regard to what I have observed through some fifty odd years of preaching.

We must be willing to give ourselves the test. In the moments of your prayer, to ask God to help you, see whether or not you are that kind of person. If you are, you are not a loving person. If you are, you are not going to be saved unless you repent. All of us must remember that while the Pharisee confessed nothing but good about himself, and nothing but evil about the publican, he even thanked God that he was not like that publican. “Oh Lord, I thank thee that I’m not like other men, I’m such a great person, I’m just so glad that I’m not like anybody else,” but only his own sins should have been confessed by him. “God be merciful to me a sinner,” said the publican. You see, those two prayers are really quite different. On the one hand, “Lord, I thank thee that I’m not like other men,” and the other, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.” Now let each one of us ask himself, am I like the Pharisee or am I like the publican? Be honest with yourselves-face yourself squarely, and if you see that you are like the Pharisee, repent and change your life. “God, be thou merciful to me a sinner.” What would Jesus say about these two? He said that the publican went up to his house justified and the other one didn’t. No mincing the words. That is the way it is going to be in the judgment. No mincing of words. The Lord has given us the Book. We must learn it. If you are not willing to study it, to learn it, you are not going to be a true Christian.

The third basic division of our study is this: No one can live the faithful Christian life without loving non-Christians. Think about it. Do you love people who are not members of the church? There ought not to be a single person in this world whom you do not love. Christ died for us. He loved us and God gave His Son to die for us, and the fact that we have been baptized into Christ should certainly not blind us to our obligation to those who are not yet in that situation. Since the Bible clearly teaches one cannot go to Heaven if he does not love the Lord (1 Cor. 16:22), if you do not love the Lord, let him be anathema. Let him be accursed. There needs to be a lot of thought about what it means to love the Lord, and further, that we cannot love God whom he has not seen if he does not love his brother whom he has seen (1 John 4:20).

Then it seems clear that members of the church who spend their lives, not in doing kind deeds of love toward their brethren but in doing hurtful unkind deeds out of a heart filled with jealousy, envy, malice and hatred, will be surprised when their lives on Earth are over to learn that they will be spending eternity, not with God and the saved of all ages, but with the devil and the wicked of human beings. This is what the Bible teaches.

The parables of Jesus: The word “parable” means what? It means cast along side. Cast the thing along side of something else. You compare it. A parable tells the story but tells you a great thing about deep subjects of God’s will. Since none of us, not a single person of accountable age in this building today, is a person who has never sinned, as we find in Romans 3:23, then none of us is without the need of God’s mercy. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). See, the Lord does not mince words. It is so easy for us to read the Bible and sort of casually go over it and not stop and think about what it means. Even that passage. Many people–I have been in situations with all kinds of religious people and philosophical people, atheists and agnostics, and so forth–they do not think about these things.

Our country, I reiterate from the last time, is on the way to disaster if God’s people do not awaken. That is my judgment. God intends for the church to be the society of mutual love, that is, God’s will is that every child of God should love every other child of God. Should there be any of us here who do not love the other members? Would it make a bit of difference as to what color our skin is? Absolutely not. And we all came from Adam and Eve. God created one man and one woman and all the people in the world who have ever been here since then have come from them. Some people may not like that, but that is the truth.

The Lord intends for the church to be His society of mutual love. That is, it is God’s will that every child of God should love deeply every other child of God. Let none of us think that God will regard lightly acts of hatred and malice toward our brethren in Christ. There is a great deal of difference between showing that a doctrine which has been taught by a brother is false and actually trying to hurt a brother personally (Jude 3,emp. added). While God delights in the prayers of the righteous, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Him (Prov. 18:9). Some wicked men, by their bearing of false witness, separate others who have been closest of friends for almost a lifetime (Proverbs 17:9). I have seen that happen. I have seen it happen among preachers. I have seen preachers get about some other one and wind up with a whole problem of things. Everyone one of us, without exception, must be on guard against that.

We want to pray every day for God to help us to be a loving person. Let each of us remember in these days of so much rebellion against God, not only will murderers, unbelievers, sorcerers, and so forth be lost, but all liars will also be lost. All liars, Revelation 21:8. No child of God who hates his brother will be saved. The prayer that every brother will carefully involve himself to recognize and weigh this truth–that nothing is important enough to warrant one’s going through life with hatred for his brother in his heart. Again I say, I do not know anything about anybody here being angry at anybody else here in this congregation. But, I do know the Bible gives a lot of attention to what I am talking about here.

Let us turn now our attention to the conclusion of this matter. Sort of a summary of it. First of all, I suggest that love is necessary. One cannot become a child of God without it. If you are not a child of God today, you cannot become a child of God without love. It is necessary. You have got to love God, and your heart be so that you love people. One cannot live a faithful life as a child of God without it. May God help us all to both learn and remember the necessity of love as we are taught by the apostle Paul in Galatians 5:6.

Let me just very quickly, without saying much about any of them, give a list of some of the things that love causes us to do. To be long-suffering. Sometimes things happen you do not like and you wish it would stop, but it doesn’t–not for a long time. We must learn to be long-suffering. We must learn to be kind and courteous and thoughtful. Be concerned for the other person. Instead of rushing before somebody, step back and let them go first. I sort of watch people to see how many people do that and how many do not. I think that tells something about us when we are willing always to push in front.

It is a great thing for us to suppress envy. People get rich. They get famous. They accomplish a great deal, and many times we get envious of them. To subdue pride and vain glory (you ought not to be proud of yourself in the wrong sense). And we must honor the bounds of decency. Do not allow yourself to get dragged over some line that is outside the line of decency that the Bible teaches us to do. It teaches us to be unselfish, to be willing to give and give and give and do and do the best you can. The Bible teaches us to restrain our passion. Do not fly off the handle in anger and call somebody all kinds of names and say ugly things against them (even if they do that to you) say loving things back to them. And to rejoice in the truth, not in falsehood and/or impurity. Be glad that somebody is telling the truth. Be glad that you re not telling lies; to bear trouble in the spirit of Christ.

I dare say everyone of us here in this building today has some sort of problem. Maybe bodily problems, illness, maybe something that you know you ought not to be doing that you tend to do again and again. On and on, things like this. We must be careful about them. Go to God in prayer and ask His help. We need also to look for and believe in good. For example: I read about a woman who wanted to do the most hurtful thing to her husband because she no longer loved him and so she decided that she wanted to make his life miserable for him. And so, she went to a counsellor and told him all these stories. “My husband is just horrible. I can hardly wait to get out, but I am going to stay long enough to make him miserable.” And so, the counsellor said, “Well, don’t divorce him yet. What you need to do is to be nice to him so he will fall in love with you all over again, and then divorce him, and then you will really hurt him.” So, six months went by and her counsellor asked when she went back to visit him, “Are you ready now to divorce him?” She said, “Divorce him? Are you crazy? I’m simply wild about that man!” I think there is a great deal of truth to that point.

I have a little saying here. It is a poem that I want to close this study and there will be nobody touched about it more than I, I think, even though I have read it many, many times.

I love you not only for what you are but for what I am when I am with you. (Think about that!)
I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but what you are making of me.
I love you for the part of me that you bring out just because I know and love you.
I love you for putting your hand into my heaped up heart and passing over all the foolish weak things that we can’t help but dimly seeing there, and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful belongings that no one else had looked quite far enough to find.

We might, all of us, ask ourselves, “Are we the kind of people that look for that?” The final stanza:

I love you because you are helping me to make of the lumber of my life, not a tavern, but a temple and out of the works of my every day, not a reproach, but a song.

Are you here today and not a Christian? The Lord Jesus Christ made clear that to be saved from your sin, you must believe the Gospel. You must repent of your sins. You must confess your faith, and you must be baptized. You must be immersed in water.

Will the water save you? No. The blood of Christ will, but the blood of Christ will not save you until you have been baptized into Christ and you arise from the grave of water to walk in newness of life and, if you live the faithful Christian life until death, you have the guarantee that you will be with God in Heaven for eternity. If you miss out on that in any way, then you will be lost in hell forever.

I say all of these things to all of us, including myself, to plead with us to live the faithful Christian life as the Lord Jesus Christ has laid out in His sacred Word. If you are here today and you are not a Christian, why not do it today? If you are a child of God and you realize you have not been faithful, you need to make that right. Make your way down to the front and make known your desires. If you would like to place your membership with this congregation, I believe it is one of the finest congregations that I know of anywhere in the United States. Won’t you do that, while together we stand and sing?

[Preached at Seagoville Church of Christ Seagoville, TX, March 31, 1996]