March 22, 2009

• Lent IV.-"If you love Me you will love the church"

  About this post...

  First, I know it's long. I would encourage you to read it all prayerfully.

  Why this post?

  It deals with Christ's command for us to love one another...So it's a follow-up to my recent post, My deep concern for the churches. We can't just pick and choose which of His commandments we will obey...

  And, as way of background...

  As I was writing a comment to my friend Kelly in response to a comment she'd made re: my post My deep concern for the churches and John 13:34-35 (A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.), I remembered Derek Webb's song "The Church."[1] Here's the chorus . . .

  'cause i haven't come for only you
  but for my people to pursue
  you cannot care for me with no regard for her
  if you love me you will love the church

  
  

  Jesus has given us the commandment to love one another as He has loved us:

  A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. John 13:34.

  John reminds us:

  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. I John 5:3.

  How do we do this? How are His commandments really not burdensome? How can we really love one another as He has loved us?

  God's commandment for us to love one another as He has loved us is not burdensome to us as we know the love of God in our hearts. When we have the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of love, dwelling in our hearts, we know the love of God. And if we know the love of God, if we have been born again by the Spirit of God, we can love God. And if we can love God, we cannot help but love our brothers and sisters who are in the family of God. As we are united with Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit, we are also knit together with our brothers and sisters who are in Christ.

  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. I John 4:7-12.

  John has some very harsh words for us.

  We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. I John 4:20-21.

  Look at what John is saying here. If we are hating our brothers and sisters, the ones for whom Jesus also died, the ones who are joint-heirs in Christ with us, then he's telling us we don't really know the love of God at all. John is saying that if we do love God we cannot hate our brother. If we love God we must love our brother.

  I hear you saying, "Yes, but, you don't know so and so. If you knew him, there's no way God would tell me to love him. And you don't know what he did to me. How can I love him? There's no way I can love him!"

  Sorry, I'm not reading any escape clauses or loopholes in that passage of Scripture, are you? I'm not seeing any small print in John's words. If you see any, please show me them. We can't make any excuses. We're to love our brothers and sisters. Period. And if we aren't doing so, we can't claim we love God. We must love our brothers and sisters. We can't make a grand profession of love for God and continue to harbor bitter resentment and hatred and malice and wrath toward the brothers and sisters for whom Jesus died. If He loved them, we ought to be loving them. If we're not loving them, John is telling us we really don't know the love of God. If we knew the love of God, then how could we not love those who share the same in the same love, who have the same Lord and are born again and are now sharers in the same bloodline, the precious blood of the Lamb?

  Jesus told us we're to freely give as we've freely received. We have freely received of His love, mercy and grace...but how often are we stingy when it comes time to love a brother who's irritated us or forgive a brother who's harmed us or no longer remember the sin of  sister who's embarrassed us? Does Jesus refuse to love that brother? No. Then I must love him. Does Jesus refuse to forgive that brother? No. Then I must forgive Him. Does Jesus continue to harp on the sin of that sister? No. Then I must let that sin go. Does Jesus hold a grudge? No. Then I must not hold a grudge.

  When we don't freely give out the love, mercy and grace God has given us, we're walking in the steps of the unforgiving servant rather than the crucified Christ, and such actions prove we don't really understand the depth and extent of His love, mercy and grace to us.

  What is impossible with men is possible with God.
  Luke 18:27

  We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

  I used to read these words and not really understand them. They would freak me out. The key for us to understanding them is that in our own power, in our own strength, in our own ability we cannot do anything God asks of us. We cannot love our brothers and sisters in our own power. We can love them only as the love of God fills us, as the resurrected life and perfect love of Christ indwells, only then can we begin to love our brothers and sisters. I cannot do it. You cannot do it. As soon as we start to try, as good as our intentions may be, we will end up failing. It is God who must work in us such love and it is only then we can work out that love, live out that love, walk in that love and obey Jesus' command to love one another as He has loved us.

  I know that a few years ago I was faced with having to forgive someone and I came to see how hard that was for me, no, how impossible that was for me! I told this person I could not forgive them to their face. And at the time I had no desire to forgive. Of course, in His mercy to me, the Holy Spirit did not let me remain there in that prison of bitter unforgiveness, similar to the behavior we see in the older son in the parable of the prodigal son. The next day the love of God worked in my heart and helped me to be more like the prodigal son's father, I went running to grant the forgiveness I could not give apart from God working it in me. God had helped me to welcome home the prodigal son with open arms. No, the day before that I didn't want to forgive and I couldn't forgive...but then God was animating me, working in me to do forgive. To do what I could not. I couldn't forgive on my own. Yet God wouldn't let me rest until I did. It was at that point I really began to get a glimmer of the greatness of God's love, mercy and grace for me in Jesus Christ. It took that. I'd been saved for years but up until that time I'd seen myself as a pretty good person and not really a sinner, not a wretched sinner in need of forgiveness. It was then God began to open my eyes to the wonders of His amazing grace for me. And only as begin to see and experience that love that loves wretched, totally depraved, helpless, hopeless, spiritually bankrupt, poor and needy sinners...it is only then that we begin to really start to grasp the love of God for us which is in Christ Jesus. And it is only then we can love one another as He has loved us.

  I cannot really begin to scratch the surface here about John's teaching on how we ought to love the brethren, but I would like to give you some portions of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' commentary on I John 2:7-11 from his book "Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John."[2] The Doctor, as Dr. Lloyd-Jones was and is still known, is such an excellent teacher (yes, he died in 1981, but God uses his words to teach us today, so I use present tense here) and gets right to the heart of things. This is excerpt is long but I feel I must include it. We cannot expect to bear the fruits of holiness, the fruit of His life in our lives, if we don't have the right root, the right foundation. I can tell you to go and love your brother, but if you don't understand how that works, then I am disregarding one of my own core values: I will not share a command from Scripture, be it to love one another or whatever, without reminding you that our obedience to Christ, our ability to walk out His commands, comes not through us but through His work in us. We always need to go back to the source and root of our holiness and that is found in the life of Christ who dwells in us through His Holy Spirit.

  I would encourage you to read the Doctor's words here and then read slowly and prayerfully through the entire book of First John, particularly if you have someone you are having trouble loving someone. Remember, if we are not loving one another, we are in grievous sin. And if you are persisting in such hateful attitudes toward others in the Body of Christ and that is not bothering you, if you are not convicted about that, you need to be in prayer about that. John himself tells us that if we are persisting in continued hatred, we have to question our own salvation. That's Scripture. That's not me telling you this. I would hesitate to tell you that but that is what God's Word tells us. Love for the brethren is one of the marks of a Christian. And love for the brethren is one of the means Christ intends to use to have His Church reach a lost world. So long as we are not loving one another as He has loved us, the witness and influence of the Church of God in the world will continue to be lackluster, ineffective and impotent. How can we love a lost world, if we aren't loving one another as He has commanded? In and through Jesus Christ, God has given us all we need to love one another.

  Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. I John 2:7-11.

  Now here are some excerpts from the Doctor on this passage:

  Now, people are sometimes puzzled as to the meaning of this "old" and "new," and the answer is really to be obtained by considering John 13:34 where our Lord Himself used this expression: "A new commandment I give you, That ye love one another. . . . " there is a sense in which this exhortation to love one another, to love the brethren, is at one and the same time old and new.
  
  It is old in this sense: "I am now going to tell you something you already know," says John in effect. "In other words, form the moment you first heard the gospel, you heard this particular doctrine emphasized. I shall not add to the gospel which you have already believed and received. I am simply reminding you of what you already know." So it is an old commandment, and an essential part of the Christian position. Integral to the gospel of Jesus Christ is the whole conception of a new family with the members loving one another; so in that sense it is not new. You will also find it in the Old Testament. It is there in the Old Testament law: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Lev 19:18), so that even when our Lord talked about a new commandment He was in a sense simply emphasising that old commandment that had been given to the children of Israel long ago. They had been separated as God's people, and God had told them that they must have this love one to another.
  
  But though it is in that sense an old commandment, it is also a new one in that is is possible now in a way that it was never possible before. The Lord Jesus Christ, by coming into this world and by doing what He has done, has made this old commandment in a sense a new commandment because there is a new possibility connected with it. John puts it like this: "Again a new commandment write I unto you, which thing is true in him and in you." "This thing," says John, "which I am not emphasising has been realised in Him and in you. Look at the people in the old dispensation. They had this command to love, and yet they found it very difficult. But in the Lord Jesus Christ we see it fulfilled and carried out. The Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law of God. He loved men and women in the sense that the Old Testament meant; it has been realised in Him, and it is true in Him."
  
  "But not only that," says John, "It is also realised in you, it is true in you." In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to keep this commandment in an entirely new manner. John is here reminding them that they are left without excuse; it is possible now for Christians, as the result of receiving new life from Christ, as the result of the power of the Holy Spirit, to love their fellow men and women, to love their brethren in the way that God originally intended.  As we, as Christians, consider this commandment, there is a sense in which it is absolutely new. . . .
  
  Let me put it to you in the form of some two or three propositions. The first thing we have to see is that Christ has brought into this world a new order of life which has changed everything; the difference that he has made, in a sense, is the difference between light and darkness. Notice again—because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth."
  
  This is, of course, absolutely vital to the whole New Testament position. The Apostle Paul likes to put it this way: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new" (2 Cor 5:17)...Being a Christian has changed everything; we are like new people in a new world; nothing is the same as it was before. . . .
  
  But in order to show you fully the way in which the New Testament puts this, we must consider verse 11: "But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blindeth his eyes." The metaphor is rather involved, but to put it simply John is saying that people who are not Christians are walking in the dark; yes, but not only that, there is a darkness within them also...So when people become Christians, two things happen to them: their own eyes are opened, and they are enabled to see; and they are also in an entirely new realm. . . .
  
  So the thing we have to hold on to is that if we are truly Christian people, we are left without an excuse in this matter of brotherly love. The darkness is passing away, the light has come, and we are a new people. There is no excuse for us whatsoever, if we are not fulfilling the commandment.
  
  But secondly, therefore whether or not we belong to this new order is proved by our behaviour in the matter of love. The test of whether we are truly in this new realm of light, which Christ has brought into this world, is our response to this commandment to love one another, to love the brethren.
  
  Now John does not put it loosely. Notice his customary blunt language: "He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him." You see what he means; there is no need of argument about this, it is an absolute test. "There is no explaining it away on the basis of one's particular disposition," says John; "you proclaim and portray exactly what you are by your conduct and behavior in this respect. If you are not loving your brother, you are still in darkness, and the darkness is within you, whatever you may say. But if you are loving your brother, it is proof you are truly a Christian in the realm of light, whatever defects you may happen to have."
  
  Let me put it like this; it is not our intellectual opinion that proclaims truly what we are. You know, it is possible for us to be perfectly orthodox but to be unloving. But your orthodoxy is of no value to you if you do not love your brother; you can talk about this doctrine intellectually, you can be a defender of the faith, and yet the spirit in which you are defending it may be denying the very doctrine you are defending.
  
  This is a terrible test! Orthodoxy is essential, but it is not enough. "If you are not loving your brother," says John in effect, "You are in darkness, you have not the love of Christ." To love your brother is much more important than orthodoxy; yes, it is more important than mere mechanical correctness in your conduct and behaviour in an ethical sense. There are people who, like the rich young ruler, can say, "All these things . . . " They are not guilty of the gross sins which they have seen in others, and yet their spirit as they criticise is a portrayal that they do not love their brother. Harshness, the criticizing spirit—all that is a negation of this spirit of love. It is something that rises up in my heart and nature and it is, therefore the proof positive of whether I belong to Him or not. "If ye know these things," said the Lord Jesus Christ, "happy are ye if ye do them" (John 13:17)....This thing is inevitable—if we belong to Him, we must be manifesting this spirit and type of life.[3]

  'cause I haven't come for only you
  but for my people to pursue

  
  
  you cannot care for me with no regard for her
  if you love me you will love the church

  As I was working on this post, one of my devotional readings was Romans 12. Most of you know how that chapter begins:

  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God...

  Where is that appeal coming from...What is that "therefore" about?

  It's all about Romans 1-8, where Paul shows us our justification and sanctification are rooted in Christ. We are brought into the family of God and united to Christ through faith in Christ's work for us. As we are united with Christ, we are no longer in bondage to sin, Satan and self. In Christ we are set free to pursue a life of holiness, to present ourselves as instruments of righteousness and bear fruits of holiness. Romans 9-11 is a parenthesis in the book where Paul answers the question: what can we say about the love of God since Israel has been put aside for a time? Then in Romans 12, Paul picks up where he ended in Romans 8.  When we pick up in Romans 12, what do we have? We've got our position in Christ (justified by faith) and therefore we've got our power in Christ (united to Christ by faith)...so Paul begin to ask, "So what does this mean for us? How then must we live?" We've got the first eight chapters of doctrinal foundation and now we're getting into where the rubber meets the road, applied or practical theology. In other words, Paul is answering the question: How do we live out what is true of us as born-again children who are filled with the Spirit of Christ? How do we live out what it means to be a Christian in the real world of people, when we come down off that mountain-top? So Paul begins to unpack and explain all that in Romans 12 and continues on through much of chapter 15.

  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

  Those later chapters in Romans are kind of like an applied I Corinthians 13 for the church. How do we love our brothers and sisters in real life? When we face conflict, when we have differing opinions about nonessential matters, how does that work anyhow? Paul is being realistic here. He's being pastoral. He's taking the theological foundations and applying them to the problems the church in Rome was facing. A good teacher will always do this. Paul knows the Church is not immune from such problems and challenges. So we find some very practical teaching and verses such as:

  Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Romans 12:9-10.
  
  Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13:8-10.

  Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Romans 15:2-3.
  

  As we read the New Testament, we can't help but see that the struggles we are experiencing today in the Church are no different than what was happening in New Testament times. I know I say this all the time, but isn't this a wonderful reminder of the timelessness of the Word of God for God's people? He has given us manna for our journey together as His people!

  Now, remember, again, we can only even begin to conceive of living this life of love for the brethren as the life of Christ has become our life, as we have been united to Christ and married to Christ, as we have died to sin and no longer offer ourselves as instruments of sin but instruments of righteousness bearing fruits of righteousness to the glory of God (see Romans 6:1-7:6). We can't do any of these things Paul writes about in the last part of Romans, about how we are to love one another, and, in fact, we can't even begin to offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices, apart from the life and power of God at work in us (remember again the first eight chapters of Romans). We can never jump ahead to Romans 12-15 without looking at the foundation Paul is setting up in Romans 1-8. Don't ever go there. You've got to go back and get your foundation right: Christ in you the hope of glory. Christ is your life. Without Him you can do nothing. Apart from Him, you have neither ability nor power nor inclination to live the life God commands. We can't love the brethren in our own power. If we look at Romans 12-15 and try to walk that out apart from Christ's power, we'll only fail and fall. We need to remember we can only walk out Romans 12-15, we only love one another as Christ has loved us as we constantly rely on His indwelling power at work in us. Yes, we work hard, yet not us, but the grace and power of God at work in us. We work out the salvation God has worked in us. Philippians 2:12-13.

  Here's John Stott (from his commentary on Galatians) on the unity we're to have with our brothers and sisters in Christ:

  It is not enough that we believe the gospel (Peter did this, verse 16 [chapter 2]), nor even that we strive to preserve it, as Paul and the Jerusalem apostles did, and the Judaizers did not. We must go further still. We must apply it; it is this that Peter failed to do. He knew perfectly well that faith in Jesus was the only condition on which God will have fellowship with sinners; but he added circumcision as an extra condition on which he was prepared to have fellowship with them, thus contradicting the gospel.
  
  Still today [1968] various Christian bodies and people repeat Peter's mistake. They refuse to have fellowship with professing Christian believers unless they have been totally immersed in water (no other form of baptism will satisfy them), or unless they have been episcopally confirmed (they insist that only the hands of a bishop in the historic succession will do) [note: Stott was a rector in Anglican Church], or unless their skin has a particular colour, or unless they come out of a certain social drawer (usually the top one), and so on.
  
  All this is a grievous affront to the gospel. Justification is by faith alone; we have no right to add a particular mode of baptism or confirmation or any denominational, racial or social conditions. God does not insist on these things before He accepts us into fellowship; so we must not insist upon them either. What is this ecclesiastical exclusiveness which we practise and which God does not? Are we more stand-offish than He? The only barrier to communion with God, and therefore with each other, is unbelief, a lack of saving faith in Jesus Christ.
  
  ...Am I to regard a justified fellow-believer as unclean, that I will not eat with him? We need to hear again the heavenly voice, "What God has cleansed, you must not call common" (Acts 10:15).[4]
  
  

  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
  
  Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

  –I John 4:7-5:5

  Do you love God?
  Do you love Jesus?
  Are you applying the Gospel?
  Do you love the Church?
  Do you say you care for Jesus but have no concern for His Church?
  Do you love your brothers and sisters for whom Jesus died?
  Do you love your brothers and sisters in other churches?
  Do you love your brothers and sisters in other denominations?

  How are you contradicting the Gospel?
  What are you requiring for fellowship that God does not?
  Whom have you called unclean that God has called clean?

  How have you not been loving your brothers and sisters?
  How have you not been loving the Church?

  How does God want you to be loving the church?
  Whom do you need to bless?
  Whose feet do you need to wash?
  To whom do you need to offer food and drink?
  To whom do you need to extend forgiveness?
  For whom do you need to be praying?
  From whom do you need to ask forgiveness?

  Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Romans 13:8-14.

  And my whole hope is only in Thy exceeding great mercy.
  Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.
  (Augustine)

  'cause i haven't come for only you
  but for my people to pursue
  you cannot care for me with no regard for her
  if you love me you will love the church

  ---

  Scripture quotations in the Lloyd-Jones' excerpt are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. All others are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  [1] From "The Church" by Derek Webb, ©2002 Niphon. Lyrics are subject to US Copyright Laws and are the property of their respective authors, artists and labels. Commercial use prohibited.

  [2] I wish all of you could read this book! My intent here is not to get you to spend money, but I do highly recommend this book to all of you for I know how wonderfully God has used it in my life. Dr. Lloyd-Jones has been one of the great cloud of witnesses whom God has used to speak to me and to open my eyes to the wonderful truths of Scripture and particularly how it is only through Christ's life in us that we can walk out the commandments God has given us, to live the life Christ lived.

  [3] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, "Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John" (Wheaton: Crossway, 2002), 192-196.

  [4] John R. W. Stott, "The Message of Galatians" (London: Intervarsity Press: 1968), 56-57.

  • 8:37 AM
  • 6 Comments