Love One Another

What is love? It's a very important word. It's one of the most used words in our English vocabulary. It's one that gets the most different uses and meanings applied to it. What is love? What do you think of when you hear that word? Our culture, I believe, has a predisposition and an emphasis on two particular ideas surrounding love. One of them being sentiment, the other erotic. Both of these we need to be careful of influencing the way we define love in the church. Love is not something you fall into. Love is not something void of your affections and your desires. Love is not a physical passion that compels you to lack self-control. Love is intentional. Love is intense. Love is focused. Love cares. Here's my best attempt at a general definition of love. A volitional commitment of your affections, attention and action. A volitional commitment of your affections, attention and action. However, love is much, much more complicated than that. One of the things that makes love complicated is that so many things are vying for our love. So many things are asking and are the objects of our love. And I want to remind us of the way that the church historically has defined a wise man. A wise man is someone who has their loves properly ordered. We love numerous things. There's numerous things in this world and in creation and even God himself that are supposed to be loved by us. And a proper, ordered love is how we define a wise man. So we love God first. And then we have these other things we love. We have to think about how we put them in proper order. Self, family, country, church, friends. And of course, mom gets her own category. A wise life properly orders love. Do we love our country more than our appetite? Do we love God more than ourselves? Do we love family, or do we love more our friends? You see, in many ways, the object of our love should define the kind of love we apply to it. The primary problem of humanity is we have wrong love. We have an improper balance in our love. We are prone to love ourselves first and foremost. We love ourselves more than God, and that throws everything out of order. This morning we're going to be looking, focused in, at John chapter 13. And while we're dealing with a bigger passage, we're really looking at one particular commandment for this morning. Love one another. One of the most distinctive marks of the church, love one another. A couple of weeks ago, we I listed out a number of the one another commands. If you're to read throughout Scripture, there's a number of commands, especially from Paul, that declare the one another's greet one another, show hospitality to one another, love one another, serve one another. This morning, we're going to look at the most important one another command that defines the church. and that is love one another. Our message can be summarized as thus. We are called to love one another, and this is important, because Jesus loved us and calls us to love one another. That's simple, but very, very difficult. We are called to love one another because Jesus loved us, and calls us to love one another. He died for us to make us a new people. Now the thing about this command, I want to step back as we think about being a wise people who properly order our loves. Because love one another isn't the only love command in scripture. There are two other primary commands we need to think about this command in light of them. And the other two are love the Lord your God and love your neighbor. Three commandments, and each one has its own qualifier. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your might, with all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another as Christ loved you. Three different objects, three different qualifiers. To be a wise person, to live the wise life, we need to think about those three commands with those three qualifiers. Love God with everything you've got. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love the brotherhood, love one another as Christ loved you. There's three basic commands. Well, those first two, they're wrapped up together. You can find them in Matthew 22. Someone asked Jesus, what's the greatest command? Love the Lord your God. The second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. Let's first look at love God. God demands our greatest love. He deserves our greatest love. He is the most lovely. He is the greatest being. He is the one who has the most love. Now, the beautiful part of Scripture is that He is most lovely, and we have refused Him the love that He deserves. But in His mercy, He has loved us, and that is why we can love Him. Now, let me take it a step further. Instead of just simply saying, you're to love Him with everything you have. Everything that we have in this world Everything that we have in our possession, in our youth, in our lives is supposed to be used to love God. Everything we have, everything else in the creation is supposed to be used to love God. This is where our twisted, sinful hearts get it all wrong. We use God to love everything in this world. We treat him like a cosmic Santa Claus. We ask him to give us everything that we think will make us happy. We look to him when we're hurting so that he would heal us. We look to him when we need something and we want something. We don't look and say, God, what can I do to give you praise, give you glory, love you with all the good things you've given me? We just want more and more and more. rather than saying, how can I love you more and more and more with all the things you've given me? We think God is there for our happiness rather than realizing we are here for his glory. That is one of the central sinful tendencies that corrupt everything and make us foolish and throw our loves out of order. But one of the most important points I need to focus in here, we love God because he first loved us. Now, the second commandment. This one's interesting. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do you hear what's assumed there? You love yourself. It doesn't ever command you to love yourself. There's no command in scripture that says love yourself. We were created to love ourselves. We were created to realize God has formed us beautifully and wonderfully. God has fashioned us according to his own hand. He's breathed life into us personally. We are lovely. We're amazing. If you think about the way God designed us, we're supposed to love ourselves. The problem is we love ourselves too much. All of Scripture tells us, be careful with how much you love yourself. Because we love ourselves too much. Now, how do we apply this to our neighbor? We're supposed to love ourselves because God has created us wonderfully. It's amazing when we look at ourselves, we're supposed to say, wow, God, I have to show myself some some worth and dignity and realize you've made me so wonderfully. But the command is to love your neighbor as yourself, because this is where we get it wrong. We usually want to look down upon our neighbor. Now, at one level, we can just simply say this passage is teaching that golden rule, treat others as you would want to be treated. Love your neighbor. Love the people who are around you as you love yourself. Treat them how you want to be treated. And that's hopeful. That's simple. You can teach children that. But I think it needs to go a little deeper. As Christians, we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves because we realize that God created every single human being with worth and dignity. When we say we love our neighbor, it's because we look over and we see a son of Adam. Someone just like me. It doesn't matter their walk of life, their nationality. We're all sons of Adam. We're all part of this common human race that God has given his image to and dignity and worth. Something I want to challenge us with as Christians, as we look out and we see neighbors. And we see some neighbors living a sinful lifestyle that we may consider gross. That does not mean we treat them with any less dignity or worth. Cain murdered his brother, and the Bible still affirms he had the image of God. His life still had worth and dignity. We have to figure out how to balance this very delicate line of calling sin, sin, but also recognizing every human being, regardless of their sin, has worth, has dignity. has value because God says they do. And that's why we treat them with dignity and worth and value. It's hard. It's hard to live in this world and not condone sin, but also making sure we are treating others with the respect they deserve. Now, the other thing about the neighbor that we could see in Scripture is that within the neighbor category, there's the enemy. Love your neighbor even when they're your enemy, even when they're not lovely. Now, love here is not being merely nice. Love is nice, but being nice isn't love. It's not merely being nice because sometimes love says hard things. Sometimes love corrects and confronts and rebukes. The Bible defines love as a good Samaritan. He's the most despised guy in the story. Culturally speaking, he was an enemy and he was a good neighbor. He's the one who showed the one who despised him mercy and kindness and healed him and carried him and provided for him. Now, the good news is we don't have enemies like the culture did that Jesus is speaking to. We don't have Roman guards. who can bully us. We don't have tax collectors that lie to us and cheat us. However, we have many little enemies. The colleague at work that annoys us. The pastor who's pesky sometimes. We have people who get on our nerves. We have people we have personality conflicts with. People who like tack. We have people who bother us and they're little enemies. And the Bible says you love them. That doesn't mean you're nice to them. It means you seek out their care, their well-being, your intentional and intense and seeking to move with your affections and your actions for their well-being. So we see in the first command, love God because he's the greatest being, so he deserves your greatest love. We love our neighbor as ourself because we're all creating the image of God. Now we finally turn to our passage. We're in John chapter 13. We'll be looking at verses 31 through 35. That is found on page 900 if you're using a pew Bible, and you are welcome to take that home with you. John 13, beginning of verse 31. The context here is in chapter 13, Jesus has stopped his public ministry. He's no longer declaring to the world, I am the son of God, believe in me. He is now focused in on his disciples. He's turning to the foundation of the church. He's turning to start building his church. He starts teaching his disciples specifically what's going to happen and what they need to do. He's warning them in many ways to be prepared for his death, his resurrection, the Holy Spirit. He has already taught them, serve one another by washing one another's feet. He's already identified his betrayer. And then as soon as Judas leaves and it was night. Verse 31, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I'm with you. You will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you where I'm going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you and you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you love. If you have love for one another. Will you pray with me? We have already sung of your love, Almighty God. The deep love of the Father who has sent his Son to die for us. The love demonstrated perfectly and beautifully on the cross. Help us, Lord, to be overwhelmed and to boast in that love alone. Help us to love you because you first loved us. Help us to be stirred by the Spirit to see the great command and the calling that you've given us to love one another. Help us to see the design of your church. Help us see the power of your church when it's united under Christ's headship, controlled by the Spirit, driven by the truth, Loving one another. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Notice Judas has left. That's no coincidence. He focuses in on one of the most important, if not the central command for the church, that they love one another after the betrayer has gone. See, Jesus here, he's building his messianic community. He is giving instructions for how that new people are going to live together. They're going to work together. They're going to relate to one another. The people who gather, not because of a common personal interest or birthright, not because of a social status or education. The church gathers because of what God has done for them. We gather because we're the people Jesus died for. We gather because we believe in the light and we hate the darkness. We gather because we're seeking to follow the Spirit and not our sinful desires and the temptations of the flesh. Jesus is preparing them. I will be glorified. Now, I think there's a double meaning here in terms of what he's referring to. John does this a lot. I believe the first reference he's making is to the cross. Jesus is glorified on the cross. He is lifted up from the earth and there on the place of shame, the cross, the place of the curse. He's glorified. He's glorifying God because he has been obedient even to the point of death. If you want to see the glory of God, you look to the cross where you see the love of God first and foremost. I believe he's also speaking of the glory that he will receive back from the Father, as we'll see in John 17. He says, glorify me again. Return me to the glory I once had. Because Jesus was once standing to the right hand of the Father in his glory, shining bright, being praised. And removed all the glory from his stature. And he became humble. He lowered himself. He became born of a virgin. He was of no reputation. And then he was murdered as if a thief and a criminal. But he has a resurrected body. He has sins. He has returned back to glory. And here is where the apostles, they can't go yet. He's telling you, you cannot go where I'm going to be yet. Now, as we saw last week, Peter, of course, he puts his foot in his mouth and then he kind of waits a little while. But here we're going to see he puts his foot in his mouth again. I want to go where you're going. I'll never deny you. I'll lay down my life for you. And Jesus says, will you lay down your life for me? I think here Jesus is saying, are you will you lay down your life for me? He's saying you will not lay down your life for me until I lay down my life for you. You will not lay down your life for me. Peter was was actually crucified. He was murdered on a cross. He did follow Jesus in that pattern, but it wasn't until after Jesus had died for him, and after being empowered by the Spirit, and after God used him according to his will to build his church. We see a beautiful progression of God's plan for the church, and for Peter especially. He's bold and foolish, saying, no, I will lay down my life for you. And Jesus says, no, not yet. You have not yet seen my love for you and that I will lay down my life for you. We love Christ because he first loved us. We read 1 John 4 earlier, but now 1 John 3 16. 1 John is full of this teaching. He laid down his life for us. We should lay down our lives for one another. If you do not love the brothers, you are in the darkness and sin. and are not of the brotherhood. The brothers are those who believe in Christ. The brotherhood we're speaking of here, that John's speaking of, and the one another that Jesus is speaking of, it's those who believe in Christ. It's those who have been adopted into the family of God. It's the church. It's amazing that in the midst of this time, Jesus is getting ready to be crucified. He's just hours away from being crucified. He is teaching them, you must love one another. He's building up the church that's supposed to be unique. It's a community of love. It's a community that's loved. And we're gathered together as that people. Now, Jesus says this is a new commandment. That should stand out. It's a new commandment. You know, in the Old Testament it says, we're going to sing a new song. That didn't mean they actually found a new instrument and started playing different kinds of music. A new song was a song of redemption. God has saved us again, so we're going to write a new song to praise him for his new redemption. Here's a new commandment. What's so new about it? In the Old Testament, he said, love your neighbor. There's nothing new there. What's so new about this specific commandment that you were to love one another as I loved you? There's three things that make it new. First, this commandment is following the greatest Example, the master lays down his life for his disciples, the king for his people, the God Almighty laying down his life for those who deny him. It's the extent of love that's greater. This is the greatest love. It's a sacrificial love. It's considering others who you probably would not think are worthy of your love and giving it to them intentionally and intensely. So, on one level, this is a new commandment because it's a new kind of love that we see. There's no greater love than this, that a man laid down his life for his friends. Secondly, it's a new commandment because it's forming a new kind of people. We're all made in God's image. We're all children of Adam, but here God is starting a new human race, kind of like what he did with Noah. He was he was starting with a new humanity. Adam was supposed to be a new start to a new humanity. Christ is the new Adam, the true new Adam that begins a new kind of humanity. That's supposed to be a new community, a new kind of people that are submitted to King Jesus. We have in common our king of love. A people mutually committed to one another. Thirdly, it's new because of how it's fulfilled. You see here, it's taken the midst of the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Supper being instituted here before Judas is left. Then he teaches the new commandment. You see, in the blood of Christ, in the blood of the new covenant, we are washed, we are cleaned, we are given new hearts. We're new kinds of people to form one new kind of community. It's because we're empowered by the Spirit. It's because we all have Christ living in us. That's what's so unique about the church and what should be unique about the church. See, I can go hang out at a gas station or a barbershop or a pool hall and I can talk about anything with any of those guys. But it's the church where I see Christ in each of us. It's the church we're supposed to be fellowshipping. That's between fellowship and friendship. Fellowship is seeking to experience Christ in one another. Friendship is just hanging out with one another. We're supposed to be defined by fellowship. What does this love look like? It's for one another. This is where it gets really hard. The love we're supposed to have for one another is defined by that qualifier. We're supposed to love one another as Christ loved us. The greatest love is what we're supposed to be showing towards one another. Jesus loved us by correcting our sin. Jesus loved us by being clear about our darkness. Jesus loved us by forgiving us. Jesus loved us by laying down his life for us. This is what makes the church so unique. This is what makes the brotherhood so unique. It's a powerful love that has to be intentional and intense. This is the most important commandment for us to think about as a church. Love one another. That means we don't just come and observe when we gather. We don't just come and attend. Being present isn't loving one another. Being in attendance isn't loving one another. Loving one another is the intentional and intense desire to care for one another. Being present isn't sufficient. This is a command to be vulnerable, as Anna talked about. This is a command to be intentionally caring for one another, which requires a vulnerability. This is a high calling. Praise God He sent His Spirit to equip us. Now, we've thought about this and a lot of other commands. We love God the most. We love our neighbor as herself. We love the brotherhood as Christ loved us. I have to say something that's going to be a little provocative. It'll it'll it'll it'll make us have to think a little bit because I'm going to try to logically think through those last two commands. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love the church. Love one another as Christ loved you. The love that Christians are supposed to have with one another is different than the love that Christians are supposed to have for their other neighbors, the non-Christian. Let me go a step further. The love the church should have for one another among the brothers and sisters is a more love than they have for non-Christians. Now, I realize that could sound unloving, so let me make sure I say this very clearly. The love we should have for non-Christians after we become Christians should be more love than we had for them when we weren't Christians. We should love those who do not know Christ more now than we did then. Because we see them in different light, we see them as creating the image of God, we see them full of dignity and worth, we see them in need of a savior. But that doesn't mean we're not supposed to love the brotherhood more. Now, let me make an argument. As to why I would assert something so bold, the qualifier first tells me this. I believe Christ loves me more than I love myself. I believe Christ loves you more than you love yourself. I believe Christ loves you more than you can ever imagine loving anything. That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It's a greater love because of the qualifier. That's the first point I would. I think the really argument closes there. When we love our neighbor, it's a mutual respect love. When we love the brotherhood, it's a sacrificial, intentional love. It's a love that's driven by the love of God for us to know and to care for their well-being above our own. Now, Christians are called to love non-Christians. Do not hear me wrong. The love we're supposed to have for the brotherhood is different. Now, I have some other cautions for us. If you find it easier and more enjoyable to spend time with non-Christians, I'm concerned for you. Because the love we're supposed to have with one another is different because Christ unites us. There's supposed to be something more attractive about each other because we see Christ in one another and we stir one another on towards the love of Christ and the Holy Spirit unites us in such a unique way. So one concern is if you enjoy friendships with the world rather than fellowship with the church, I have real concern for your spiritual well-being. And I also have another concern for us. If you cannot befriend non-Christians as Christ did, I'm concerned for you as well. Because you think they're not worthy of your love and respect. There is a certain love we give to them. I think this reveals a self-righteousness that's unhopeful. If you're a Christian this morning. I. I want to tell you the one true love of God. That while we have rejected him, ignored him, despised him. He has decided to continue to pursue us as his people. He has sent his own son to die on the cross. You see, our sin deserves the wrath of God. And God loved us so much that he sent his son to die on the cross. And Jesus Christ received the wrath of God he did not deserve. He deserved the wrath of God we deserve. So that when we believe in Jesus, the wrath we deserve is transferred to him. We're considered innocent. We're considered forgiven. We're now counted as children of God and beloved by God. That is the good news. That is the most loving thing I could ever tell you. You deserve the wrath of God. But if you believe in Jesus Christ, that wrath is removed and you receive a new life. Church, this command is focused upon us love one another. Something I want us to see here is that it's a mutual expectation, love one another, it's supposed to be something we're doing together. Now, when I think of this verse, I first think of the local church. Mainly because that's who I'm always with, I will love those who I'm with, those Christians I'm spending the most time with, that's who I'm going to love the most. That happens very naturally. I believe God intended us to form specific individual communities so that we can experience this command very precisely, very intentionally. Yes, there is a universal church. Yes, there are Christians. We praise God at all places at all times. And we are to love them. But I believe that this command is supposed to be lived out within the particular folks you've committed to to fulfill this commandment. I have people tell me they don't believe in a local church. They only believe in an invisible church. And I think it's important to recognize that ideas have consequences. If everybody believed that, there would be no churches. There'd be no gatherings, regular. There'd be no church buildings, because no one would have gathered together to build one. There'd be no elders, because there'd be no people to call them. There'd be no deacons, there'd be no missionaries raised up. Think about the consequence of that idea if everybody believed there's no such thing as the local church and the need to be committed to it. There would be no churches. The design of God is to gather together as people to fulfill his commandments locally, but recognizing how we can do that universally. See, the beauty of the church is this. We're called to suffer together and rejoice together. It means we're connected and committed in such a way that our affections and our attention and our actions are directed towards one another. So we're building one other up. This is what it means to be a disciple of Christ, Jesus says. Who should we love? Well, it's the believers. It's those who are gathered. And something about the church is that we're not all supposed to be natural friends. We're not all supposed to be of the same walk, the same race, of the same education, of the same age. If all we do is spend time with folks who are our natural friends, we're not fulfilling the command of Christ. Because we don't love people because they're like us. We love people because Jesus loved us and Jesus told us to love one another. That's the drive of the command. So I ask you, when you walk into the church, how do you think about people? Who did you think about talking to this morning? How did you decide to sit where you're sitting this morning? Was it to make sure you're with your natural friends? Or to think about how can I love those that Christ has also loved? How can I love those Jesus has commanded me to love? How our decisions drive us towards that particular end? You see, When we choose people, when we distinguish people according to their age, dress, background, similar interests, we divide the body because of our preference and partiality. And that is dangerous, my friends. We think of others, we first look and we say, these are all children of Adam. These are all human beings worthy of dignity and respect, worthy of being greeted. We gather in the church, we're supposed to say, these are believers. Those we know are believers and we want to fellowship with them and experience Christ with them. We share. the love of Christ. Now, the hard one, how? How do we love one another? First, we have to be loved by God. We're not going to really love one another unless we know the love of God, unless we see the sacrificial love of God, we will not love one another as Christ loved us. Second, we have to see that we do not deserve the love of God. We have to see that we do not deserve the love of God. Who we love reflects what we think of God's love. If you only love those who think deserve it, we're self-righteous and we deserve God's love. Third, and this is very practical, those were the two theological ways. You must be loved by God. You must realize you don't deserve it. Thirdly, we have to be together. If we don't spend time together, we don't love one another. There's no way to continue and grow and thrive and love one another if we're not gathered together. This is why we go out of our way and make long trips during Mother's Day and Father's Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas to spend time with extended family, because if we don't see them regularly, we won't love them as much. Same as a church. We're supposed to be gathering regularly. We're supposed to be greeting one another and showing hospitality. We have to be present to love one another. Fourth, you have to be present, and we have to know one another. This isn't rocket science. In order to love one another, we have to be present, and we have to get to know one another. Here's some ways to get to know one another. Stay after the service, regardless of how long the sermon is. The clock is broken, by the way, so I have no idea. Nor is it affecting. Stay after the service. If you come late and leave quickly, there's no way you can love one another. There's no way you can fulfill this command of Jesus Christ who died for you to love others. Stay after the service. Take somebody to lunch that you don't normally know. Take an unnatural friend who's a brother or sister in Christ, take them to lunch. If you can't afford lunch, there's always a an occasional, there's always a free potluck down in the Fellowship Hall. Take them there. Try to be practical here, folks. You have to know one another. So come here and stick around afterwards, get to know somebody. Don't just talk to the same people. Secondly, Another way to know one another. Come to at least another service. Come to Sunday school. Come to Wednesday night. Gather with the women for face to face. Spend time with the other Christians somehow so that you can know them to love them. Third, and this is actually one of the most prescribed biblical ways to do this. Be hospitable. Welcome people into your home. Invite those you do not know into your home. Some night of the week, maybe after church on Sunday, commit one night to say, this is hospitality night. I'm going to have folks in my home. I'm going to go over to somebody else's house. Just show up at somebody else's house. Pastor said, you have the freedom to do so. If you have somebody you want to know and they keep putting you off, just show up and be prepared to ask them specific questions. When did you become a Christian? Where are you from? What are you reading right now? What is your favorite book of the Bible? Specifically, what is your testimony? What is God teaching you now? We have to know one another. Fifth, we have to have a mutual commitment to love one another. There has to be a mutual care and commitment in the body gathered to love one another. Yes, they're singing together spiritual songs and hymns to one another. As Paul says, there's learning with one another what we're doing. But loving one another takes us beyond what we're doing right here in the service. It begins here, but it takes us beyond it, because as Paul says in Galatians 6, the law of Christ is fulfilled. The command of Christ is fulfilled when we bear one another's burdens. Are we so connected and united that when one of us suffers, we all suffer? Do we know who's suffering and are we so connected that we're all suffering? I want to read two of our covenant commitments that we make in membership. We have a covenant. We believe this summarizes basically what Scripture says. Here's two commitments we make to one another mutually. We will watch over each other in brotherly love. We will pray for each other. We will participate in each other's joys and endeavor with tenderness and sympathy to bear each other's burdens and sorrows. Second, we will humbly warn a brother who is in danger of falling into disobedience or error. We will speak the truth in love, be slow to take offense and be eager to seek swift and lasting reconciliation. These are high callings. This is a high command. This is just stretching the surface of what Paul said elsewhere about what it means to love one another. We will watch over one another with brotherly love. We'll be connected as brothers and sisters. I got a text two weeks ago. Paul and Ashley Poppy, they moved away. They were only here for a couple of years. Easter was their last service last year. And I got a text. Hey, Finally joined the church. A tear welled up in my eye. They've been gone for a year. They're in Alabama. They're not coming back. But because of the love they committed here, because of the love that was shared, there's a deep connection. They were dear brothers and sisters in Christ. It's hard. It should be hard to leave a church. Because of the kind of relationships and deep connections of suffering together and celebrating together. There's a watching one another with a brotherly love, a family like love. Secondly, notice we're to pray for another. We're united in prayer. If you have a problem with somebody else in the church, if there's some kind of animosity, pray for them. That's what heals bitterness. That's what heals a heart turned against somebody. At the members meeting, we'll give you a new list of all the members. You can just start praying for everybody. We'll participate in each other's joys and sorrows. What an honor. To be able to walk hand in hand. With other saints seeking to live for God's glory. Getting to rejoice with them. Getting to weep with them. This is an honor, brothers and sisters, to be able to join together with other saints who are committed to God and walk this deeply with this kind of care. This is the real church. We will seek to live in peace, that second commandment, all that's trying to do is recognize we're all sinners and sinners, sinners offend and Christians forgive. Christians confess. What this can't mean, as we think about this within the body of Jefferson Park, it can't mean we're an island. This is why, during the pastoral prayer, we usually pray for other churches. I praise God this isn't the only Bible-believing, Bible-preaching, gospel-proclaiming church in Charlottesville. There are other Christians that we have fellowship with. But the focus here is that who you gather with regularly is who you should naturally be worshiping with and loving with this intensity. I want to set forth a vision, and I believe this is God's vision. Imagine a world where each believer committed to one body of Christ. And each believer was committed to one body of Christ. And each believer was committed to growing in the knowledge of Christ. And each believer grew in that knowledge together. And that body began to grow stronger and stronger together as they understood Christ and His grace and His love more and more. And as believers, they grew together into unity, into a maturity of following Christ, seeking each other's interests above their own. Seeking one another's cares and desiring their well-being above their own. And then they're using their gifts to serve one another. To love one another, to build each other up until we reach the final maturity of serving the head, Jesus Christ, perfectly. For that's a high calling. That's exactly what Paul describes in Ephesians 4. The body walking worthy of the calling. growing in maturity, growing in the knowledge of God in Christ, growing in unity and using their gifts for the well-being of the church. Every part has to do its function. If you're a Christian and you're not part of a church, some church is missing you to be part of that body to fully function. Churches would be healthy If all the members who God was calling work together as one body, serving one another, loving one other, using their gifts up to the head, serving him and glorifying him. I realize that's a big dream. That's a big desire, because we're not there yet, Jefferson Park. We've got to be striving towards that. There's plenty of reasons why one should not commit to doing that particular vision, being committed, seeking to serve, seeking others. I mean, one, we're just busy. Two, the church is full of sinners, and I've been hurt before. Three, I just don't have it in me. I look around and I don't feel it. To love others, it takes me too far my comfort zone. I don't want to be that vulnerable. There's lots of reasons not to do it, but there's one reason to do it. Jesus died for you and loved you and commanded you to love one another. That's why you do it. That's it. There's a lot of reasons not to do it. There's one reason to do it. Finally, a great question that you should be asking, what about the world? You think we're supposed to love one another more than the neighbor outside? What about them? That's a great question. Look at what Jesus says at the end. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love, if you have love for one another. The greatest evangelistic tool Jesus Christ ever gave the church is the church. If we want to go out and share the gospel with all of Charlottesville and we're not loving one another here, we're biting and bitter and arguing. They're going to hear the gospel. They're going to come. They're going to completely turn off from Christ. But if this is a church that exemplifies follows and obeys this command. When people come, they're going to see something different. They're going to see the love of Christ. They're going to desire the love of Christ. This is the first and foremost evangelistic tool Jesus gave to the world. It's the church, a new kind of people living in a new way, loving one another. It's not that we dress differently. It's not that we necessarily talk differently. It's that we love differently. As we conclude, we need a properly ordered love, a love that begins with God. The love of God that hates sin, the more you remove yourself from sin, the more you hate sin, the more you will love God. Next is loving the brotherhood, a focused, intense, intentional love that seeks others and they're seeking you and you're being built up in the body of Christ. And third, your neighbor, all humanity, showing them the dignity and respect that God had created them with and loving them by preaching the gospel. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you that you have loved us. We thank you, Father, that you sent your Son to us. We pray that as we consider his love for us, that we will be moved and stirred to love one another. That we would desire to experience the love of Christ in one another and with one another. They would help us to know how to do this, that your spirit would affect in us, would make us effective in seeking others. Help this church, Lord, to be built up in the maturity and unity according to your spirit. as all the parts function together under your headship for your glory. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.