The sermon titled 'Taught by God to Love the Brethren' focuses on 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10, emphasizing the importance of brotherly love among Christians. It posits that Christians are taught by God to love one another, a concept rooted in the new covenant which writes God's law on believers' hearts. The speaker highlights two essential aspects of spiritual growth: abstaining from sinful behaviors and cultivating virtues like love. The sermon examines biblical texts such as Jeremiah 31, 1 John 4, and Ephesians 5, illustrating how love is intrinsic to the Christian experience, being both a natural outcome of faith and a commandment. It stresses that true love is self-sacrificing and God-glorifying, akin to Jesus' love. The sermon also discusses practical expressions of love, such as living consistent gospel lives and generous giving. It concludes by urging continual growth in love and encouraging fathers to lead by example in loving their families and communities.

As you know we're in 1st Thessalonians so we're going to read the entire surrounding text. Our verses for today will be 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 9 and 10 but we're going to read 1 through 12 to give us the context. So let's take some time going through this. First Thessalonians chapter four. Finally then brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God.

For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God your sanctification that you should abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such. As we also forewarned you and testified, For God did not call us to uncleanness but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man but God who has also given us his Holy Spirit. But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

And indeed, you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you brethren that you increase more and more, that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside and that you may lack nothing. Oh God, we praise you for the words you've delivered from heaven through the mouths and hands of those that you've called, God. And I'm so grateful that you bring us here week after week to hear the glorious words of what you've given us. God, and I'm so grateful for Jason.

Come now and bless him, Lord. Just give him the peace of heaven and guide him with your spirit as he gives us these words today. In Jesus' name. The title of the sermon this morning is, Taught by God to love the brethren. The brethren are taught by God to love the brethren.

We are the pupils, God is the teacher, love is the subject. That's really what these two verses are all about. And the context is established at the beginning of chapter four. And what Paul and Silvanus and Timothy are urging us to is to grow in pleasing the Lord. It's called sanctification.

We're supposed to grow in pleasing the Lord. We're supposed to please Him in how we live and think and pray and walk and treat each other. We're supposed to please God more and more and more through time. And I'm arguing that beginning with the beginning of the chapter, that the flow gives us the two essential categories of growing in the Lord. First it gives us the things from which we must abstain.

Keep away from those things. That's the first essential category in sanctification or growing in the Lord. Stay away from that. It keeps you from growing in the Lord. It actually represents a trajectory away from God instead of a trajectory towards God.

And then the second essential category in growing in the Lord being things which we must cultivate, or nurture, or feed. So those things you starve, you abstain from, you keep away from, because they are a trajectory, a path away from God. Then there are things that you feed and cultivate and nurture in your life, because they are a trajectory towards God and towards being like God, acting in a way that's consistent with his character. So last week we had abstain from sexual immorality. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy have been among people who have known nothing but pagan culture, one of the important things that they need to keep clear of is something they are swimming in in their culture, its sexual immorality.

The pagan culture of the Greeks and the Romans was either indifferent to sexual immorality, or it actually encouraged sexual immorality. They reach back to these young converts and they say stay away from that, starve that, abstain from that. And now in this week's text we have cultivate love. Grow love. Think about this as a garden that you are growing.

You cultivate it, you nurture it, you feed it to get growth. So we go to the text, let's go to the text in prayer. God, I thank you that love is native to the Christian heart. That when you take out the heart of stone and you give us a heart of flesh, love is in that heart. And I pray that you would help this native virtue, this essentially Christian virtue would grow in us.

God, we feel the great need for it to grow. We feel that it's not what it should be. And we pray God that you by your spirit would come and press the words of your scripture on us to help us to grow. In Jesus name, Amen. We have two verses.

I'd like to look at them one by one. So follow along as I read 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 9. And then we'll just stop and examine it closely. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 9, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy write, but concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

If you're filling in the handout, filling in blanks, it's taught and brethren. Taught by God to love the brethren. They begin by saying, but concerning brotherly love. This is two words in English, but one word in Greek. Brotherly love is the translation.

It's a good translation. It's a single Greek word. You actually know it, although you might not know that you know it. It's Philadelphia. We know Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love.

That's because of what it means in Greek. So you now know a little bit of Greek, and that's what I know too, a very little bit of Greek. It means brotherly love. It's a close love. It's a dear love.

It's a familial love. Family love. Family love. In the case of Christians, It's called brotherly love. Why?

Because we have the same Father. That makes us brothers and sisters. So that's the kind of love it is. We share a Father. And so it is not just love, it's brotherly love.

It's a familial love, a family love. Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is teaching His disciples to pray. How does that prayer begin? Our Father in heaven. Our Father.

We have Him as Father together. That's what Christians are. They're a people that have God as Father together. So when we approach Him, when we pray to Him, that's how we start. Our Father.

God, we have you as Father together. You're ours. You're our Father. Christians are called brothers and sisters 19 times in 1 Thessalonians. One little letter, five little chapters.

Christians, those who are in Christ are called one thing, nineteen times in this letter. Brothers and sisters. Because we are adopted out of a hellish family. That's what Christians are. They are people who have been adopted out of a hellish family into a heavenly family.

We used to have one father, he was the devil. He is the father of unbelievers. And now, we're brought into a completely different family. By the way, that hellish family is so often marked by, known by hatred, isn't it? Yep, hatred just runs wild in the unbelieving heart.

You're adopted out of that family, you get a new heart. And you get a new father, and that father is God, and you get a new mark. And love is the mark. Love is the mark. Because you and I have a common Father if we are in Christ, that means things for us.

One of the things that it means is that we don't need a letter to teach us to love each other. That's what Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy say here. You don't need a letter from an apostle or from anybody else to teach you to love your brothers and sisters. You are taught that by God. Now I want to take us to three different texts of Scripture that unfold and explain what it means to be taught by God to love your brothers and sisters in Christ.

The first one is Jeremiah 31. So please turn to Jeremiah 31. Last week we were in Ezekiel 36, which is a famous Old Testament text about the New Covenant. This week I'm taking us to Jeremiah 31, which is a famous Old Testament text about the New Covenant. It's the same topic really as what we were studying last week.

This is about the New Covenant. In fact, the words New Covenant are actually used in Jeremiah 31. And it teaches us a lot about the covenant that Christians live under after Jesus has come and done His work. This is Jeremiah chapter 31 and I'd like to read verses 31 through 34. Jeremiah 31 beginning in 31.

Follow along as I read. Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more." This covenant, this new covenant, is a covenant based on knowing the Lord. You're not in the covenant unless your iniquities have been forgiven.

That last verse of what I just read makes that so plain. You're in the covenant if your iniquities have been covered by the Lord and you're out of the covenant if your iniquities remain on you. And so, knowing the Lord is the gate into this new covenant. All who are in this covenant know the Lord. So you don't have to tell your brother in Christ, know the Lord, because by definition, he knows the Lord if he's in Christ.

Everyone in the nation now knows the Lord. It's a holy nation. That's what Peter says. It's a holy nation. Everybody knowing the Lord in this nation.

It's the New Testament Church. We're that if you're in Christ. It says under the New Covenant that the law will be put in the minds of this people and the law will be written on the hearts of this people. And this is more than what is said in Romans 2 verse 15. In Romans 2, 15, Paul writing to the Roman church says something very similar.

He says, the law is written on their hearts but he's talking to everybody, men, women, and children in Christ, out of Christ, everyone has the law on their hearts and what he's saying there is that everyone on planet earth has the rules that define condemnation written on the heart. Meaning there's an innate, embedded, pre-programmed sense of right and wrong so that you stand condemned before God because you knew what was right and wrong. That's what is being said in Romans chapter 2. But what's being said in Jeremiah 31 under the new covenant is something much more deep and much more wonderful. When it's said that the law will be put in our minds and the law will be written on our hearts.

This is talking about instruction to sons and daughters. That's not Romans 2.15. Romans 2.15 means, you know you deserve condemnation. Jeremiah 31 is, God will instruct you as a son or a daughter. He'll put His law in your mind.

He'll put His law in your heart because you're a son, and He's training you like a son. It's a mark of sonship to have the law of God put in your mind and written on your heart. Jesus gives us insight to this in John 14. John 14, 15, and 16 is about the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit comes. So this is John 14, verses 25 and 26.

I want to ask you to turn there unless you want to because it's brief but listen while I read. John 14, 25 and 26. Jesus says, These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. What Jesus says in John 14 25 and 26 is that He's there then teaching in the flesh but after He departs God will send His Spirit in Jesus' name in order to indwell all believers, to teach them all things, and to remind us of what Jesus taught when He was here in the flesh.

So you, if you are in Christ, you get a teacher with the deal. You get a new heart and you get an instructor that comes with the new heart. You get the Holy Spirit who teaches you all things and brings to remembrance the things that Jesus taught when he was here in the flesh. That's what it means to have the law put in your minds and written on your hearts. And what is the law about?

Love! Love! The law is about love. In Matthew chapter 22, a man has come to Jesus and said, which is the great commandment in the law? What does Jesus say?

He says, the great commandment is this, love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Every law is about love. They can feel so onerous. They keep us from things that we have an inclination towards or they require things of us that we don't want to do but at their heart they're about love. So when we're studying the law, we're studying about love.

We're being taught by God because it's His Word, His laws are His Word. We're being taught by God to love through His Word. All the Law and the Prophets hang on the two great laws of love. You pick a law. You go find a law.

The most obscure law you think in the Old Testament. You can hook it to one of the great laws of love. You have to. We have to train our brains to think this way. Here's a law, it's about love.

I'm being taught by God to love in some way. How is this about love? Of God or neighbor or both? Usually it's both. It's hard to love our neighbor without loving God, and It's hard to love God without loving our neighbor.

Paul teaches exactly the same thing that Jesus teaches in Matthew 22. In Romans chapter 13 verse 10, Paul says this, love is the fulfillment of the law. Love is the fulfillment of the law. The law is about love. Studying the law is studying love.

It is being taught by God to love the brethren. So what does it mean that God puts the law on our mind and writes it on our heart? It means that we are being taught by God to love the brethren. The knowledge that one, we are brethren, and two, that we should love the brethren comes built in with the new heart. When you get a new heart, you get the knowledge of those two things.

We're brethren, we share a father. We're adopted out of a hellish family into a heavenly family. You get that with the new heart and you get we should love each other. Built in with the new heart. Our family has been reading God's Smuggler.

It's the name of the book. It's about brother Andrew. It's about a man that God raised up after World War II. There's an iron curtain that segregates off the communist world, the Soviet countries from the West. You can't get Bibles through the curtain.

God raised up this man, Brother Andrew, to get Bibles through the Iron Curtain into the Lord's people. The communists were desperately trying to kill Christianity in communist countries. The Bible feeds Christianity. The Word of God just feeds it. So they were trying to stamp out Bibles.

So God raises up this man to get Bibles to his people in these countries. In reading this, we're reading this on Sunday afternoons and I'm trying to amass a group of books that the kids in our family will clamor for us to keep reading. You know those kind of books when you read them as a kid. Oh dad no stop no no no one more chapter ten more minutes. Okay we're trying to amass those kind of books so we can use Sunday afternoons more profitably and this belongs on that list.

But one of the things that's striking about that book is this, that brother Andrew has built into his heart, we're brethren. And he can, very many times, in the account of God's faithfulness to Christians there, he can recognize them without a word even being spoken. He can see a guy and say, that's a brother in Christ. We don't want to be too mystical about this, but at the same time that is real. That's real.

You've experienced that. I have no doubt. Where you have a sense, they, even without a word, they have the marks, they have the look of a brother. That's not foolproof. Again, I don't want to be overly mystical about it.

And that we should love each other. And over and over he meets these people that he's never met before in this communist country and they're closer than blood brothers in an hour. I'm sure you've had that experience too. You bond like that instantaneously. Why?

Because you have the same father. Because you both have a new heart. You've been brought out of a hellish family into a heavenly family and you know it and it drives you together. It gives you an affection for one another. The second text I'd like to take us to is 1 John chapter 4.

Turn to 1 John chapter 4. For this sermon, we really didn't need another book of the Bible than 1 John. We could have just stayed there the whole time. So much is said about the love of the Brethren in 1 John chapter 2, 3, 4, it's probably in 5 too, I don't know. I'm going to limit us to 1 John chapter 4, But there's lots more in this book about loving the brethren.

1 John chapter 4, I'd like to read 7 through 12 and then I'm going to skip to verse 20 and read 20 and 21. 1 John chapter 4 beginning in verse 7, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us.

That God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, We also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us.

Skip to verse 20. If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this is the commandment we have from him. He who loves God must love his brother also.

John is teaching that love is embedded in the Christian heart. It is native. It's not foreign to the Christian heart, it's native. It's a natural born citizen of the Christian heart. It belongs in the Christian heart more than anything else it belongs in the Christian heart.

And if we have it, if we have love for the brethren in our heart, we are of God. And if we don't have it, we are not of God. It's a really simple formula in 1 John chapter 4. You got love, you are of God. So that's the only place you get real biblical love.

You don't have it, you are not of God. Then John defines love. It's like Jesus' love. That's the definition here in 1 John chapter 4. It's like Jesus' love.

Not some kind of gushy, mushy, sentimental love that has no connection to anything else. This is solid meat and potatoes, Jesus' love. And this is important that it be defined so that we don't fall for the counterfeits. The world offers all manner of counterfeit love. And you can't look at somebody who has the counterfeits and say they are of God because that doesn't match up with what we have already looked at in 1 John chapter 4.

We are talking biblical love. We are talking about Jesus kind of love is the mark of the Christian, not the counterfeit. We had already encountered a counterfeit last week. Sexual immorality is a counterfeit. I love you that way, not real love.

Fake love. This is how you know, is this real love or counterfeit love? Does it match up with Jesus? Jesus' love is this, it was self-sacrificing and God-glorifying. Those are the real marks of Jesus' love, self-sacrificing.

He demonstrated His love for us in that He bled and died for us. He sacrificed Himself for us. Why did he do that? To bring glory to God. So real love is self-sacrificing and God glorifying.

That is Jesus kind of love. Now we've got this over here, sexual immorality. We can't force them together. We can't make them line up. There's no self-sacrifice there, there's no glory to God there, that's not love.

So we look at the things in our lives that we think are loving, can you get them to line up with Jesus' kind of love? That's the question for us. It includes feeling, but it's more than feeling. God save us from love that has no feeling. God save us from love where there is no affection.

That is not love either. So we have these elements of love and they've all got to be there. There is feeling and real affection in the heart, but it doesn't stop at that. If you have something that is all affection but there is nothing else to it, that's not real love. The third text I would like to go to is in Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians chapter 5. I debated whether to take us to Ephesians chapter 5 verses 1 through 3 or not because it's so similar to our text in some ways it's redundant, but I think it's just enough different that it adds depth and texture. And when we overlay it on our text, we will see it more fully. So I believe in Ephesians chapter 5 verses 1 through 3, Paul is teaching the same things as we've been learning in our letter to the Thessalonians. Ephesians 5 verses 1-3, Paul writes, Therefore be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. You see all the overlapping with our text in 1 Thessalonians. We are to imitate God. We are to grow in pleasing God by being like Him.

I think this is what Paul is teaching. Imitate God as dear children. He is our Father. We are His children. If you have a good Father, you should learn to be like him.

We have the best father. We should learn to be like him. That's what pleases him. It's a sweet smelling aroma when we learn to be like this good father. It just comes up before him like incense.

And in Ephesians 5 the order is reversed. In Ephesians chapter 5 he says cultivate love, that's exactly what we have, and then he says abstain from sexual immorality and these other things on the list. So you have both of these essential qualities of growing in the Lord, feeding, cultivating, nurturing one set of things while you abstain from, keep from another set of things. Walk in love as Christ has also loved us. It's saying again, Jesus kind of love, that kind of love, is helping us understand it.

Now let's go back to 1 Thessalonians and look at verse 10. Verse 10. And indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia but we urge you brethren that you increase more and more Here we have the proof and an exhortation to overflow. So if you are taking notes on the handout and you are filling in blanks, it is proof overflow. The proof and an exhortation to overflow.

Here is the proof that they have been taught by God. They are indeed walking in love. That's the mark. If you walk in love, you can know this, you were taught by God to do it. And that means there are things that can be observed in their church, in their homes, in their lives, that indicate you're walking in love.

So again, it's not just sentimental feeling in the heart. You can look at these people and Paul and Silvanus and Timothy are looking at them and they are saying from what we see, we can say with confidence you are walking in love. There are observable things. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy have seen it with their own eyes. Back in chapter 1 verse 3 they are reflecting back on their time, physically present among the Thessalonians.

We say there are some things we remember. One of those things is your labor of love. It was love in your hearts that was manifesting itself, showing itself, displaying itself in your work. Work driven by love in the heart. In chapter 3 verse 6, Paul and Silvanus have received a report from Timothy.

What's the report? Timothy brought us good news of your faith and love. So they witnessed it first hand. We see that in chapter 1 verse 3. And then after the fact, probably several months later, they send Timothy back.

He comes back with a report and love is holding. Love is holding in the Thessalonian church among these new converts. Timothy brought Paul and Silvanus back a good report of their faith and their love. And their love is expansive, it's outward. It extends way beyond the city limits of Thessalonica.

So it extends beyond their church, it extends beyond their city, it extends to all the brethren of all of Macedonia. This is an expansive love that just keeps moving outward. This love in our text is actually called doing. You do so. That's an interesting way to put it.

You do so. The NASB renders it this way. You do practice it. So again there are outward evidences and We're not told here in our text exactly what the evidence of evidence is We just know that Paul and sylvanus and Timothy can see it in their lives. You do practice it I'd like to offer two evidences from other places that their testimony is true.

The first is flipping back to chapter 1, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 6 through 8. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit. So that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything.

Being a gospel example and preaching the gospel message is a concrete expression of the love of God for the brethren and for all mankind for that matter. I'm going to say that again. Being a gospel example, living consistent with the gospel and preaching the gospel message, bringing to people the good news that Jesus Christ died for sinners so that we don't have to die in our sins. This is a concrete way to love. It's observable.

You're living consistent with the gospel. You're preaching the gospel message. You are loving. The world needs the gospel. Lived out before it.

The world needs the gospel preached to it more than anything else. There is nothing more loving than we can do than to live gospel lives and preach the gospel message. There's nothing more loving than that. There's nothing that human hearts are more desperate for than those things. It is a concrete expression of love.

Even to the brethren. Forget unbelievers. It is love to the brethren to live a gospel life. That's what they're saying in chapter 1 verses 6-8. Unbelievers really aren't in view in the first part of that.

It said, you became examples to all in Macedonia who believe. They're examples to those who believe. They're living gospel lives before those who believe. And that's a concrete expression of love. And the Word has sounded forth even beyond believers, well beyond believers.

That's the first piece of evidence. They're living gospel lives and preaching the gospel message and that is loving. Here's the second evidence. It comes from 2 Corinthians 8 verses 1 and 2. I won't ask you to turn there unless you want to but I'll be reading these two verses, 2 Corinthians 8, 1 and 2.

Moreover brethren we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. So of course we're talking about the Thessalonians here plus Thessalonica is in Macedonia. That in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abound in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God." By the way that was verses 1-5.

There was more verses than I had said. 2 Corinthians 8 verses 1-5. In that text, Paul is marveling at the generosity of the Macedonian Church. Marveling. He said, They are giving beyond their ability.

There is liberality. They are giving money they really don't have to give. But the gratitude for their salvation is welling up in giving to saints who need it elsewhere. So their generous giving is a practical expression of their love, both of God and of their neighbor. It expresses that they love God, and it expresses that they love their brethren.

And it's concrete. You can look and say they're doing that out of love. They're giving beyond their ability because they love. Then Paul and Silvanus and Timothy come to a screeching halt. Urk!

And they say, but! You've been taught by God to love your brethren, but there are evidences. Everybody can see that you love, but we urge you brethren that you increase more and more. Don't you dare think you've arrived. It's clear that you've been taught by God.

There are evidences of it. We commend you for it, but we urge you, we exhort you, that you increase more and more. Here's what Matthew Poole says, I think he hits the nail right on the head. Matthew Poole says, Neither love nor any other grace is made perfect at once. Even those that are taught of God are taught by degrees.

Anybody who has lived in Christ for any amount of time says, Amen. Even if you're taught by God, which the Thessalonians had been taught by God to love their brethren, they're taught by degrees. You don't become a fully grown tree with fruit hanging on the branches on day one. You're an acorn. You're an acorn.

You're a seed. Okay, And you have to grow. You have to be taught by God more. Yes, you have been taught by God, and yes, you need to be taught by God. And you need to grow and become more fruitful through time.

Even those that are taught of God are taught by degrees. Overflowing with love doesn't happen by magic, even though you're taught by God. That's not magical. That doesn't produce magical results. Overflowing with love is something we need to be urged to again and again and again and again and again and again and again That's why he's doing it.

If it was magical, if it was just a matter of course, if it automatically happened because God teaches his people to love their brethren, they wouldn't have put it in the letter and they wouldn't say, we urge you to increase more and more because they wouldn't need the exhortation. It's not magic. We must cultivate love. We must nurture love. We must feed love.

We must fan the flame of love. It's like a garden. Don't pick the weeds out of your garden. See what direction your garden takes. Don't water your garden.

See what direction your garden takes. Don't fertilize your garden and see what direction your garden takes. Love is like your garden. You better be plucking out the weeds, the love killers, like sexual immorality, and, and, and. You better be feeding love with the Word of God, and pleading with the Holy Spirit to come and produce this fruit.

Love is the fruit of the Spirit, right? Here's the conclusion. True spiritual growth always includes growth in love. That's the end of the matter. True spiritual growth always includes growth in love.

How can I say that? Always like use these categorical words. Love is the fulfillment of the law. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. If you grow in the Lord you grow in love.

You may say that's not always true I just read a great book and I know I'm growing from this book but I don't see a relationship with love. Do you know this? It's very possible to have a fat head and a skinny heart. You can read the world's best books and grow so cold-hearted. Knowledge puffs up, love builds up, they're not the same thing.

If you have a growth in knowledge without a corresponding growth in love. It's not true spiritual growth. It isn't. Knowledge is supposed to feed and cultivate and nurture love. That's the whole purpose of knowledge.

Knowledge for the sake of knowledge just puffs up and makes you proud and love yourself more. Oh yeah, there's a growth of love alright, self-love. You may say that's not always true. I've had this besetting sin, this thing that's gotten the best of me a thousand times, and recently I've been doing a lot better, and that's growth, but I don't really see how it relates to love. True obedience is always joined with love.

If you're just getting a handle on something that's outward and there's no corresponding increase in love of God from your heart, in other words, if that's not flowing out of a heart towards God, that's not real obedience. The world is full of unbelievers who turn over a new leaf and do better, and conform themselves more to the law of God. They are not obeying God. That's not obeying God. Without faith, It is impossible to please God.

Without faith, you can conform yourself to the external demands of the law. That's not the same thing as pleasing God. That's not the same thing as obeying God. Applications. I have three.

Three applications. Number one, are you marked by Jesus-like love? Is that what you're known for? Not cotton candy love, not sentimentalism, meat and potatoes love, Jesus like love, self-sacrificing, God-glorifying love. So you've got an answer to that question, a silent answer.

Am I marked by love? Now here are the follow-up questions. Does your heart agree with your answer? Do the affections of your heart agree with your answer? Does your calendar agree with your answer?

What's on your calendar? How are you spending your time? Does that agree with your self-assessment about whether you're marked by love or not? Does your checkbook agree with your answer? Is your checkbook a self-sacrificing, God-glorifying checkbook or a self-serving checkbook?

It's really a pretty simple question to answer. Love is sentimental. It includes affections. It includes feelings. But it's also intensely practical.

Our love should be intensely practical and concrete And be joined at the hip with these affections. I want the affections. Oh I do. That's number one. Are you marked by Jesus like love?

Number two. Are we known for Jesus like love? Let's get out of the individual and go to the corporate. We have a reputation, is it love? We live in a community, a lot of people know us in this community more all the time.

What are we known for? Is it love? Listen to what Jesus says in John 13 verses 34 and 35. We keep coming back to this verse but I can't stay away. So here it is again.

John 13, 34 and 35. A new commandment I give to you says Jesus, that you love one another. As I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Talk about outreach.

When we have Jesus like love within this church, then we'll have outreach. To the extent that we have Jesus-like love for one another, then we'll have outreach. Forget nursing homes and forget abortion clinics. When we love each other, we'll have what we need to reach the world. We'll have lives that authenticate and adorn the gospel that we preach.

That's the intent. That's what the work of the Spirit is among the people of God. It's to give the people of God lives that authenticate the gospel we preach. So shame on churches that don't preach the gospel. Amen.

May the Lord make us infinitely more bold with the gospel than we are today, but shame on churches that don't authenticate the gospel with how they live. Are we known for Jesus-like love? Number three, and lastly, fathers, fathers, and future fathers. Be love leaders. Be love leaders.

Out love everybody in your house. I'm not saying mothers don't need to be love leaders. Mothers spend the most time with the children in our homes. They do need to be love leaders. I'm just saying fathers need this exhortation more than mothers need it.

So I'm zeroing in on us. Jason Dome needs that exhortation more than Janet Dome needs that exhortation. I need to be a love leader. I need to try to out love mom in our house. I need to try to beat her.

It is a competition. Life is a race. It's a competition. Somebody is loving more in our house and I want to be the somebody. And it is hard to out love mom in the dome house.

And you probably say the same in your house. And we should try hard. Inside the home and outside the home. We should lead the charge to love inside the home. No one should love more than me, in my house.

Not because we have a low bar for love, and anybody, any old buddy can get over that bar, because we have a high bar, You need to set a high bar for love in your home, for patience, for all the things that are wrapped up in love. Go to 1 Corinthians 13. That. And outside the home. We need to lead our families in loving outside the home, in the church, and outside the church, in the community.

Fathers we need to have expansive love, love like the Thessalonians. They loved all the brethren in all of Macedonia and we should do the same. We should lead our families in outward love, loving those outside. Let's pray. God, these things are so easy to preach, so hard to live.

When we hear that the great commandments are to love you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor and ourselves. When we take a few minutes to consider that standard in our lives, we are crushed by these commandments to love. We are so far short. No wonder you urge us to increase more and more. God, I pray that you would give us more love.

Love like Christ's love. Love that sacrifices. Love that glorifies you. Lord, we need your help and we call upon you to work this among us. God, may we be known for our love.

For our love. Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.