The Greatest Commandment of All

Alright, let's grab our Bibles and go to 1 John.

I have just really enjoyed diving back into 1 John. And John is called the Apostle of Love and for a very good reason. As you read his Gospel, and then you read these three Epistles, he just likes to say a lot about it.

Now, won't you listen to me just a second. This Bible is like steel. And if you are under the conviction of the Holy Spirit being drawn to Christ, you're drawn to the teaching of this book.

Or if you know Christ, his Spirit lives in you. And you have that agape factor we've talked about a few times that that new kind of love that only born-again children have, then your heart's like a magnet drawn to this book and it's preaching. I'm not getting on this theme tonight, but just to mention the reason why so many churches have become three-ring circuses and entertainment centers is because there are a whole lot of people they're trying to keep who don't have the magnet in their heart. They're not really drawn to this unless you can make it fun. But isn't it wonderful to say we're going to sing and preach the Word and we're all okay with that?

Because the magnet's in there. Now, I'm not saying every time it's exactly the same. We get the doldrums, we get sluggish spiritually, we're not as drawn to it as we ought to be. Some of you that way right now. But as I get preaching, it's the magnet's going to come on a little bit. And it's going to get stirred up in you. And that's why you need preaching.

You keep it stirred back up again. So as we're preaching about this tonight, we're preaching about love. I want you to examine your heart.

So this is something you ought to do every single... I don't care how long you've been saved, how much spiritual fruits in your life. Every week while the Word is preached, you ought to be examining your heart.

Lord, am I one of those? Lord, do I have that changed heart? Do I know Christ as my Lord and Savior? Am I drawn? Is there something in me that's drawn to this Word and the preaching of the Word?

Let's look at it together. 1 John chapter 2. Let's look at verses 7 through 11, all right? He said, Beloved, I'm not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you've had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the one hand, I'm writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you. There's something true and new in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. The one who says he's in the light and yet hates, could even amplify that out, detests his brother, is in the darkness until now. I believe that clearly means he's a false professor. He claims to be a brother, but he's going on in a detesting attitude of hate toward his other brothers in Christ, so he can't be a true brother.

Verse 10, the one who loves his brother abides in the light and there's no cause for stumbling in him, but the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he's going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. Now, I've said, shared this with you many times, but we in the English language have one word for love and we use it for everything. I love baked beans. I love my car and I love my wife. Well, those are very different things. The Greek language helps us out a little bit. They're different words for love. We have to be careful and not use this word as carelessly, perhaps, as we're prone to use it, because when you use a word like this carelessly, it means little or nothing. I don't know that it means a whole lot to your wife if you use the same word for baked beans as you use for her. Now we know what we mean in our hearts.

We just don't have the words in the English language to lay it out there like some other languages do. So John here, the apostle of love, is diving into this truth of this new true love that only believers in Christ possess. He uses, he actually coins a word, this agape love. Other loves like phileo is more like a familial or the kind of love that's common in the unregenerate world. A love within a family, a love of brotherhood and some sort of cause in your team or a group doing something together.

You feel bonded, you feel close, and that's not wrong, but that's just under common grace. All men have some of that, but all Christians have this new love, this deeper love, this agape. Now it's important to know as we read this apostle of love, John, that he wasn't always that way. Matter of fact, in Luke chapter nine, Jesus told the apostles to go and get ready for the Lord's table and they're going through Samaria and they're looking for some help and the Samaritans reject to help them because they found out they were going to Jerusalem and knocked them out of Gerizines. The Samaritans said, you got to worship on Gerizines.

So they wouldn't do that. And so John's response to us, well, you just want us just to call down fire from heaven and just kill every one of them. That's why John was called one of the sons of thunder.

He just had fire and retribution and indignation, if you will, in his bones. But isn't it something that after God saves you, he begins to humble you. He begins to tenderize you. You begin to see more of your sin and not so much of other folks' sins.

Well, that's what I'm convinced happened to John. He's talking about now the agape love that is so prevalent and evident among all of us. First of all, Roman number one in our outline, he says, this is an old commandment. He says it very clearly there, verse seven, beloved, I'm not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment. Now here we have the same concept I've talked so much about this morning, where something is under the old covenant and the law, but it's also applicable, brought to its maturity in the New Testament church and in the new covenant. We had the seed of it in the Old Testament, the fruit of it, if you will, now in the New Testament and in the church. Under the old law, the Bible said in Deuteronomy 6 five, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Then Leviticus 19 18, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Then in Mark 12, Jesus said, these two commandments from the Old Testament are the summation of all the law.

He said, if you've got those two, you've really got it all. Love God with all your heart, soul and might, and love your neighbor as yourself. He said, if you'll do really do those two, then you've covered all that God expects of you. I'm just gonna read this in Mark 12, verses 28 through 34, should be on your screen, matter of fact. And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing and recognizing this, he had answered them well, asked him, what commandment is the foremost of all? And Jesus answered, the foremost is, hero Israel, the Lord your God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Verse 31, the second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. I'll just stop right there.

Those wrap up basically everything. So the commandments that were given from the beginning of Revelation through Moses, contain the central or the foundational commandments that we walk in as the New Testament church today, to love God and to love each other. But now remember, they come to their full fruition under the light of New Testament Revelation.

We really begin to grasp what it's about. And the real thing that should jump out at us and it's going to come out over and over again is that no longer is it an external commandment, it's an internal reality. The seed of this kind of love has been miraculously put in me at the new birth by the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 13 now, verses eight through 10. Notice what Paul says here. Oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor, notice this, has fulfilled the law. For this you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, it's summed up in this saying, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So the Apostle Paul repeats the same type thing.

The entire law of God is summed up if you'll honor those two commandments. Think about a couple of, a mom and a dad wake up in the morning and the dad looks over at the mom and says, well, the alarm clocks go off. Baby, you know what the law says? We're going to have to feed these kids today. You know what the law says? We're going to have to clothe them right and we're going to have to get them to school.

There's a truancy law. And so because the law requires it, we're just going to have to go ahead and take care of our kids today. Well, there's no decent mom or dad in the world that's ever had that conversation. No, they wake up in the morning and there's a love for that baby. There's a love for that child. And so they do what the law requires, but they do it because they already love them. And aren't you glad in our culture that God's placed that kind of love out there in common grace among all people?

And still so very, very many fail at that. It's, boy, I don't want to chase this rabbit too far, but I see these things about how many starving children are in America today. And every time I see that, that X number of children are going to go to bed hungry tonight, if they hadn't been fed tonight, I would say, where is their mom and dad?

And bless the Lord, who is holding them accountable? We don't have a starving children problem. We got a parental problem. And those parents ought to be locked in jail somewhere, figure of speech or beaten with a rod until they took care of their own children. My point is that's just against nature.

They don't have to have the grace of God and the word of God. God made human beings to know better than that. All right, I'm not going to chase that any further.

All right, we talked about that. Well, the point is that in the New Testament, the emphasis is not on the rule, on the law. The emphasis is on the love that now resides in our hearts.

We are changed and we are different. And that's the way it is for loving parents. They don't worry about what the law says about taking care of their children.

They're going to take care of their children. When we genuinely love one another, we naturally don't steal from them. The law says, thou shalt not steal, but if I love you, I'm just not going to steal from you. I think about it being a law. The law says, do not lie.

Don't bear false witness against your neighbor. But I don't think about it being a law. If I love you, I'm not going to do that and hurt you. The law says, don't murder somebody. Well, I don't have to worry about that being a law. If I love you, I'm not going to hurt you, much less murder you.

We don't even think about it. And that's why the Bible says, when you are a Christian and you're born again, we are to 12 times in the New Testament love one another because all of God's law is taken care of when we walk in that kind of love. The point is we're not to just act as if we love one another. We do love one another. And you know, as we get back together and I see you again and we get to hang out here for a couple hours this Sunday, and I see you again, there's just a bonding of affection in my heart for you.

And I haven't done anything with most of you in forever as far as grilling a hamburger, hanging out somewhere. That's not the kind of love we're talking about. The world has that kind of love.

We have a spiritual connection in our Lord that God has given us. So I don't have to say, okay, what's the law say that I'm supposed to do for these people at Grace Life Church? No, I love you and you should love me and I believe you do, at least you act like you do. So if you don't, you're faking it pretty doggone well, all right?

Thank you for faking it that way if you are. So it's an old commandment. John says it's under the old law, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, love your neighbors yourself and that sums up just about everything. And then that's exactly what is expected in the new. Now, there's some aspects of it being new that I'm gonna elaborate on.

We've already hit on it, but I'm gonna elaborate on. But first one is it's new and actualization. That is, this is not some new philosophy we are adopting. It's not a new teaching we are attaching ourselves to.

Listen to me. We believe in experiential religion. Something has to have happened in you and to you.

This is not just about your head getting some new information, though that is essential. The gospel comes through the mind and you must grasp the basics of it. But as the gospel comes through the mind, there is a work of the Spirit of God that changes the heart. So that's why I'm asking you again this evening, on this Sunday evening, have you had a heart change? Has something changed in you? At least it's the seed of new desire of love and connecting to God's people and God's church real in you.

Or do you just attend because that's a habit you've been passed down or has been passed down to you from your mom and dad and grandmother and granddaddy and on back? Well, that's a good tradition. But the key is you have to be born again. I've said it a million times, but they asked John Wesley one time, why everywhere you go, John Wesley, now he's preaching to the old, cold, dead Anglican church. They sprinkled their babies and called them all church members.

And they were all lost, practically speaking. So he's preaching to Anglicans and he would keep thundering and thundering and thundering. You must be born again. Have you been changed by the gospel? Have you experienced a repentance of sin and a new faithing in Jesus Christ? They said, John Wesley, why do you keep saying you must be born again? You know the answer, don't you?

I've told you a million times. John Wesley said, because you must be born again. And that's where John's getting to here. This is actually true.

It's actually existing in reality. Now, before we're born again, we're dead. Before you're saved, you're dead. Now, you know what happens when you give a commandment to a dead man?

Nothing. You can just command a dead man all you want. I can sit up here and just scream at you, love one another, love the truth, love the church, love those who are born again. And if you're spiritually dead and have been regenerative of the spirit, you just can't do it. Now, you can fake it. You can be nice and try.

God don't want you to just be nice and try. He wants you to possess it in actualization. So in the New Testament's new because the emphasis is you've been changed in your heart.

Actually, what we're seeing in our world today and what's been going on in so-called liberal theology, they shouldn't say liberal theology because the liberals teach non-theology. But what they've taught through the year is, is that our forever is, is that if we can just teach people to love each other, teach people to be kind, teach people to be caring, we can just have this new utopian civilization. Problem is, you can't change the heart with that. You just put a little polish and veneer on the outside and the old dead man, the old self-consumed dead man is still there on the inside. The unloveliness and unloving fruit of being a spiritual dead man is still there. Listen to Titus 3, 3 as it sort of describes what we all are before Christ changes us. We also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lust and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

That sounds like today's news, doesn't it? Hateful and hating one another. We've got a police officer doing a vile and wicked and hateful thing to a man. And then we have mobs all over our country doing hateful things and hating one another.

Now, when the Bible says that's kind of what characterizes us, that doesn't mean that every single person expresses it out the same way, but it's in there. That's what's in there. Y'all remember Junior Hill? Little skinny evangelist, you know what I'm talking about? Junior Hill? Junior Hill is funny.

I mean, he's funny. And this is a long, long time ago. I mean, the world has gotten a lot filthier since he told this. But he said, this is years ago, Junior Hill said, I just learned there's a phone number you can call and you pay them to talk dirty to you. Y'all remember that when that started up years ago? And then Junior Hill said, he said, you become a Baptist preacher and people talk dirty to you for nothing. That's what he said. And you know what?

What's funny about it is it's true. And my point is you can put on a lot of religion and a lot of facades, and if the heart hadn't been changed, you're still hateful and hating. You can still be mean and vile and wicked and a whole lot of things just with an outward veneer or cosmetic of religion on your life.

Good Southern Baptist, Southern flavor to that cosmetic. So all people don't necessarily manifest this evil perfectly or consistently or the same way, but it's there, it's in the heart. But now the regenerate person has this new agape in actualization. And that's what's new.

We get to live out something. I'm not saying that it didn't exist in the old, but it wasn't the foundation of their covenant and their religion. It's new for us under the new covenant.

Matter of fact, are you listening to me? You are not allowed to join Christ Church until you've had this change. It's the responsibility of God's elders to make sure no one is admitted into Christ Church until Christ has added them, until they show good biblical evidence that the Spirit has wrought repentance in their hearts and faith in Jesus Christ. And that's part of the sweetness and the love and the specialness of grace life at the shows. Decades ago, we started learning, we got to do this right.

Now, you'd never arrive at it, but we ought to be serious about it. And we ought to love our babies enough and our grandbabies enough not to run them through the motions and throw them on a church roll. We ought to love them enough to work with them and pray for them and preach to them and teach them until they can tell us, yes, preacher, yes, mom and dad, I have had this change in my heart. And by the way, there's no greater mark, there's no greater evidence of the new birth than you love the people of God. Now, I'm not talking about the average Southern Baptist Church.

Let me just be honest and clear. It might be hard to love the average Southern Baptist Church if you are born again. I'm talking about when you get with a group of true children of God, there's just some, there's just an attachment, a drawing to them and a love for them that's beyond natural. And so John is writing here, that's what we have. We have it in actualization.

Let's see. Look at it there in verse eight. On the other hand, I'm writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him, here it is, and it's true in you.

It's actually true in you. The Bible says in Romans 5, 5, the love of God's been shed or brought in our hearts. When I love this one, 1 Thessalonians 4, 9, we're taught of God to love one another. God comes in you and nobody, now it is to be taught and verbalized and reminded and challenged, but there's something in you that already wants you to love other Christians. You know, I wouldn't convert it until I became a young man.

I was 19 years of age and I came to faith in Jesus Christ and I come from a fellowship, an orientation that was radically un-Christian. And almost immediately, I'm drawn to a different group of people. It's just the strangest thing. Wonderfully strange.

I'm so glad I got to experience that. And maybe for you, you've learned to love the people of the church and so when the new birth happens, it's not maybe as radical to you, but it ought to be as real to you. It's new in actualization. We're taught of God to love one another. I wrote this down in my notes. The body of Christ has a divine love anointing. That's why they called their early Lord supper a love feast. Look, here's the beautiful thing about it.

And boy, I tell you this, when I see this, it just makes me sick in my stomach. A lot of churches today call worldly emotionalism and worldly sentimentality, even sensualities, they call that Christian love. And it's not.

It's not. Now, our emotions do get involved, but that's not the base of it. My point is that's all they've got to have is a gushy sentimental nonsense. We have a deeper Christ truth love for each other. And that's the basis in the center of our love.

Well, it's real in actualization, but he also says there it's new. It's true in him in verse eight. I think the point is we saw in Jesus Christ, the pinnacle, the perfect demonstration of this love. We actually have it now, but he fully demonstrated it before us. The life of Jesus showed something to this world no other age had ever known. They saw perfect love lived out before them.

The four gospels show him living a life of genuine love in some of the most difficult of circumstances. Remember the woman at the well, as Jesus took the time to talk to her, and Jesus said to her, why would you give me any time? You're not even supposed to speak to me.

You're not even supposed to be seen around me. She's a Samaritan woman. They were considered unclean. He was a Jew and he was a man.

So various reasons there why in that culture of that day, you just didn't do that. But Jesus welcomed her. He talked to her. He said, why don't you give me some of that water? She said, you don't have anything to dip with. He said, yeah, but you don't understand something. I want you to have some living water.

If you'll drink of the living water I can give you, you'll never thirst again. What was Jesus doing? He was loving that dear woman.

He was showing the love for her. Remember the woman called in adultery. They were gonna stone her and Jesus stopped the mob from stoning her. Said, who's not sinned?

You can cast the first stone. And then he said, woman, where's all your accusers? And she said, well, they're all gone.

He said, now you go and sin no more. See, love includes loving someone enough to tell them the truth. Love means heaven. See how agape is different than sentimentality, emotionalism?

Just emotionalism and sentimentality would just hug their neck. Said, they were trying to do an awful thing till you go ahead. Jesus said, look, what they were gonna do to you was evil, but you gotta understand, you're a sinner too, and you need forgiveness. That's the greatest thing you can tell somebody. That's loving. Surely help them with their need, of course.

But also tell them the truth about the condition of their heart and their need for a Savior. Think about his love for the 12. How much he put up with these guys. Remember the time they're arguing about who's gonna be the greatest in the kingdom? He had to live through that stuff, and he still loved them. We've already talked about the sons of thunder who wanted to bring down fire from heaven and destroy those who weren't on track with them. We all know about Peter denying the Lord three times, and when Jesus told the disciples of going to the cross, it was Peter that said, you're not going to the cross. God forbid it, Lord, was what Peter said, but he still loved them.

Doubting Thomas, but he still loved them. The lowliest could weep at his feet. He would meet old Nicodemus at night.

Nicodemus was ashamed to meet him in the daytime. He held children. He comforted those women who were weeping as he went to the cross.

He just lived a life of love. He even loved his enemies on the cross. He said, Father, forgive them.

They know not what they do. In his words, in his life, he was the perfect example of the commandment. He was the demonstration. It was true in him.

But now, wait a minute. What's the pinnacle illustration of his love? The centerpiece that all of his love hinges on, dying on the cross for his elect. And so that's when Jesus says, as I've loved you, love one another, Jesus loves all mankind. And there's a sense in which anyone who will turn and believe on him, he would save them. But there is a specific covenant personal love he had when he stretched down his hands and died personally, specifically for his own. And now when he changes us, that agape love, we love all mankind. We ought to be able to love all mankind better than any other mankind can love all mankind. But there is a special love one for another within the church. And Jesus demonstrated that by dying on the cross. And I think that is the primary truth in Ephesians chapter five when it says, husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church. It means she's your one and only.

You love her exclusively to the exclusion of others. You see, if your theology is right, the Bible makes sense. If your theology is right, the Bible makes sense. Well, he was the demonstration of it. It was true in him. And then of course it says also it was true in you. You can live out what he lived out. And you know, we're all, I don't want to say it that way. We are all in the immature stages and the perfecting stages of living this out.

He was already fully demonstrating it. In verse eight, he says something interesting there. The last part he says, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Christians have the truth of God in them and they have the true love of God in them and it just needs to keep shining more and more and more and more. That's why you need to have your prayer life on track and your Bible study life on track and sit under the preaching of the Word of God and we need one another in small groups and hopefully we can get that back going before long. We need to sharpen each other.

Why? To kindle the flame of the light of God in our hearts. It shines out from us. It's true, it's there.

It's just not bursting forth to the degree that it ought to be yet. So all of us are growing out of the darkness and we're growing to increasingly walk in the light and be the light and be the true children of God in the world. Look at verse nine, if you will.

He elaborates on this. The one who says he is in the light and yet hates or detests his brother is in the darkness until now. And I believe nine, 10, 11 refers to the professing Christian who doesn't know God.

I don't know how you could know God. How in the world? How in the world could you be a true Christian and have an ever abiding detesting of another Christian?

Can't do it. The irreconcilable, having an irreconcilable nature is a fruit of the flesh. Now we can stumble into that. You just can't walk in that as a child of God. Now I'll just be honest. There are some children of God I enjoy to be around more than others. Now don't look at me spiritual.

You too. There's some that you just enjoy, but to detest them? To detest them?

I don't mean to get on this over and over again, but what that officer did to that dear man with his knee on that guy's neck? How can he have such a detesting spirit? And I'm not talking about Christian to Christian now. That's what John's talking about. How can that be?

I can tell you how one reads how it could be. He doesn't know God. He's no child of God.

He's not born again. But you know, isn't that humbling? The old story is told. I forgot which one of the Nazi war criminals was brought into court, and one of the prosecutors was sitting there, and as that man walked into court and sat down, one of the prosecuting attorneys just bowed his head and wept and wept. Later someone asked him, said, why wouldn't that murderous tyrant that slaughtered so many Jews and did all those evil atrocities, why when he walked into the room, did you just break down? He said, because I looked at his face and he's just a guy. He's just like a regular human being.

He said, I could see myself. And that's the thing that ought to humble all of us apart from the grace of God. We could do just about anything. We need a Savior, amen? And by the way, we got one.

We got one! Almighty, powerful, all loving, ever keeping, ever securing, wonderful, faithful Savior, listen to me, that saves me from me, hallelujah. And take an old hating, detestable heart and make it a loving, sweet and kind heart, especially for the family of God, but for all men, for all men. You see, it's impossible to be in fellowship with the Father and be out of fellowship with another believer at the same time.

Did you hear that? I don't know that it affects any of you. If any of you sitting here right now and know somebody in the church and say, I just wouldn't be around them, I can't stand to be around them, I'm telling you, you have a serious spiritual heart problem. If nothing else, you know what you can do? You can hang, nail yourself to a cross and say, I'm gonna die to myself and love them anyway.

Amen! I'm gonna die to myself and love them anyway. That's what my Savior did for me. And if He died for them, why can't I die and love them anyway? I'm standing here in my 39th plus year pastoring, don't tell me there's not times when you just said, I'm gonna love brother Jeff anyway. I know you've had to, now some of you got huge smiles on your face. I know that makes me a little paranoid.

I won't sleep tonight. And I've done that for some of you. I love them anyway. Because God's changed our, you just can't go on and claim to be in fellowship with God and be out of fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. Now there are those who claim that and that's what he's talking about. He said, there's folks around y'all that's claiming they walk in the light, they know God, but they have this detestable love for others. He goes on in verses 10, 11, the one who loves his brother abides in the light. There's no cause for stumbling in him, but the one who hates his brother, which again is an oxymoron.

You just can't do that. If you're a Christian, he said the one who hates his brother, I believe in the spirit of the text, you could say the one who professes that he's a brother and yet hates another brother is really in the darkness and walks in the darkness. And he didn't know where he's going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. There are those who, now look, there always be those and brothers and sisters, some of them can quote scripture. They're intellectual. They can talk theological things. They can be impressive. I mean, and you're just woo and ah, and they're just, they must be the best Christians in the world, but they have a detestable hate in their heart for somebody or even for the church in general, which proves everything they're about is a phony.

It's all a phony. Actually, they're claiming to be Gnostics. We have a higher level of understanding. We're so knowledgeable and we're so smart and we're so intellectual about the things of God. We're kind of exempt from those lower things like loving one another. Well, give me folks that are not intellectual and high brows and full of word salads when they talk, but just love God and love the church. That's where John's getting to here. And be careful that we don't cover busy religious activities in the place of loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. Matter of fact, where is it? Matthew chapter 5.

It should be on your screen, 23 and 24. Therefore, if you're presenting your offering at the altar and there remember your brother has something against you, leave the offering there before the altar and go. Be reconciled to your brother.

Then come and present your offering. Now, Christians can have disputes. Christians can be at odds with each other. We can hurt each other's feelings, but you know what we've got to do? We've got to get over it and reconcile.

We've got to get back together. Some of them will be listening. They'll just have to listen, but we have a church that we've worked with for years. We've got a lot of churches we've worked with for years, and some of the leadership in the church decided they just couldn't get along with anybody. They just had to split up.

It makes me want to just beat them with a rod. What do you mean can't get along together? Did somebody deny the deity of Jesus Christ? Is somebody rejecting the authority of scripture? Has somebody viciously committed adultery?

Is somebody else to spy on me? No, we just kind of disagree about that. I don't like the way he says that, and I don't like the way he does that. Well, bless your little heart. Grow up. Die to yourself. This is the church. It's the bride of Christ.

It's the reputation of God in the community. Get over it and love each other anyway. Nonsense of men in leadership can't get along. Like the little school girls in junior high.

Little fussy stuff. Am I making myself clear? We're just not going to do that kind of stuff. We're just going to humble ourselves and love each other. Look, I wouldn't abandon my responsibilities to the sheep of this church if every one of my elders was driving me insane. I'm just not going to abandon my calling.

And by the way, they don't drive me insane. They're wonderful brothers who are kind and gracious and a blessing to my soul. And there might have been one or two along the way that were difficult, but that's not the way it is today. You can't walk in the darkness. You can't detest a brother and say, I just can't be around this guy and claim to me you know Jesus Christ.

Not going to happen. Not going to float with me nor the Word of God. Okay, I'll move on. John Bakley says here, the believer who has this kind of detestation or hate in his heart for another brother claims he's in the light, but he's blinded by his hate. He can't see. He thinks he's a spiritual giant.

And actually he can't even focus well. He's walking in hatred and he's walking in darkness and he hurts others. So he talks about, what does he say?

They stumble here. How does he word it? Verse 11, but the one who hates his brothers in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he's going, he don't even know where he's going.

He's stumbling around. Verse 10 is where it says that, he said, if you love your brother, you abide in the light and there's no cause for stumbling in you. You see, love makes us all stepping stones for others to go up higher in their spirituality, to go up higher in their ministry and their service and their love for Christ. Love makes us stepping stones, but hate makes you a stumbling stone.

Stumbling stone to your brother. If a group of hating believers, I would like to say hating professing believers, get together, they think they're lifting one another up, but all they're doing is stumbling over each other in the dark. All right, let's get positive for a minute. 1 Peter 4.8 tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. I meditated on that a while this week. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Is that not one of the sweetest things you've ever heard? Of course, it centers in our Lord Jesus. Did His love not cover a multitude of sins, covered the wrath for all of our sins, the judgment for all of our sins?

In the same way, when we are walking in the agape that He's put in us, not walking like just a worldling out there, but like a real Christian, then we will have the pattern of not exposing and shaming and condemning, we'll have the pattern of even covering sin. Now obviously, we're not talking about terrible, scandalous evils, but more the sins you and I seem to find ourselves committing day by day. Don't bear a grudge.

As a child of God, heaven help us. Can I just tell you the taproot of not loving your brother or sister? Can I tell you the taproot of jealousy? Can I tell you the taproot of having angst against another? You love yourself.

You don't love your brother. And you think you're God, the fourth person of the Godhead, so if they did something to bother you, then the world's come to an end. Can I? I've got something to tell you. You just ain't all that important. You're just not that valuable.

You're just like the rest of us. You're just a sinner saved by grace. And you can learn if God's in you to let it go, forgive it, cover it and go on. Well, love covers a multitude of sins. Three thoughts about this. Number one, it forgives and it forgets it. It forgives and it forgets it. Remember 1 Corinthians 13, 5, love does not take into account a wrong suffered.

Now think about that. Love, literally that word take into account means to take an inventory. You know what they do when they take inventory in a store?

They count up exactly the score, exactly what they have and don't have, and then they file it away and they can pull it up any time and find out exactly what the score is. Love does not do that. Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. Love lets it go as if it never happened.

They just don't pull it back up. Now I've had people kind of tell me, well, that's just the way I was raised. I was raised kind of dog eat dog. You better make sure your rights are honored. You better make sure you're not done wrong. Well, if you've been raised that way, that's terrible, but you're responsible after you're converted to begin to learn to let it go. Don't take into account a wrong suffered.

Don't take inventory and file it away. Forgive and forget. Number two, love comes with multitude of sins means we pray for God to cover it. We see something in a brother or sister, and we're not just brother rebuker all of a sudden. We pray for God to say, Lord, just help that brother sister see that. Help them work through that. Help them to overcome that. So it doesn't have to become any kind of a public issue. Thirdly, if necessary, humbly and privately, we help them through it.

Humbly and privately, we help them through it. We cover sin because God covers ours, and we never enjoy publicizing the sin of another. Beautiful picture of this is Genesis chapter nine, verse 23. Noah has gotten off the ark, and he's acting a fool. He's gotten drunk, and he's laid down shamefully naked, no clothes on. Maybe it's naked.

It's naked in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. And in, now that's shameful enough, but in a Jewish concept, there's a vile spiritual uncleanness to that. Ham was just going to shame his daddy. What does the Bible say? Verse 23, Genesis 9, but Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both of their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father's nakedness. In other words, we're just not going to bring things out in the public.

We're not going to make a noise of things. We're not going to shame a brother unless love requires it. And most of the time, it does sometimes, but most of the time it doesn't. Love covers a multitude of sins. So, is there something in you that's drawn to what I just taught? And by the way, not just tonight, but any time this book's faithfully taught, there's something that's drawn to that. Even when it convicts us and we say, thank you, Lord, I need to repent some there, and I need to walk better in that. Or do you need tonight to call on Jesus to be your Lord and Savior? Do you need to know that He's changed you? He's forgiven you. The Spirit of God lives in your heart.