53. CovenantCommunityLivingc

Covenant Community Living – Intentional Love

Introduction: In studying this passage I noticed something. And as I reflected back on reading through the Bible it confirmed what I had noticed in these verses. I was shocked. All the titles of many of the latest books in Christian books store seem to revolve around the same general thing but it isn’t the message of these verses or of the Bible generally with titles like ‘Your Best Life Now’, ‘How to be Happier 7 Days a Week’, ‘The New You’, and ‘Power Thoughts’ to name a few. No, these verses stand in contrast. This living in the covenant community is not about me. Not about my happiness, not about my best life now, and certainly not about power thoughts. No, this is the exact opposite. This is all about others. The words one another occur three times within these 5 verses. One might even think that God was trying to tell us something. It is about me in so far as I am commanded, but make no mistake. This is not about glory for ourselves it is all about the glory of God.

1Pe 4:7-11  The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.  (8)  Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.  (9)  Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.  (10)  As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:  (11)  whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

There are 4 Points

The Primacy of Love

The Consistency of Love

The Intensity of Love

The Efficacy of Love

First let us define what love this is:

Love Defined: - Agape love is that love which is given without merit and seeks the highest good in the one that is loved. It is a love that has no earthly origin. It is the love which God has for His people and it is this love, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, that people of God have for one another.

Rom 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Love Described – It’s Characteristics

1Co 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, (5) does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, (6) does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; (7) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love’s Foundation

How then are we to do that? What does it mean to love. We must look at the foundation of our love as beloved children 1 Peter 2:11. In the natural order of things parenting skills are handed down to their children. Have you ever noticed a particular trait in a child and wondered where they got only to see the child’s parent? The same principle is at work in us as children of God. As we learn and grow in our faith we come to understand in greater and greater measures the love of our Father. I cannot count how many times I have been wrathful with my kids only to be held in check by the grace of God shown to me. When we see, and have experienced firsthand the agape love shown to us by God, it enables us to love others the same way. We have confidence in the unfailing love of the Triune God towards us and it is freeing! There is no longer the angst of someone getting something that we don’t have. We know where we came from and what our ultimate destination is just as Jesus did.

Joh 13:1-5 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. (2) During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, (3) Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, (4) *got up from supper, and *laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. (5) Then He *poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

- we like Christ have the assurance that we have come forth from God and we will be going to God.

The Primacy of Love

We see this in Peter’s usage of ‘above all’. These words would cause the attentive reader or listener to move to the edge of their seat, leaning forward to hear the next words spoken as this letter is being read before the church. Above all points us to the elevated nature of the next commands to spoken. Above all sets apart as unique. It moves to the position of highest priority. What it does not mean that it is to the exclusion of all the others. And so, it must be for us also. For Christ also elevated and prioritized this command to love when He summarized the whole Law and Prophets in two commands. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body and soul and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus goes further in

Joh 13:34-35  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  (35)  "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

The letter of 1 John thrust is love of the brethren such that it is determinative of a person’s salvation. 1Jn 3:10  By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

1Jn 4:20  If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

The greatest example we have of the primacy of Love is the Love of God for His people. The bible quite clearly teaches that God is love. There is no one attribute that stands above the other. Each are infinite and holy. But it is the love of God directed toward His people which causes Him to act on their behalf. For from His love flows grace and mercy. God’s grace is getting from God what we don’t deserve in our salvation. Mercy is the withholding of God of what we do deserve- His judgement. We see the primacy of God’s love because it is that which is directed toward us. It is because of His love that He has caused us to be born again and protected by the power of God for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1Peter 1 It is in His love that He calls us to be holy as He is holy. It is in His love that He has adopted us and made us His children. Romans 8.

So the primacy, the ‘above all’ of this text needs to first and foremost in the mind of His people. It needs to be first and foremost in our minds.

The Consistency of Love - Keep

We see this in the word ‘keep’. Peter has mentioned their love for one another earlier. 1Pe 1:22  Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.

In the following text Jesus is speaking of future times. Mat 24:4-13 And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you. (5) "For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many. (6) "You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. (7) "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. (8) "But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. (9) "Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. (10) "At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. (11) "Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. (12) "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. (13) "But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.

The ability to agape love will grow cold. The imagery is that of a fire going out, the flames slowing dying down to the faint glowing of coals and finally dark, cold. Have you ever been camping in the cold and come back or woke up to a dead fire. You begin blowing on the coals hoping that there might be some spark that would allow another fire to be built but the end result is that ashes are scattered and we are light headed. We have all heard the analogy of the frog in water and as you slowly increase the heat it would never notice the rising temperature and boil to death. But the converse is also true isn’t it?

The love of the end times will be predominately love of self.

2Ti 3:1-5 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. (2) For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, (3) unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, (4) treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (5) holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.

So the Christians love is to stand in direct opposition to the love that is exercised in the world. God’s love for us doesn’t stop at the cross. No, it is displayed in His ever keeping and watching over us. Even know Christ makes intercession for us. That is consistent love. Not based upon the actions of lack therefore but principled, constant and unending.

The Intensity of Love – Fervent

It is not feverish that flashes hot and then wanes. But it is in the present tense meaning that it is to be habitual practice. The habitual practice of what? Fervent literally means to stretch out. It pictures "an intense strain" and unceasing activity which normally involving a degree of intensity and/or perseverance. Think of a sprinter who at the finish line stretches forward. The football player at the goal line stretching his arm out so that the ball might break the plane of the goal line. Peter calls us to a love which is "fully stretched out” or manifested “in an all-out manner, with an intense strain”. Our love must be energetic. Here is a fundamental Christian truth. Christian love is not an easy, sentimental reaction. It demands everything a Christian has of mental and spiritual energy. It means loving the unlovely and the unlovable; it means loving in spite of insult and injury; it means loving when love is not returned.

Who can love like this? Why brethren, we can. We look to Jesus who was stretched out on the cross. He did for sinners, the unlovely and the unlovable. Who are they? They are you and me and all those whom God has appointed for the day of salvation.

The Efficacy of Love – because love covers a multitude of sins.

Those who have drunk deeply from the well of God’s love through Christ in their salvation cannot help the inward praise, the thanksgiving, the amen to this. LOVE covers a multitude of sins. Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. We have this objective, historical display of the fountain of God’s love for His people. Rom 8:32-39  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?  (33)  Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies;  (34)  who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.  (35)  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  (36)  Just as it is written, "FOR THY SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED."  (37)  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.  (38)  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  (39)  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This does not mean that our love covers sin in the sense the person loved is saved. Charles Spurgeon says it well. Spurgeon explains that "It covers them sometimes by not seeing them; for, where there is much love, we are blind to many faults which, otherwise, we might see; we do not exercise the sharpness of criticism which malice would be sure to exercise. Besides that, when love applies herself to prayer, and when, in addition to prayer, she kindly gives admonition to a beloved friend, it often happens that true Christian love does really prevent a multitude of sins. The apostle does not mean that, by loving another person, I shall cover my own sin; nor does he mean that the exercise of charity, in the common acceptation of that word, can cover my sin. But if I have much love to others, I may be the instrument, in the hand of God, for covering many of their sins in one or other of the senses I have mentioned.

In closing I’d like to read a passage and ask a question and make a comment after.

Luk 7:36-47  Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to dine with him. And He entered the Pharisee's house, and reclined at the table.  (37)  And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume,  (38)  and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet, and anointing them with the perfume.  (39)  Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner."  (40)  And Jesus answered and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." And he replied, "Say it, Teacher."  (41)  "A certain moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  (42)  "When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him more?"  (43)  Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And He said to him, "You have judged correctly."  (44)  And turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair.  (45)  "You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet.  (46)  "You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume.  (47)  "For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little."

What is the fervency of our love to Christ? Are we like this woman who loved much, because of her sins which were many were forgiven?

How is that love displayed? Jesus said in His judgement in Matthew 25. Mat 25:44-45  "Then they themselves also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'  (45)  "Then He will answer them, saying, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'

May we so live for Christ and love another that the testimony is they are Christ’s disciples.