Stirring Up One Another To Love
The Christian Bond • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 56 viewsNotes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
Throughout God’s holy writ we find the perpetual idea of “stirring up one another” in the hopes of helping each other achieve the ultimate prize, our inheritance in heaven.
In fact God created the church of Christ for the purpose of knowing there were like minded people all over the world want you and I and ever other child of God to make it to heaven with our eternal God.
In the great letter to the Hebrew Christians we find these brethren struggling with the inevitabilities of living godly lives.
They were so persecuted by their fellow Jews that they were considering leaving Christ for Judaism again.
It’s in this struggle God inspired this writer to remind these brethren of not only what they were giving up but how to “stir each other up” in the process.
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Today there is still only one way to fully “stir each other up to love and good works” as God desires and that is through assembling together for worship.
The assembling is much more than worshiping our God, through while worship is going on it is our focus, it is motivating each other to first love and second good works.
It’s that love part I want us to focus in on today.
How does assembling to worship each time “stir us up to love?”
Every time we gather together to worship “our God” we are reminded…
We’re Family
We’re Family
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
Adopted Children.
Adopted Children.
When we obeyed the great gospel of our Lord and Savior we were added to the church of Christ by Christ himself.
47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
At the same time as that is taking place we were also being adopted into the family of God, to be his children.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
This means we, all those that have obeyed God’s plan of salvation, are…
Brothers & Sisters.
Brothers & Sisters.
No matter our backgrounds, skin colors, past, or economics we are all brothers and sisters as children of God.
46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Why would God go through all the trouble of bring so many people with different likes, dislikes, hobbies, and backgrounds into his family?
It’s simple, our father’s love drove him to created this family, to be united by his love, and to ultimately know our him better through our interactions and love of each other.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Summary
Summary
This message of “loving one another” has been heard from the beginning (1 John 3:11; 2 John 5) because it has its source from God who is love. Love is what created us, and love is what made us a family.
Every time we gather together to worship our God, we remember we are family and are stirred up to love each other and our God.
How else does assembling to worship each time “stir us up to love?”
Every time we gather together to worship “our God” we are reminded…
Growth Is Needed
Growth Is Needed
12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Stagnate Love.
Stagnate Love.
It’s unfortunate but a reality, we can grow stagnate in our love for each other and thus our love for God.
Now, the foundation of this is based in a misunderstanding of what love is, as we have discussed many times in the past.
Many believe love is the emotion that propels us to each other but that isn’t true and is the reason you hear couples, and others say things like “we have fallen ‘out of love’ with each other.”
The reality is love is an action with emotions being the byproduct.
That is why husbands & wives must “train” how to love each other and parents must “train” how to love their children.
4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children,
Understanding this reality makes it easy to see why love can become stagnate in the local church.
First, because those that are new to the family must be trained to love their brothers and sisters in Christ and if not trained they never learn what biblically loving each other is all about.
Secondly, because, as time moves forward, people have a tendency to slow down in their actions and because of this they grow stagnate in their love for each other.
Because we all know these dangers, it is vital we understand the powerful potential of the…
Unrestrained Love.
Unrestrained Love.
This love is not stagnate but zealous and is always increasing and abounding.
3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.
How is this love attainable?
It’s attainable by loving our brethren so much that we strive to be first in honoring them.
10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Summary
Summary
Love that is not growing towards one another and God is love that stagnate.
We must remove the restraints of human ideology and embrace the unrestrained love that can increase and abound for our fellow brothers and sisters all the more.
Conclusion
Conclusion
We assemble at every opportunity because we cannot wait to not only worship our God whom we love but we can’t wait to do it with our brothers and sisters because of our great love for them.
To stir up one another to love means understanding we are all a family and that our love for each other should never grow stagnate but rather be unrestrained to climb the highest mountain of brother love possible.
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.