Now, before you delve into this chapter, you can just stay here in Philippians 2.
I'm going to read two verses here in John chapter 15, famous verses.
John 15 verses 12 and 13.
The Bible says,
This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
So Jesus Christ shows us that it's a commandment of God that we love one another as he loved
us.
Now in verse number 13, he says,
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
And this would obviously be true, that if you were willing to die for someone, that
is a great show of love.
But you know, God is commanding us to love as he did.
Most likely, I'm probably not going to have to die for somebody in this room.
But I can still fulfill this commandment in the Bible to love as God loved us and as Jesus
loved us.
Now, Philippians chapter 2, and we're going to go back to these verses later on.
Philippians chapter 2, I think, does a great job of explaining this.
Now if you go to verse number 2, the Bible says in Philippians chapter 2,
Fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord
of one mind.
And two things in here I want to look at.
Like minded and having the same love.
Now if you jump down to verse number 5, it says,
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
So the Bible talks about us having the same mind.
We should have the same love as Jesus Christ.
We look at verse number 3, it says, Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in
lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
When you think about being lowly in mind, you're thinking about being humble.
Not being prideful and thinking you're something really special.
But being lowly in mind, being humble, and see that's what Jesus Christ did.
Now obviously Jesus Christ is perfect.
He had no sin, but he still made himself lowly in mind.
He humbled himself.
He became a man and died for us.
He was God in the flesh.
Boy, we ran into a lot of Jehovah's Witness today in this passage they need to read.
Because Jesus Christ clearly was God in the flesh, but he humbled himself, was lowly in
mind, and he came and he died for us.
And the Bible tells us that we ought to be like that.
We ought to be lowly in mind and esteem other better than themselves.
Now to understand what he's saying, esteem other better than themselves, let's look at
the next verse to really get this in context of what he's saying.
It says, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
And then it says, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
See when Jesus came here, he did not come to have a bunch of people minister to him.
He came to serve and to minister to other people.
And the Bible talks about if you're going to be the greatest in the kingdom, you're
going to be a servant unto all.
You're not just going to have people come down like you're the pope and come down and
kiss your toe.
No, you're going to be a servant to everybody else and to minister to everybody else.
And see, that is the example of having the love that God showed to us, how he humbled
himself and he laid down his life for us and not just in the flesh, but his whole life.
I mean, you see times when he spent the whole night in prayer, he spent his life trying
to win people to the Lord.
And you know what?
We need to have that same love in our lives.
We need to quit looking at the things of ourselves and look on the things of other people.
You see, when we go soul winning like we've done the last couple of days, nobody in this
room can say that they always want to go soul winning.
There are times that we go out of just plain duty, but the reason why we do it is because
other people are more important than ourselves.
I mean, hell is a literal place of fire.
And when we go soul winning, that's showing that we're looking at other people as being
more important than what we want.
I guarantee you, Pastor Burzins has not always wanted to preach your own son.
Sometimes he's probably woken up and said, I just want to sleep today.
But you know what?
And some people in here, he said, I don't want to go to church today.
But the bottom line is this, if you care more about other people, you're going to fulfill
your duty and minister unto other people.
And that's what God commands us to do.
This is the commandment of God.
This is not just, well, if you want to lay down your life for other people and spend
your life being devoted to other people.
No, it's the commandment of God to have that love that he had for us.
And see, that's what the Bible says here.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
We live in a society where it's all about me.
It's like Christmastime sort of mentality.
What can I get?
But truly, it is better to give than to receive.
But everybody is just concerned about their own things.
They don't care about the things of God.
They don't care about the things of Jesus Christ.
I mean, very few Christians have even read the Bible cover to cover.
I mean, if you really cared about the things of God, you'd be reading the Bible every day.
Because God commands us to read therein all the days of thy life.
God commands us to read his Bible every day, to pray every day, to go sowing, to be devoted
to church, to win people to the Lord.
That's what God commands us to do.
How many people are actually doing that?
There are not very many Christians who are doing that.
I mean, if there are more Christians doing it, there'd be a lot more saved people.
But most people just care about their own things.
They don't care about the things of other people.
And they don't care about the things of Jesus Christ or of God.
They care about their own things.
But God commands us to show the same love to one another.
We ought to care about other people more than ourselves.
One example might be, maybe on a Saturday you finally have a time to relax, and then
all of a sudden you get a call from someone that someone at the church has to be at the
hospital or something.
You know what you should probably do?
You should probably visit that person at the hospital on that Saturday.
Is that what you want to do?
Maybe it's not what you want to do.
Maybe it's not what you plan to do.
But if you care more about them than yourself, what are you going to do?
You're going to lay down your life.
You're going to look on their things rather than your own things.
It shows the next several verses talking about what Jesus Christ did for us, how he died
for us.
He made the payment.
Going down to verse number 20 in this chapter, it says, this is Paul speaking, he says,
For I have no man like-minded who will naturally care for your state.
For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.
You see, that's what Paul dealt with in that day.
That's what we deal with in this day.
There's hardly anybody who really cares about other people more than themselves.
Everybody cares about themselves.
I mean, being devoted to church, it takes time.
It takes effort.
It is not easy.
I mean, just on this trip alone, getting to talk to the couple pastors at Faithful Word
and here, just seeing how they've laid down their lives and how much work it takes to
be a pastor, it's a tough job.
There's not many people that are able and are actually fulfilling that.
All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.
This church just was in the news just here about this article which we talked about this
morning about how at Faithful Word, Pastor Anderson preached a completely doctrinally
sound sermon against the homos and showed what the Bible said.
He defended him just like the Bible says, a friend loveth at all times.
Even if you would disagree with another independent Baptist pastor, how would you have the go
to go out in public and criticize them publicly?
You ought to defend them.
If your friend's down, even if they messed up, you still defend them.
You don't just bail on them at that moment.
Citing with the sodomites over a soul winner, I mean, that's crazy.
And that's what independent Baptist pastors are doing.
In the Philippines, some independent Baptist pastors preached against the Pope and a lot
of independent Baptist criticized them for that, for preaching against the Pope, who
is a completely wicked man, a wicked religion, and people came out and criticized those ones
that stood up and preached the truth.
That's the world that we live in today where the independent fundamental Baptist pastors
are so weak, they're not real men, they're not standing up for the truth, and they're
showing they have no love when they just bail on their friends and don't stand up for the
Word of God.
They don't care about the things of God at all.
And when you think about this, you know, this church has been around for about a year and
a half.
You know, it'd be very easy to just tone down the sermons, and you'd get a lot more people
to come.
You wouldn't get people that love God to come, but you'd get more people to come.
And you could get people that would start tithing, and you could have a really cushy
job then.
You could quit your secular job.
You don't even have to go soul winning, because if you go soul winning, that would make people
in the congregation feel guilty, you know, that there's a soul winning program.
So you can quit soul winning, just preach positive only sermons, and you'd have this
place packed out.
You'd have a nice, easy job, and you could still call yourself an independent fundamental
Baptist church, because that's the way most of the churches are.
You could still call yourself a Baptist church and a Baptist pastor and pretend like you're
godly and everybody will worship you, but you know what?
You're not standing up for the true things of God, and you're showing you have no love
because you're concerned about yourself rather than other people.
You know, and this right here, this is a great church.
It might be small in number, but we still went soul winning yesterday and today, and
this room, people are just unified together.
And they care about the things of God, and that is what matters.
This is a church that wants to serve God and is showing love.
The article basically said this is a hate church, but you know what?
If you were going to bail on a pastor that you're friends with because you disagreed
on something, that would be showing hate.
The Bible says a friend loveth at all times.
It would be very easy to bail on them because you're worried about offending other people
or you're worried about what people will think about you, but you know what?
The Bible says a friend loveth at all times.
Even when it will get you in trouble in the media, even when people will get mad at you,
a friend loveth at all times.
We need to show that we have this love.
We live in a day-to-day where very few people are actually qualified to be pastors.
They kind of stop at the commandment, well, you're married and you have a couple kids.
That doesn't make you qualified to be a pastor.
You know, the Bible says a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, not self-willed,
not soon angry, not giving to wine, no striker, not giving filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality,
a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, tempered.
I mean, there's a lot of things to fulfill.
You know, people are too lazy to show that sort of love because the Bible talks about
labor of love.
It's work to show this sort of love and people are too lazy to fulfill the qualifications
and now it's just people are starting churches and without being sent out because they're
really not qualified and they're just starting their own churches and that is just not biblical.
Okay?
I mean, if your pastor doesn't respect you enough to start a church, you're not meant
to start a church.
You should go somewhere else then, you know, where someone you can learn from and be trained
from and then go out and start a church, but I mean, that's the world we live in today
because people are not meeting the qualifications of having that love.
We're just trying to lessen the qualifications, but we need to have men and women as well
to stand up and to show the sort of love that God commands us to have.
It says in John 15, which I read earlier, verses 12 and 13,
This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Yeah, there's a very true meaning.
Obviously, we know what Jesus Christ did, but there's also a symbolic reference here
of laying down your life for your friends.
The same thing we saw in Philippians 2, where basically you esteem them better than yourself.
You look on their things as being more important than your own things.
You lay down your life for your friends.
You value them more than yourself.
That is how we can fulfill this of having the love that God showed for us.
In John chapter 13, you can turn there if you want to look at a couple references there.
John chapter 13.
I do find this kind of interesting that looking for this sermon, preparing it,
the book that really talks about love the most is John.
And John's also the book that tells you how to get to heaven better than any other book.
And when someone first gets saved, the best place to start them in is the book of John,
I believe, because it really confirms how salvation is just a free gift.
It's just interesting how it shows you how to get to heaven,
and it talks about having love, you know, more than any other book.
But in John 13, looking at verse number 13, the Bible says,
Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say, Well, for so I am.
If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet.
For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you.
So we see here that Jesus Christ truly did a humbling thing.
Now, here's an example where he's showing love, not just that he died for us.
In his whole life, he showed love.
I mean, when you think about washing someone's feet, it's kind of a degrading thing to think.
It's not the sort of thing I would want to do.
You know, just want to wash someone's feet.
That is truly being humble to go down, bend on your knees and to wash their dirty feet.
I mean, feet get pretty dirty.
I know God talks about how beautiful the feet are, but honestly, they can get pretty dirty.
OK, but I mean, Jesus Christ did that.
And he says, I've given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you.
And this is the same sort of thing of looking on someone else as opposed to yourself.
If you go later on into this chapter in verse number 34, it says,
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have loved one to another.
So it's the same thing that we're talking about in this sermon about biblical love.
Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou?
Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now,
but thou shalt follow me afterwards.
Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?
I will lay down my life for thy sake.
You see the similar wording here about love and laying down my life?
And Peter seems to understand this.
Now, obviously, we know that Peter did screw up, but he seemed to understand this
about how he's like, I'm willing to lay down my life.
He's like, I'm willing to show my love.
I would be willing to die for you.
I'd be willing to lay down my life, do anything for you.
Now, we know he obviously failed, but that shows us the example here of,
and we're going to go back to this story later on,
but it shows the example of what love is, laying down your life,
caring about someone else more than yourself.
You see, the world's philosophies are wrong in everything.
The world wants to make you think it's all about a feeling.
Love is not just some feeling that you get.
You watch, I mean, if you see the movies of Hollywood
and you listen to this music, they make love all about just this feeling.
But you know, the Bible talks about the labor of love.
It's not just some feeling that you get.
Feelings come and go, okay?
I mean, you have a feeling like today,
you feel like I really want to read the Bible and serve the Lord.
The next day, you might not have that feeling, but you still need to do it.
And see, that's the thing. Love is not just an empty feeling.
I'm going to blow through a lot of verses here
that shows whenever it talks about God loving us and Jesus loving us,
there's always action applied to it right afterwards.
It's amazing how many times.
But I'm going to quickly read you Romans 12, 9, and 10.
The Bible says, let love be without dissimulation.
Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good.
Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love
and honor, preferring one another.
So the Bible talks about let love be without dissimulation.
You know, I do believe it is important to tell people how you feel
because we're going to see a lot of examples where God tells us he loves us.
And as men, especially, we should not be afraid to tell people our feelings
or tell people we're praying for them.
We shouldn't be a phony.
We shouldn't just give flattering words and be fake,
which the Bible shows us.
But we shouldn't be afraid to tell our feelings.
But love is not just, you know, words or just a feeling.
It says, with brotherly love and honor, preferring one another.
We should care about someone else more than our own selves.
That's the theme throughout this entire Bible.
When we see love, there's action associated,
caring about someone else more than your own self.
The Bible reads in 1 John 3,
and you can try to keep up with me if you want,
but I'm going to go through a lot of verses.
1 John 3, verses 16 through 18.
So we're talking here about the love of God.
You see, right after it talks about the love of God,
it says he laid down his life for us.
There's always action associated.
It's not just empty words.
It's not just fake words.
He shows us through his actions he laid down his life for us.
And it tells us we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Once again, the same thing
that it says in verse number 17.
But whoso hath this world's good,
and seeth his brother have need,
and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him,
how dwelleth the love of God in him?
My little children, let us not love in word,
neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
It's not saying, well, we should never tell people
that we care about them or love them
when it says neither in word, neither in tongue.
But what it's saying is,
you know, it needs to be in deed and in truth.
It needs to be real.
There needs to be action associated.
You can say that you love people all day,
but when someone actually has a real need
and you bail on them and you don't help them out,
that proves that you were lying
and that you were fake when you said that you loved them.
There's a lot of people that say they love God,
but they never do anything to serve the Lord.
They never try to get anybody saved.
They never read the Bible, but they have this feeling.
I mean, every man's way is right in his own eyes.
Everybody thinks that they love God.
Everybody would say, oh yeah, I'm a good person.
I love other people.
But where is the action associated?
Because if there is no action, then it's not real.
It's fake.
The Bible says we should love in deed and in truth.
We shouldn't be a phony.
There needs to be action associated
just like there always is when it talks about God loving us.
The next chapter, 1 John 4, verses nine and 10,
in this was manifested the love of God toward us,
because that God sent his only begotten Son
into the world that we might live through him.
Once again, the love of God,
and it talks about Jesus dying for us.
Here in his love, not that we love God,
but that he loved us and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins.
There is always action.
I mean, Jesus loves us and he died for us.
They're always associated.
So many verses.
Later on in the chapter, in 1 John 4, 19,
we love him because he first loved us,
because he died for us.
That is the reason why we love him
because of what he did for us.
Romans 5, eight is a very common soul-winning verse
that people use.
It reads, but God commended his love toward us,
in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Once again, God's love and Christ died for us.
Once again, they're tied together.
Galatians 2, 20, I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
And the life which I now live in the flesh,
I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.
Once again, he loves us and he died for us.
He gave himself for us.
Says in Ephesians 5, two,
and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us
and hath given himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling Savior.
Revelation 1, five, and from Jesus Christ,
who is the faithful witness
and the first begotten of the dead
and the prince of the kings of the earth,
unto him that loved us and washed us
from our sins in his own blood.
John 3, 16, for God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but of everlasting life.
So whenever, and you could go on and on with these verses,
but whenever you see Jesus loving us,
God loved us, he died for us.
There's action associated.
It's not just empty words like the world wants to tell you
that it's just about a feeling.
There's always action associated with love.
You can turn to Hebrews chapter six, verse 10, if you want.
Now, I quoted this verse earlier,
and I just blew through a lot of verses showing
about how Jesus loved us,
and I'm gonna show you some other verses
that talk about love not just being a feeling.
Because I'm sure that these pastors out here
who have bailed on the truth and don't preach the truth,
I'm sure that they would say that they love God,
and I'm sure they think they do love God.
But you know what?
If there's no action associated, then they don't love God.
I mean, we can see through someone's actions
whether or not it's true.
I mean, just think about this law.
If somebody said that they love to go running, okay,
let's just say for an example, they love to go running,
and you're like, oh, that's cool.
How often do you go running?
And you're like, well, I went about four months ago.
Do you think they really love running?
No, because there's no action to prove that.
And honestly, this is something to really think about
because when I wrote this sermon,
I started to think about the things,
and I think we should do that as well,
to think about the things that we would say that we love.
And I'm not just saying we love God,
we love God, we love God, we love God,
I'm just saying we love God, we love soul winning,
we love the Bible, but also family that you love,
or even hobbies you love, like whether it's running
or playing basketball or hunting or whatever it is.
And think in your own mind,
is there action associated with that?
I mean, do you really love that?
I mean, do you spend more time on Facebook
than you do with your spouse?
I mean, think about it,
because action proves whether or not you love something.
Do you spend more time watching movies
than going soul winning?
Do you spend more time with listening to music
than you do praying?
I mean, your action is gonna prove what you really love.
Obviously, as men, we go out, we work hard,
we oftentimes work a lot of overtime,
but in our free time, what do we meditate on?
What do we spend our time doing?
I mean, if you spend your whole time meditating
on the presidential election, what do you really love?
What do you really care about?
Do you love the things of God or do you love politics?
What do you love?
There needs to be action associated.
That's what the Bible shows us.
We need to really think about the things we love,
because honestly, there's a lot of things
that I thought in my mind, and I say,
you know what, some of my priorities are wrong.
Some of the things that I would say I love,
I do not spend as much time on as I do other things,
and that proves that I don't love this
as much as I love this, or I don't love this at all.
And honestly, and this is a tough thing.
I mean, when you think about all the things of God,
it is tough to say that you, every day,
that you really love reading the Bible,
you love praying, you love going soul winning.
That is what God commands us to do, though.
You know, it is tough.
It's tough living the Christian life.
I mean, it's as easy as drinking a glass of water
to be saved, that's what the Bible says.
But to live the Christian life, that's not easy.
And God wants us every day to strive to get better
and better, and to show the love that he had for us.
Hebrews 6, 10, the Bible reads,
For God is not unrighteous to forget your work
and labor of love, which he have showed toward his name,
in that ye have ministered to the saints and do minister.
So once again, we see this example, labor of love,
how you minister, how you serve to other people,
rather than them serving you.
That is showing how you love other people
and how you really care for them when you're a servant,
when you minister to them.
1 John 5, verses two through four, the Bible reads,
By this we know that we love the children of God,
when we love God and keep his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments,
and his commandments are not grievous.
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world,
and this is the victory that overcometh the world,
and even our faith.
So the Bible talks about loving God
and talks about keeping his commandments.
Now you might say, no, how does that tie in
to caring about someone else more than yourself?
It was actually explained very well in the morning sermon,
because here's the thing,
whenever you break one of God's commandments,
you're showing a few things.
Like if you lie, you're basically showing
that you care more about saving yourself
or doing something for yourself,
rather than obeying God's commandment,
not to bear false witness.
And whenever you sin, you harm the people around you.
You look at this throughout the Bible,
people that sinned,
even when they got right with God afterwards,
they harmed the people around them.
And that is what sin does.
So when you sin, you're basically caring about yourself
more than other people around you,
more than people that you know.
You look at David in the Bible,
he's maybe the best example of this.
Obviously he committed adultery with Bathsheba.
He's responsible for killing Uriah.
The Bible says he killed him,
even though he didn't physically,
even though he wasn't physically the one who did it,
he was responsible, the Bible said.
And David did get right with God.
You know, he was already saved, obviously.
I mean, Ray Comfort said that he wasn't saved at this point,
which is ridiculous, it's stupid.
But I mean, David got right with God
when Nathan came to him.
And even though he got right with God,
there were still repercussions.
There are a lot of terrible things that happened to David
throughout his life.
He harmed a lot of people because in that moment,
he cared more about himself than he did about other people.
You see, when you break God's commandments,
what you have to realize is
you are harming other people that you know.
You are harming the people that you say that you love
and the people that love you.
You're basically showing you care more about yourself
than other people.
And that is why when we break God's commandments,
we're showing we're not really having the love of God
at that moment.
We're showing we don't really love God.
We don't love our fellow man whom we're harming.
No, we need to obey God's commandments.
We need to care about other people
rather than our own things.
You mean the Bible says in John 14, 15,
it says, if ye love me, keep my commandments.
I use this first sometimes, soul winning,
when I show people, it doesn't say to be saved,
keep my commandments.
It says, if ye love me, keep my commandments.
Most people that are saved,
honestly, they don't really love God that much
because they hardly do anything for God
in their entire lives.
I wish that wasn't the case, but it's true.
Most people that are saved, they don't really love God.
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
That's what the Bible says.
In the same chapter, going down to verse 24,
he that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings.
And the word which ye hear is not mine,
but the Father's which sent me.
So once again, it shows us that if we love God,
we're gonna keep his sayings,
we're gonna keep his commandments,
we're gonna keep his word.
Deuteronomy 5, 10, it says,
and showing mercy unto thousands of them
that love me and keep my commandments.
So you see how these things are tied together as well.
If we love God, if we love our fellow man,
we're gonna keep God's commandments,
we're gonna obey his rules.
Now I wanna look at just a couple examples
of people in the Bible who really did show
the love of God in their lives in a great way.
Turn to 1 Samuel chapter 18.
I feel like as Christians,
and I used to kinda have this attitude,
I feel like sometimes we look at the characters
in the Bible and we think, I could never be an Elijah.
I could never be a David.
I could never be that good of a Christian.
All the greatest Christians who ever lived
have already passed on and are up in heaven.
But I don't believe that's true for one second.
I believe you can be a great Christian in today's world.
Now obviously you might not have the impact
of someone like David or Elijah
who did obviously great things,
but it doesn't mean you can't become
as good of a Christian as they were.
And you can still do great things in today's world.
It's not just like the spots are filled
and you could never be like Daniel.
You could be like Daniel if you chose
to care about other people more than yourself.
If you chose to lay down your life for your friends
and look on other people's lives
as being more important than your own,
then you could be just as great as Daniel was in the Bible.
And honestly, there's so many spots open.
I mean, if you decide to serve God,
God's gonna use you in a great way
because there's not many people doing it.
I mean, God is gonna find a way to use you in a great way.
You don't have to promote yourself.
You don't have to worry about God will use you
in a great way because if you really love God,
how many people out there really love God?
There's not a whole lot of people
that are laying down their lives
and choosing to really love God.
If you choose to love God,
you are gonna have opportunities to do great things for God.
In 1 Samuel 18, the Bible reads,
And it came to pass,
when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul,
that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
And Saul took him that day and would let him go
no more home to his father's house.
Then Jonathan and David made a covenant
because he loved him as his own soul.
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him
and gave it to David and his garments,
even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle.
I wanted to go back to the story to show you
that we can have this sort of love as well.
It's not just this one person.
I wanna show you someone who was able to do this
because I'm preaching a hard sermon.
I mean, you think I'm preaching on biblical love,
it's gonna be a Joel Osteen sort of sermon.
No, I mean, I'm showing you what the Bible says about it.
I mean, honestly, it steps on my toes quite a bit as well
because I'm just like, man, I really need to step up
how I care about other people more
to really show the love of God.
But we see here Jonathan, Jonathan was the son of King Saul.
King Saul wanted Jonathan to be the next leader,
to be the next king.
He wanted to promote him.
And Jonathan was a great man.
He had done a lot of great things in the Bible.
He was a great military man.
And the Bible says in verse number one
that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
We see here an example of the Bible
where Jonathan really cares about David.
He really respects him and loves him as a person.
And I believe this is probably the greatest example
of friendship between two people in the Bible
is Jonathan and David.
We see here that in verse number three,
then Jonathan and David made a covenant
because he loved him as his own soul.
So we see here that Jonathan truly loved David.
In verse number four, there's a lot of symbolism here
that we can look at.
See, the New Testament is a lot clearer.
In the Old Testament, there's a lot of symbolism
that we need to look at.
Verse number four, Jonathan stripped himself
of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David
and his garments, even to his sword
and to his bow and to his girdle.
See, this is a great example showing that with love,
you're laying down your own life.
You're caring about other people,
looking not on your own things, but the things of others.
Isn't that what Jonathan did here with David?
He basically said, you know what?
You're the next guy, David.
He's like, I'm gonna humble myself.
Here's my sword, here's my garments, here's my bow.
You can see here how he really looked at David
as being just as important.
He laid down his life for David.
He looked on the things of David rather than his own self.
You could go on and on.
You could preach a whole sermon
just between the love of Jonathan and David.
Jonathan steps in on David's behalf.
King Saul actually tries to kill Jonathan
in a fit of rage at one point.
And Jonathan steps in for David and he still steps in.
He never bails on him.
Jonathan still is there defending David
to the very, very end,
because he really did care about David.
He really showed the love of David.
It would be very easy at that point
when your dad tries to kill you to say,
okay, all right, you can kill David now.
I'd rather, you know, I don't die.
Because Saul tries to kill him in a fit of rage
and Jonathan's still stuck by David.
And yet in today's world,
they want you to bail on a pastor for preaching,
just what the Bible says in Leviticus 20, 13.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
We see here that Jonathan defended him
to the point where he was willing to be killed.
Now, honestly, that would be a tough thing to do,
because I mentioned earlier in my sermon,
you're probably not gonna have to lay down your life
and physically die for someone.
But see, Jonathan, in this story,
he's willing to do that when you read these chapters.
And we ought to be willing to care so much
about other people that we would be willing to die for them.
And see, Jonathan, we see,
shows us this great example of love in the Bible.
You know, I was gonna mention two other people
for sake of time, I'm gonna skip on them.
I was gonna mention Paul,
which in Romans 9, three, I'll just read the verse.
It says, for I could wish that myself were accursed
from Christ for my brethren,
my kinsmen according to the flesh.
I mean, you see Paul here, people that tried to kill him,
and yet he said he could wish himself
were accursed from Christ.
That is amazing.
I mean, if someone told me that they would be willing
to be accursed from Christ, I wouldn't believe them.
But it's in the Bible.
I mean, it's true, this is what Paul said.
It's amazing the love he showed.
You look at Moses in the Bible,
people who tried to kill him,
and God said, I will wipe them all out.
And actually, I am gonna turn to this one.
If you wanna turn to Exodus 32,
I show you this example with Moses, Exodus 32.
And Moses did this many times,
how he stepped in for other people.
We're just gonna look at one example here.
But in Moses chapter 32, starting at verse 30, it says,
and it came to pass on the morrow
that Moses said unto the people,
ye have sinned a great sin,
and now I will go up unto the Lord,
peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
Now, this is after that they've worshiped the golden calf,
and it says in verse 31,
and Moses returned unto the Lord and said,
O this people have sinned a great sin
and have made them gods of gold.
Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin,
and if not, blot me, I pray thee out of thy book
which thou hast written.
And the Lord said unto Moses,
whosoever hath sinned against me,
him will I blot out of my book.
We see other examples of Moses,
I can think of one off the top of my head,
where he said he was gonna wipe out every single person
and start over with Moses,
and Moses steps in on behalf of the people
that over and over again were ready to kill him.
Honestly, do I think I would be willing
to do that in that situation?
I don't know that I would,
but that shows the example of the love that Moses had,
and we're no different than Moses.
I mean, and we in the New Testament,
we have the entire word of God.
There's not gonna be anything added to this book.
We have the entire word of God.
We're indwelled with the Holy Spirit,
and we can still in today's world
have the Spirit come upon us to preach with boldness
and to do great things for God.
I mean, honestly, we should be doing greater things
in today's world.
We have the entire Bible to read.
So I mean, it's not like you can never be like Moses.
We can do great things for God.
Turn to John chapter 21.
We're gonna go back to the story I mentioned earlier
with Peter and kind of show the end of this
and how it ties together.
In John chapter 21, looking at verse number 15,
just look at the three verses.
So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter,
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?
He saith unto them, Yea, Lord,
thou knowest that I love thee.
He saith unto them, Feed my lambs.
He saith to him again the second time,
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
He saith unto them, Yea, Lord,
thou knowest that I love thee.
He saith unto them, Feed my sheep.
He saith unto them the third time,
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
Peter was grieved because he had said unto him
the third time, Lovest thou me?
And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love thee.
Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
It's interesting, many, many years ago
I heard a few sermons on this
and every independent Baptist pastor I heard preach on this
who was supposedly King James only
went back to the Greek and said,
well, let's figure out why on the third time
Simon was grieved and they said,
well, this is a different version of love and everything.
You don't need to go back to the Greek
to understand the Bible.
What you need to do is understand the Bible better.
If you don't understand the Bible
and you feel like you need to go back to the Greek,
then you need to not preach on it
until you actually understand the passage.
But remember the story earlier,
how many times did Peter deny Jesus?
Three times.
And so the first time he says it to Peter,
the second time he says it to Peter,
and then the third time Peter's grieved.
Why?
Probably because he thought back to the time
that he denied Jesus three times.
And you notice when he says all these times,
love is thou me.
And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things.
This is Peter speaking, thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love thee.
Jesus saith unto him, feed my sheep.
What is Jesus telling Peter?
He's basically saying if you truly do love me,
then show it through your actions.
Don't just say you love me like you did earlier.
Actually show it through your actions,
because if you truly do love me,
there is gonna be action associated with that.
It's not just a feeling.
He says, feed my sheep.
And that goes way back to Philippians 2
and all the verses we looked at
about how you're basically caring about other people
more than your own self.
You're looking on the things of others
rather than the things of yourself.
Now, I mentioned earlier how we oughta look
at the things in our life,
the things that we would say that we love
and how does our action really show
that we really love the things that we talk about.
But I wanna give you,
because basically this sermon,
even though it's about biblical love,
this has really been a sermon reproving and rebuking, okay?
Most of it's been kind of negative saying,
do you really love this?
Do you really love that?
And I do think we should think about that.
Do we really love our spouse or our parents or our kids
like we oughta do?
Do we love God like we should?
Do we love reading the Bible?
But you know what, there is an answer to this, okay?
Because here's the thing,
if you've listened to this sermon
and in your mind you're thinking now,
everything you've said is true,
love implies action and everything,
but I just don't feel like I love reading the Bible.
I just don't love, I don't feel like I love praying.
Well see, here's the thing though.
If that's kind of what you're thinking,
you've kind of missed the point of the sermon
because love is not a feeling, okay?
Love is action.
I wanna look at one last verse
and I'm gonna have you turn there to Matthew 6 21.
And you can honestly preach a whole sermon on this,
but I wanna make sure I exhort you.
I wanna give you the answer to this problem.
Let's say you've come up with something
you've thought in your head,
boy, I don't love this as much as I should.
I wanna show you a fix in the Bible, okay?
The Bible reads in Matthew 6 21,
for where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also.
Now a lot of people would apply this just to money
and honestly that would be true.
If you invest a lot of money into something,
you're gonna care about it.
I mean, if you bought a car for like $500,
you probably don't care that much if it gets smashed.
If you spend a lot of money on a car,
you're gonna really care about that car
being in good shape, right?
Where you've spent your money,
that's what you're gonna care about.
That's what your heart's gonna really care about.
But you can also look at this in terms of
what you've invested your time and your energy into.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Now this can be a good or a bad thing.
We've talked about the music that's stuck in our heads,
just fellowshipping,
and honestly that's where it can be a bad thing
because we've invested a lot of time into wrong music
in the past before we lived for God.
And honestly, our heart was so far that direction
that it's still partially that direction
when we hear those songs
and we hear those movies
and people make those jokes and everything.
We've invested so much of our energy and time
and our cares into that
that our heart is still partially to that direction.
But see, this can also be a great thing as well.
Because let's say, for example, you say,
well, I don't love reading the Bible
like I ought to read the Bible.
You know what the answer is?
Read the Bible more.
I mean, it's not a complicated answer.
If you read the Bible more,
if you invest your energy into that,
your heart is gonna follow.
That's what the Bible teaches.
And I can attribute this in my own life.
I can say in terms of different areas of living for the Lord,
the first thing I feel like I really loved was soul winning.
Just for me personally,
I really just didn't wanna see people go to hell.
But honestly, for a long time,
I don't think I really loved reading the Bible.
Now, maybe I would have said I loved reading the Bible
back then, but I don't think my actions really showed it.
And since that time,
I've slowly bumped up to more reading and more reading.
And honestly, I read now more.
Like the start of this year,
I bumped up my reading to another level.
I read more than I ever have.
And honestly, a lot of times I get done
with my reading early.
And when I get five free minutes,
I'm like, oh, let me just read Obadiah or some short book.
I just wanna read more
because my heart has followed that direction.
You say, I don't pray, I don't love praying.
Invest more time into it.
I don't love my fellow church member.
Pray for that person.
Think about them, talk to them, get to know them,
and you're gonna care more about that person.
So you can apply those things to God
and also the fellow person in your life.
If you invest time into someone
or invest time into something of God,
you're gonna care more about it.
And the great thing about God is
the way things work with God,
that the more time you spend soul winning,
the more you care about it.
See, when you watch movies,
they can get old after a while,
even though our heart's down that direction.
They can get old.
But the more you do the things of God,
the more you care about them,
the more you love doing them.
They get better with time.
And so, see, that's the answer.
The Bible says, for where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also.
You see, love is not just a feeling.
There is action associated with love.
It talks about the labor of love.
It talks about laying down your life.
And if there's an area in your life
where you feel like you don't love correctly,
you don't have those emotions of loving,
reading the Bible, or caring about someone else,
invest more time into that person
and your heart will follow.
Let's close in a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father,
thank you for allowing us to be here this evening.
I just ask you to help us to remember these words
and to apply these things in our lives
to show the sort of love that you've showed to us
and that you command us to have.
We just pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.