(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, so, the title for my sermon this evening is A Little Lesson on Love. A Little Lesson on Love. Obviously, it's going to be a little lesson because there's so much to that topic. Love is just a real broad subject anyways. So I'm going to be hitting on just a few things. First John chapter 4 is an excellent chapter to start with when it comes to just understanding love and love in the Bible. There's many facets to it. It's a huge subject. But we're kind of going to dovetail a little bit off of this morning's sermon and get into some aspects of love that might be a little bit harder, harder preaching, a little bit not quite as common. I think a lot of people have a good understanding of love in many senses. But when the Bible's talking about love, it's never just talking about an emotional feeling. Almost never, I could say. I don't want to be too exclusive on that because I'm thinking Song of Solomon may have some references of love that could be referring to kind of feelings that you have romantically. But in general, when the Bible's talking about love, it's talking about more, has more to do with your actions in your heart, right? And when I say your heart, it's not necessarily like an emotion, right? When you love someone or when you love something, it's demonstrated through your actions. And that's the test of do you truly love someone or something or not. It will be demonstrated through your actions. So the level of love that you have is going to be shown in how you behave. We're going to get into some specifics on that. There's very specific situations that the Bible talks about. You either love someone or you hate someone, and if you do these things, you love them. If you do these things, you hate them. And we're going to see what the Bible teaches about that because you can say that you love someone speaking about an emotion, but you really don't love them at all. There's many people that could say, oh, I'm so in love with this man or that woman or whatever, right? They love each other, but they're just sitting, you know, they're in fornication, right? Because the man says, oh, yeah, I love her. And he's not willing to marry her, but he's willing to have that sinful, wicked relationship that's only going to bring God's chastisement and judgment upon them. You get people saying, oh, I love him, I love her. And you know, so many ways you could say something and you maybe feel something, but your actions are showing otherwise. So we're going to get into some of that. But I want to start with 1 John 4, where the Bible says in verse 7, because this is a little bit different than the world is going to understand love. The Bible says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. And when it says that everyone that loveth is born of God, that means that people who are not born of God, they can't love. You say, wait a minute, what do you mean? According to God's definition of love, that's correct, you can't love. So right off the bat, we see something that might be a little bit outside of how you understand the word love. But as we get into this, I think you'll start to understand. And when the Bible says, and that's why he follows it up in verse number 8, he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. God is love. If you don't have God, you don't have love, because God embodies love. God is love. We preach a lot of hard sermons, and I preach a lot about the destruction and the judgment that's going to come from God and to fear God. And those are all important things, but we don't want to just ignore that God is love also. This is where many people get it, the reason I preach those things is because it's also part of God's nature, it's also part of who God is. Yes, God is love, but God also has wrath. God is also a consuming fire, as the Bible says. And they're not contradictory, the one to the other, it's just that God is more than just single-faceted. God is more complex than just only having one characteristic or one attribute or being one thing. A loving God, and actually, I would say, you can't have all of the aspects of God as judgment and everything else without Him being love. Right? So, when you are love and you're going to love something, there's inherently things that you have to hate. If you love righteousness, you have to hate wickedness. You can't love wickedness and righteousness at the same time, it doesn't even make any sense. If that's the case, it's like you can't add works to salvation, otherwise it all works. You can't add wickedness to righteousness, otherwise it's all wickedness. So if you love righteousness and wickedness, you just love wickedness, is what it boils down to. Because in order to love righteousness, you have to hate the wickedness. In order to love children, you have to hate pedophiles. There's so many things that you cannot combine the two. You have to have one or the other. So, if you, you know, so is the way with God. Right? God is love. In order for us to love, we need to know God. We have to have God in us. Verse 9, the Bible reads, And 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. So this is how God's love was made known. It's how it was manifested to us. And we understand how much God loves us through the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His only begotten Son came to die for us. The Bible says in verse 10, here in His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin. So I started with this because if we're going to start talking about love at all, we need to give the proper respect and honor and understanding of love that it comes from God first and foremost. Any love that we have, we wouldn't have loved if God didn't love us first. We wouldn't be capable of love if God didn't decide to love us first and to give a sacrifice for us and to offer the biggest sacrifice that could possibly be made, the death of His only begotten Son. Chapter 11 says, Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. And this is another profound statement. He just gets done explaining how Christ died for us. And the love that God had for us is not a half-hearted love. It's also not a selfish love, which, I mean, I think that those two are contradictory terms anyways. If you're selfish, you're not very loving. I mean, you love yourself, right? But God loved others, and in order for us to love other people, we can't have a selfish attitude, a selfish mindset. We have to be self-sacrificial, as Jesus Christ was. That is how we ought to love one another. Jumping down here, because we already read most of this chapter before, I want to pick up reading here in verse 17, Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. Verse 18, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth not is not made perfect in love. Now, real quickly, this kind of goes a little bit outside the scope of my sermon, but I wanted to touch on this anyways, because I don't even know if I've preached on this in the past. There's people who will use the argument about fearing God, right? I mean, you see, fearing God is all throughout Scripture. And what they'll say is that, oh, well, you don't really love God, because perfect love casteth out fear. And there's a truth to that, because none of us are perfect in our love towards God, which is why we need to fear God. But people will try to spin this into thinking, like, oh, well, why would you have to fear God? If God loves you, why do you have to fear Him and stuff? Well, we have to fear Him because He loves us, and because we aren't perfect, and because we screw up, and we do sinful things, and we do wicked things, and we do things that are worthy of punishment, and worthy of chastening, and worthy of disciplining. So yeah, we need to fear God. Now, if we had perfect hearts, we would not need to fear God, because being born again, being born in the Spirit, there would be no reason to fear anything. If you just lived perfectly, there would be no reason to fear. And if you did that, you would have perfect love. And basically, you know, the Bible condenses all the commandments into loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself, right? The commandments hang on love. If you love God perfectly, you're going to obey Him, you're going to, you know, not honored or create any idols, or worship any idols, or you take the Lord's name in the name of the Lord in vain, you're not going to do all these things against God, right? You're going to honor God, you're going to respect Him, because you have perfect love for Him. And if you love your neighbor as yourself, if you love other people, then you're not going to do any evil or any harm to them, you're not going to steal from them, you're not going to covet, you're not going to rape, you're not going to murder, you're not going to do all these other things against them. So when you love other people, you fulfill the law. When you love God, you fulfill the law. So when you have perfect love, then you have absolutely nothing to fear. But we don't have perfect love. God has perfect love for us. We don't have perfect love for Him, so guess what? We need to fear. We need to fear God. Now one day, when we don't have this flesh, I think we'll be at a point where we don't have to fear, because we won't have this sinful flesh, and we'll be able to live without being in sin and transgression. But for now, you know, we don't have perfect love, even though that would be the goal. That's what we're striving for. That's what we're working for. Verse 19, of course, again says, we love Him because He first loved us. So the only reason we're capable of loving and loving Him is because He extended His love to us first. And you know, this is a great statement, because this is also true with other people. You know, oftentimes, if you have problems with people and people don't like you, well, if you can extend love to them, then you can make it possible for them to start loving you. And it's a good way of overcoming evil with good. When you have enemies, when you have people that have it out for you, when you can extend love to them, you know, it may be reciprocated just like it is with God. You know, we love Him because He first loved us. Without that, without salvation, without getting the gift of eternal life, people just don't love God. And that's just a fact. That's just what the Bible is saying here. Verse 20 says, if a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he's a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. Now, this is another one of those statements where, you know, many people could say, oh, hey, do you love God? Oh, yeah, I love God. Yeah, I love God. Well, the Bible says if you hate your brother, then you're a liar. You don't really love God. And there's going to be many statements like this we're going to look at where you can say, oh, yeah, I love my son. Oh, I love my spouse. Oh, I love God. But if you weigh that against your own actions, then that's where the truth is going to lie. And you have to examine yourself and see, do I really love God? Flip over to chapter five and first John chapter five, because this is the first point, really is all kind of by way of introduction. We're going to start getting into some some details now about about love and do you really love people? Do you really love God? Bible says in verse number one of first John five, whosoever believe it that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. Look at verse three. For this is the love of God. So people said, do you have a love of God? Do you love God? This is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. A lot of people out there go, Oh, yeah, I love God, I love God, and just living in total wickedness. You know what, they're a liar. They're deceiving themselves at best, right? And I think there are many people who are self deceived, but they still understand that they may think that they love God, but you know what God in God's eyes, which is what matters anyways, they don't love God. Because the Bible says that this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And it makes perfect sense. I mean, if you really do love God, you're going to respect and honor and listen to him. So when God says not to do something, if you truly love him, you won't do it. Or if he says, you need to do this. If you truly love him, you'll do that. If you have that that undying love or a perfect love for God, you will keep his commandments. Flip over to Ephesians chapter five in a similar fashion. We can apply this to marriage, right ladies, you love your husbands, husbands, do you love your wives? If you do, and if you love God, you'll be falling into the pattern and living in such a way that demonstrates this through the Word of God. Verse number 22, Ephesians five, and look, I know we've gone over this passage a bunch of times. This was a Bible memory passage not that long ago for us. But as I mentioned this morning, you know that the preaching on this subject is extremely important in the society we live in today. This is one of those points that needs to be hit more frequently in the society we live today than maybe other times. Because this is backwards in our society. And because I care about your marriages, I care about you, and I want to see people have the best families and the best lives and the best marriages they can, I'm going to keep on hitting on this because I love you. And women or men or whatever, you might not think so, but you know what, this is the Word of God. And if you want to show your love for your spouse, you want to show your love for God, then you ought to submit yourself to what the Bible is saying and show and demonstrate your love for your spouse and for God by falling into this pattern. Verse number 22, Ephesians five, the Bible reads, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. I could go on on this, and I may shortly in another sermon hit on this even more in depth, but just that first statement alone ought to really resonate and sink down deep into how you act within your marriage, wives. Because when it says you're supposed to submit yourselves unto your own husbands, it's showing that he's the authority, that he's the boss in the home. And it says, not only does it say submit yourselves unto your own husbands, it says unto the Lord, which is extreme, right? That is a great high level of submission unto your husband in the home. Now we ought not to just stop and just say, well, okay, he makes the rules, and just I'm going to grit my teeth, and he's the boss. How would you treat a boss and someone who has authority over you? That should permeate everything within your home and how you treat your husband. The level of respect you give him, not just saying, okay, fine, I'll let him make the decision. I'll let him make the decision. Well, you know what? God's given him that authority, and if you're going to truly fill that role of being submissive unto your own husband as the Bible says to do, then you ought to embrace that and show the respect that is due to someone who is your boss and is your authority. Even as unto Christ, the Bible says in verse 23, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body, therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, we are beneath Christ. He is our head. He is our ruler. We listen to Christ in everything, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. And the way that we show our love to God and show our love to Christ is that we obey his commandments. Well, ladies, at home, your husband is your boss, and you ought to be obeying the commandments of your husband. And that's how you're going to show that you truly love them, the same way we show that we truly love God when we obey and keep his commandments. And the same with children in the home as well. You love your parents, they've got rules for you, listen to what they say, and that's going to show whether or not you love them, whether or not you respect them. Well, it doesn't just stop at the wives, obviously. This chapter talks about the husbands and the wives. But I don't even want to say the biggest problem because, you know what, there's a lot of problems with husbands in the home these days as well. It's not just ladies' problems not being able to submit, even though that's a huge problem because this world has just been cramming this women's liberation garbage down people's throats for the past 50, 60, 70 years, at least. No, probably even more than that, I don't know. It's hard to go back and continue further and further beyond my lifespan and people I know. This has just been going on forever, and it's probably not even new here, it's just forever. There's just been this attack against the model that God has given for husbands and wives for men and women. But it's not just with the wives. Look at verse 25, and this specifically is talking about love. The Bible says, husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it. And it's not just, oh yeah, well I'll just say I love my wife, or I tell her I love her, or whatever. The Bible says that you're supposed to love your wife even as Christ also loved the church. He gave Himself for it. He was self-sacrificial. That's what I'm talking about. The self-sacrificial love that He had, husbands, that's the same love that you need to have towards your wife. I mean, you're willing to give of yourself, you're willing to go through pain and suffering and work hard and do all the things that you need to do to support your wife, to help your wife out, to love her and protect her and care for her as the weaker vessel. And I say help her, I'm not talking about that her job is above yours. What I'm saying is to love her, because the Bible says that the wife was made, the woman was made to help meet for the husband. Which is another aspect of marriage that's biblical, is that, you know, the man is the head and is the leader, and that the wife is supposed to be helping. Now look, you can hate that and resist that and fight against that all you want and think that that just sounds terrible and how am I ever supposed to do that, and enjoy the problems that's going to go along in your marriage as a result. Because guaranteed you'll have problems, guaranteed, because you're going against what God designed and against God's will. When you fight against God's will, then you will have problems. I mean, there's just no getting around that. Or you can embrace it and say, even if I don't understand it, and even if it goes against what I've learned and been taught my whole life, because I've had people telling me that I should be this strong woman, and I can do everything that men can do, and I can do all ... How about you say, well, maybe I've been lied to, and I'm going to listen to what the Bible says, and I'm just going to embrace that and embody everything I can. As Sarah did, as used as a good example in Scripture of someone who was a meek and humble and clothed herself with a quiet spirit, ornamented herself with a quiet spirit that's of great price in the sight of God. But husbands need to love your wives, even as Christ loves to love the church and gave Himself for it. Look at verse 26. It says that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Now, there's a love that Christ has for the church of wanting to help the church get out of sin and be glorious and not having spot or wrinkle or all these problems, right? God wants us to get sin out of our life. Well, you know what? Husbands, if you love your wife, you ought to rise to the challenge of being the spiritual leader in the home and not allow the wife to have more biblical knowledge, to be more spiritual than you. Why don't you? Yeah, I know you're going off and working. Why don't you pick up the Bible and read it and study it and be able to teach your wife and be able to help her to become even more spiritual, more better, instead of being bitter against your wife? Oh man, I wish she was more, I wish she was more, I wish she was more, you know, whatever. Why don't you take the time and invest the time as Christ invests in the church to be able to present it to himself, glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it shall be holy and without blemish. And without blemish, he's not talking about physical blemishes, he's talking about spiritual. Take the time, invest the time in your wife, don't just ignore your wife, I mean it's part of loving someone, it's not just saying you love them, it's showing that you love them. Spending time and doing things with your spouse. Look, man, you've got a hard job, you've got a lot of things to do, I understand that, but you still have to spend the time and love your wife. And hopefully you shouldn't have to be commanded to love your wife, you're just going to love her anyways, but even if you need the commandment, it's right here. It's right here. Verse 28 says, so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. And honestly, the reason why these things are being spelled out for us is because we have a sinful human nature that oftentimes will pull us the opposite way. Women have a hard time sometimes being submissive, just because of their sinful flesh, and men sometimes have a hard time loving their wives if they should, because they may get distracted with just a bunch of other things and work and everything else, that they just end up spending no time and not sacrificing anything to be with their wife and spend time. It's because you've got everything else to do and everything else is more important. And when everything else is more important than your wife, you're not showing your wife that you love her very much. And then in verse 33 kind of wraps up this passage, the Bible says in verse 33, nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband. This is how you show your love for your husband or your wife, by falling into these proper roles. Do you really love them? Well, why don't you try to be the best spouse that you can be according to the will of God? That truly will demonstrate your love. And look, nobody's perfect. I will make that statement here, and I don't want you to walk away thinking that I have yet to meet anybody who has the perfect marriage. We are sinful human beings, okay? I don't want people thinking you're a failure or your marriage is a great failure or something. Look, work on it. If you really treat marriage as a marriage, as you ought to, if you made a vow that said till death do us part, guess what, you're in that marriage till death do you part, right? You're in that marriage for a long time. Make it work. Even if you think you're in a big mess right now, make it work. Maybe that mess has just gotten worse and worse over time. You can't expect everything to just flip on a dime and just be great tomorrow. It will take dedication and work and effort, but it's worth it. And keep on going back and revisiting, what can I be doing better? As a husband, what can I be doing better to love my wife? How can I make sacrifices further for my wife that's going to show that I do love her instead of just saying, I love you? And even just buying things, you know, that's not enough. Don't just think you can buy your wife's affection just by getting her necklace or earring or something like that. I'm not saying you can't do that, just, you know, they want your love and affection. They don't want to be bought off. That's what they want deep down inside. They want you to love them. And the, you know, men want to be respected, ladies. Deep down, men want you to recognize and just respect them as the husband in the house, as the man in the house. That's what they want. They want you to do that. So, and that is innate also in the way that God created us. Show your love for your spouse by submitting to God's Word and, hey, maybe it may be kind of hard, but it's worth it. You're invested. And, you know, the Bible says, what God has joined together, let not man divide us under. So don't forget that. You're married to your spouse. God joined you together. You've been joined. You're in a union. It's worth the effort. Make it work. Flip over to Proverbs chapter 13, and I brought this up last week. I think it was last week, was it Wednesday or last week, Sunday? Talking about loving, a little lesson on love, talking about loving your children. There's so many people that'll say, oh, yeah, yeah, I love my children. Oh, but I would never spank them. I would never, oh, man, you're a child abuser. I can't believe you would do something like that. You use a rod. You are horrible. This is the attitude and the mindset of many people these days. Okay? But I'm not going to listen to what the world has to offer. I'm not going to listen to these, you know, psychologists and psychiatrists and these people who say, oh, you're damaging children and all this other stuff. I'm going to get my source of truth from the Scripture and from the Bible. And you know what the Bible says? I don't care how much you say you love your children that you never spank them. The Bible says in Proverbs 13 verse 24, he that spareth his rod hateth his son. That's what the Bible says. The Bible says if you spare your rod, that means you withhold. You're not using the rod on your child. It says you hate your son. I'm going to go with what the Bible says over what you say. You can say you love your children, but the Bible says you don't. The Bible says you actually hate them. But he that loveth them chasteneth him betimes. And that's early. You're getting started early with the discipline and the punishment because you love them. Because you want to correct the behavior as early as possible to get them on the right path as they start veering off this way and this way. You want to keep them. No, no, no. This is the right way. And you know what? That takes effort. There's another area that takes work in your life is to start steering your children right and actually having to get up, stop what you're doing, and I've got to find the rod. No, you're like, do it, okay? And people are laughing because you know it's true because it's not always easy. You don't always want to take the time to do that. But you know what? You need to do it. It's needful for your children. It is. It's needful. They need it. And that just means if you love them, you're going to stop what you're doing. They're going to be an interruption, and you're going to take care of it and correct them and lead them in the right path, and then you continue on with whatever it is you're doing. Yelling is a poor, poor, poor, poor substitute for the rod. Nowhere in Scripture are you going to say, well, when your child does something wrong, yell at them. Now, again, I'm not perfect in this area, so I'm not standing up here as someone who just says, I do everything right. What I am standing up here to is saying is that the Bible is right every time. I try my best as much as hopefully you do too, but you know, this is what Scripture is teaching us. This is what the Bible says, and this is what we need to do. Flip back, if you would, to Leviticus chapter 19. Actually, you know what? I'll read for you. Yeah, go ahead. Leviticus 19. I already told you to go. You're already moving. You're already getting there. Go to Leviticus 19. So we're looking at loving God, loving your spouse, loving your children. How about loving your neighbor? You love your neighbor. Well, there's more to loving your neighbor than just, you know, making cookies for them. Yeah, I'm not saying that's a bad thing to do. It's fine. Go ahead. You know, make something nice or give them a nice gift or something, but that doesn't completely line up with what the Bible is talking about when it comes to loving people. Leviticus 19. Why are we going back to the law? Well, we're talking about love. This is the one part of, oh, yeah, I guess we don't have to, you know, love thy neighbor as thyself that Jesus quoted. Yeah, it was back from the law. We could keep that part, but not all the rest of it surrounding that. Not Leviticus 18 or 20. No way. Leviticus 19. Look at verse number 17, though. This is what the Bible says in verse 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. So when you love someone, you rebuke them and not suffer sin upon him. When people are going down a bad path and going down a wrong path, you know, there's nothing wrong with giving them a rebuke. If you really care about them, you're going to want them not to continue going down that path. And, you know, I preach a lot about this this morning, so I'm not going to go into depth on this point, but, I mean, very clearly, that's what the Bible's teaching right here. You know, rebuke them. Don't suffer sin upon them. If you love them, that's what you're going to do. When you love people, you warn them. You warn them about the danger. You warn them about the trials. And obviously, you use tact. You're not trying to come down as some holier than thou type of person and say how great you are and how horrible they are, but there's obviously ways of talking to people and rebuking them at a particular level to allow them to understand, oh, man, you know, maybe I should change. Maybe I shouldn't do this or that. And you know what? Maybe they won't ever talk to you again, but that's the risk that you run when you love somebody that you're willing to do that. And even at the cost of a relationship, if you really love them, you will do these things. In Proverbs, turn if you go to Romans 13, I'm going to read from Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26, 28 says, a lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it, and a flattering mouth worketh ruin. Oftentimes, people think that lying is actually, oh, I'm lying because I love them. I don't really want them to know the truth. Seriously. It sounds stupid, right? How can you say that you love someone when you're lying to them? But when you're hiding things, oh, I don't want to hurt them. If they knew the truth, it would hurt them too much. You know what? Sometimes the truth hurts, but the Bible says that a lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it. And when you're lying to someone, they're the ones afflicted by it. Okay? Or you're lying about someone, they're the ones that's afflicted by it. Right? You hate that person. You're lying about someone else, you're lying to your spouse, you're lying to someone you love. The Bible says you hate that person. I don't care what you say or what you think, you think you love them. The Bible says you don't. The Bible says you hate them. Romans 13, look at verse number 8. This goes back to what I was talking about earlier, I think this is a little bit out of order. Pardon me for that. Verse number 8 of Romans 13, the Bible says, Owe no man anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment as briefly comprehended in his saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. That's what I was talking about earlier with all of the law hanging on the two great commandments, to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, because love does not work ill to his neighbor. Love is always trying to help people. Now sometimes people perceive your help as not very loving, but we can't worry about that if you really do love somebody. A loving person is going to warn others here, if you would, to Acts chapter 20. Verse number 28 in Acts 20, the Bible reads, Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears. And this is specifically in context here, he's talking to bishops, he's talking to people who are overseers of churches, he's talking to people who have that job and that responsibility of watching out for the flock. And when you love the flock, you're going to call out when there's a wolf. And this is one of those areas where so many people want to say, oh, you're not loving because you're, you know, talking bad about this person, talking bad about, look, it's not talking bad about, it's calling out a wolf. When you're exposing bad, wicked people, you can call that unloving all you want, but you're actually loving the flock. And the reason why I called out, you know, Manly Perry of Old Baptist Church last week, or two weeks ago, whenever it was that I preached that, it's because I love you and I'm trying to warn you about someone who's a wicked person. That's why I did it. It's not because I have so much hate in my heart, no, man, I'm so hateful, and why can't you be more loving? Look, I'm not going to be loving towards a false prophet. I'm not going to be loving. And you know, if you want to slander someone for that, then so be it. But the Apostle Paul is saying here, look, I was warning for three years, night and day, with tears. There's a real big deal that happens when these people who want to draw away disciples after themselves, they come in privily, they sneak in, they creep in, unawares, just to do damage, just to get followers, just to get people after them, and you know what, my job is to look out for these types of people and call it out when I see it. And you know, that's what a loving pastor is going to do. They're going to call out wickedness when they see it, you have to. Otherwise it's not loving, that's the exact opposite. It's funny how the other wicked people that sympathize with the evil people, when they get exposed, they always like to claim that the person calling out the wolf is not loving. I find that amusing and ironic. You have to hate the wolf if you love the people. It's another one of those areas where you can't love one and the other. You got to have a distinction. You can't love God and the devil. Oh, I love God. Oh yeah, I love the devil too. It's insanity. But people have this warped view of love thinking that, well, you can just love everything and love everyone. You can't hate anyone or anything like that. I love asking like, well, so do you love Adolf Hitler? Do you love, you know, Stalin? Do you love these people who are just, you know, horrible people that just slaughtered tons and tons and tons, like do you just love that person? Is that some great person? They're not a great person. Well, do you love them? How could you say you love them, but then, you know, like you love Jeffrey Dahmer, but you also love his victim's families? Did you love the victim? Did you love, you know, well, how could you love both? You can't. It's meaningless. At that point, love just becomes completely meaningless. There's no meaning. It's insanity. It means nothing. I'm going to read for you from Ezekiel 33, say, in Acts chapter 20. Ask yourself the question, do you love your spouse, do you love your children, do you love God, do you love other people, do you love the lost? You know, if you truly love those who Jesus Christ died for, other human beings, then we ought to warn them as well about hell and lead them to Jesus. That was in Ezekiel 33 verse 7, so thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman under the house of Israel. Therefore, thou shalt hear the word of my mouth and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die. If thou does not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. Now, I reference this passage because the Bible sets us up as watchmen, okay? And we're supposed to watch and warn, and when you know that there's evil coming, when you know that there's wickedness coming, it's our responsibility and our duty to warn the same way that it's our responsibility and our duty to reconcile people unto God, that we're ambassadors for Christ, that we have that job, we have a duty knowing full well the judgment of God. It's our job and our duty to go out and warn people about that, and it's the unloving person who's not going to care that people are dying and going to hell. You can say, oh yeah, I love my neighbor as myself, oh yeah, I love them, but if you're not actually warning people about, and here's the thing, the most important thing, the most important thing, of all the things, even, you know, we talk about spouses and children and stuff, you know, they can still be, if you still gave them the gospel, you know, that changes their eternal destination forever if they receive Jesus Christ. You can fail in all those other areas, but when you're failing of just the basic love of showing people how to be saved, what love can you have in you? And you think about, think about it this way, the great sacrifice that Jesus Christ made, yeah, you've accepted it, you've received it, but how vain it is, how much are you minimizing what Christ did when you don't tell anyone else about that? By you not sharing that good news and sharing the gospel and trying to spread that message, it kind of cheapens what He did, and it doesn't cheapen it, the price is still the same, it's, you're treating it like it's nothing. I mean, it's so great for you, why wouldn't you love someone just enough to tell them about it too? Knowing full well that hell is real, knowing full well what God's judgment is going to be, and you can just, oh, but people get uncomfortable when I bring up the Bible or when I bring up Jesus, they're going to be a lot more uncomfortable if they breathe their last breath and wake up in hell. It's worth it to sacrifice relationships in this world, if that is the case, than it is to just never bring up how to be saved, you just never bring up that gift of salvation to someone, and allow them to just go to hell. Because how do you know, maybe you're the minister that God gave them by whom they might believe. Maybe that minister is you. You won't know unless you open up your mouth. The Bible says in Acts 20, look at verse 26, this is the apostle Paul saying, wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Say, look, I know that I'm clean, my hands are clean, because I have, you know, I've been preaching the word of God, and I've not held anything back, and I've just been with you, preaching and preaching and preaching, and you can't blame me for you not knowing, for people not getting saved, or whatever, because I did what I'm supposed to do. And this is the attitude we have, and you know, the apostle Paul is a very loving person. Flip over if you go to 1 John chapter 3, it's the last place to return, just going to wrap it up with this. Just to reinforce one of my opening statements about love not just being a feeling in scripture, but it's backed up by what you do. I mean, we've seen in many places, you know, how you can say that you love someone or something, but it's really not the case based on your actions, based on what you do. First John 3.16, the Bible reads, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. See, that's how we perceive it. We could read all day long that God loves you, but He made it manifest, He made it known, we can perceive that, because He laid down His life for us. He actually did something, He proved His love by God coming to this earth, taking on the form of a man, taking on the form of a servant, and humbled Himself, and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He allowed Himself to be crucified, He took that shame, He shed His blood, His soul went to hell for three days and three nights before raising it again. He did all of that for us, that demonstrates God's love for us, but God commended His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's how we know, that's how we can perceive the love that's always been there, the love that's been there all the time, but He's made it manifest and known through actions, through doing something for us, which is why we love Him, because He first loved us. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world 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 enough to just love in word or in tongue. Anyone can say, oh yeah, I love that person, oh yeah, I love them, oh man, I'm there for you, oh yeah, anything you need, let me know. That's easy. People say that all the time. Where the rubber rips the mode is when someone actually hits you up on that, when you've got a brother in need. Okay, hey, remember when he said, I'm there for you, do what you need, oh yeah, well now is not a really good time, oh yeah, so I can't do that, sorry, I'd like to help you, I can't do it. But you can, just might be a little inconvenient. You demonstrate your love through the inconveniences, right? That's what shows how much you love someone, oh is this really inconvenient, well you must really love that person if you're willing to go through all of this stuff to help them out. That shows your level of love. That makes it known. Now look, you may not love everyone the same, whatever, but just understand that your deeds are actually going to show how much you love someone. And think about that when you say you love people. Do you really? How much do you really love that person? What are you willing to do? In verse 16 it says, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. God gives us the standard of how much we ought to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. We ought to be willing to lay down our life. That could be realizing that the level of love you ought to have for your brother and sister in Christ is one of self-sacrifice of your own life. Let that sink down in how much you ought to love your brothers and sisters in Christ and love your fellow church members and love the people here because that's God's standard. God died for those who would believe on Him and those who would not. God loved the world and sacrificed Himself. Can you at least love other brethren, other spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ with the amount of love that God had towards us, or at least strive for that? To be willing to sacrifice and say, you need something, I'm there for you. And to be a tight-knit, spiritual family. Decide that for yourself. It's up to you. How are you going to love, but just know that it is demonstrated in your actions. And the Bible says, let's not just love in word, but in deed and in truth. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You so much for loving us. Thank You for the unspeakable gift that You've given unto us, Lord. We thank You for all that You do for us, Lord, and even beyond our salvation, which is just incredible in itself. We thank You for bringing us together. Thank You for bringing our church together. Thank You for saving our souls, Lord. We pray that You would please help us to have the right spirit, the right attitude to put away the lusts and desires of our flesh, to love people and love our husbands and love our children and love others, and do the work that's necessary from love. If we truly do love people, we will be inconvenienced by it. We'll allow for that to happen and maybe even find some joy in that, Lord, that we can truly love people enough and take on others' burdens and support the weak and comfort the feeble-minded and do all the things that we're instructed to do, Lord. Help us to love one another as You have loved us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.