Brother Geoff spoke to us last night
about the privileges of the Christian.
And he mentioned to us that privileges
come with responsibilities.
And so I'll be speaking more
on the responsibilities that we have
in the Christian life.
If you'll open your Bibles
to the first letter to the church at Corinth
in chapter 13.
I want to begin by stating a concern that I see.
It's a concern that's repeated in Scripture
in numerous places.
And it's a concern that's prevalent
in the church today.
The concern pointedly is this:
How do we handle our differences
in our local churches?
I have a concern that
we all too often view ourselves
much more spiritually mature
than we really are.
And the evidence of our immaturity
is revealed in our lack of love
towards one another,
demonstrated in how we respond to one another
and handle our differences
in our local churches.
I'm concerned this is especially true
for us in the reformed church
in the area of doctrinal differences
and in the area of how we live out
our convictions in our lives.
Reformed churches and reformed Christians
are known for their focus
and their emphasis on doctrine and truth.
And praise God for that.
That is commendable.
Let me say from the start,
every Christian and every true church
should be known and marked
for their careful attention
to right doctrine.
I mean, after all,
the Scriptures tell us that the church
is a pillar and buttress of truth.
Most of you who are here
in the churches represented here
are in those because you love
doctrine and truth.
You're in those churches
because the pastors of those churches
unashamedly proclaim truth,
uphold truth, and defend truth,
and the whole counsel of God.
Beloved, we should thank God for those pastors.
We should thank God for those churches,
for those Christians
who long for truth,
proclaim truth, and defend truth.
Over the years, I've gotten to know many of you here.
I know that you're a people
who individually study doctrine.
Your desire is to glorify God
and you want to take the truths of Scripture
and apply them in all areas of life
and be ever conformed
to the Word of God for the glory of God.
But we must be careful.
At the same time that we are
in our pursuit of truth,
and the application of truth -
individually and corporately -
as local churches,
that we don't fail to heed
a very important call in Scripture.
And that is to maintain the unity of the Spirit in Christ.
This unity of the Spirit
that we have in Christ is wonderful.
It's what we love to experience
when we gather together
in fellowships like this.
It's that unity of Spirit that we've all had
where maybe we are on a plane trip somewhere
and we sit down next to someone,
and we begin a conversation,
and we feel a bond to them.
We feel a oneness with them,
and as we go further in the conversation,
we begin to realize,
this is a brother or sister in the faith.
And we may not even know their name,
but we love them and we're drawn to them.
We even want to be with them.
This is that oneness of spirit that we have in Christ.
Know this, church,
the church of Jesus Christ
is united together supernaturally.
We are not called in Scripture to create unity.
Do you know that?
We are called in Scripture
to maintain and preserve the unity
that God Himself has created in us.
Maintaining our unity in Christ is vitally important
because the church's unity
is a living witness to the lost world
about the saving and uniting power
of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, through the gospel,
brings together a diverse people -
a people from every nation, tribe,
tongue, and language.
and makes them one in Jesus Christ.
In Christ, we are one body.
We are one spirit.
We have one hope. We have one Lord.
We have one common faith.
We have one common object of our faith
and affection of our hearts
and that is Jesus Christ.
In our churches;
in our families of faith
our unity though is tested.
It's tested in the midst of our diversity.
When I speak of diversity,
I'm not just speaking about
cultural diversity here.
Although, there is cultural diversity.
The diversity I'm speaking about
is the diversity, maybe,
in maturity in Christ.
Or, our growth in the understanding
of truth and doctrine.
Or, the diversity in our convictions
and how we apply the Scriptures
to our lives.
How we live out those understandings.
So what do we do?
Do we just set doctrine aside?
Find the lowest common denominator?
And just rally around that?
Of course not.
Of course that's not what we do.
We do see that happening in some places;
some of the professing churches
who set aside doctrine
for the sake of unity,
which is a fake unity.
But no, we don't set aside doctrine.
Again, the church is the pillar and buttress of truth.
We must all be consistently growing,
understanding, defending,
and proclaiming truth.
We must be conforming to truth
personally in our lives.
We must maintain that unity that we have in Christ
and the witness that we have
to a lost and dying world.
So let me summarize it in one question
and put it before you,
and then try to answer it for us.
How do we as local churches here
with such diversity
maintain our unity in Jesus Christ
while we vigilantly pursue and defend truth.
That's the question I want to put before us today.
And I think Paul in 1 Corinthians 13,
he gives us the answer.
Let's read 1 Corinthians 13.
Please follow along as we read
God's holy and inerrant Word.
"If I speak in the tongues of men
and of angels but have not love,
I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have prophetic powers
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith
so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have
and if I deliver up my body to be burned,
but have not love,
I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind.
Love does not envy or boast.
It is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way.
It is not irritable or resentful.
It does not rejoice at wrongdoing,
but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things;
believes all things; hopes all thing;
endures all things.
Love never fails.
As for prophecies, they will pass away.
As for tongues, they will cease.
As for knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when the perfect comes,
the partial will pass away.
When I was a child,
I spoke like a child;
I thought like a child;
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I gave up childish ways.
For now we see dimly in a mirror,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part,
then I shall know fully
even as I have been fully known.
So now, faith, hope, and love abide
these three,
but the greatest of these is love."
I'll be focusing on verses 1-7,
and I won't even be able to cover them all
in this short period of time.
In verses 1 - 3,
I hope to convince us all
of the essential need for love
in our local churches
in the midst of our differences.
In verses 4 - 7,
we will look at the picture
that Paul paints for us,
which is nothing less than a portrait
of Jesus Christ Himself.
And I believe that we will all
look at this portrait of love;
this portrait of Jesus Christ,
and I think we're all going to see
that we are falling short.
What we will all see is
that the genuineness and the depth
of our love towards one another
may be found lacking.
And I think we're going to discover
that we're not quite as mature
as we think we are.
As Paul said,
when he was a child, he thought like a child.
He reasoned like a child.
He's talking about the maturing process.
Beloved, I think many of us think
that we're men or women,
but by how we handle our differences
in our local churches,
we're proving to still be children.
Well, it's no secret that the answer
to how do we maintain our unity
in Jesus Christ in the midst of our diversity
in our local churches is love.
Before we walk through these verses,
I don't know about you,
but I find it very interesting
that the greatest treatise on love
in the entire Bible
is not written to a man and a woman
standing at an altar with rings in hand
about to exchange vows.
But it's written pointedly
to a local church.
A local church - and we've all read
the book of Corinthians who no doubt
is in the face of diversity;
has some differences.
And the unity that they have supernaturally in Christ,
right now is at stake
in this local church.
And I will tell you, that's true
for all of us sitting here right now.
The context again is that this is written
to a local church
who had experienced wonderful fellowship
in their union of Christ.
And now that fellowship,
that unity in Christ,
is in danger.
Look at verse 1.
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."
We know from chapter 12 that there
is a division sprouting up in the church of Corinth
over spiritual gifts.
They're priding themselves
in what gifts they have.
It seems people are creating
what you might call subcultures
within the church.
Based on what?
Based on what spiritual gifts they have.
They're creating spiritual hierarchies
within their local church it seems.
Different classes of Christianity.
Treating some people with preferential treatment
or elevated treatment over other people
based on which gifts they have.
Well, Paul will have none of that.
In fact, in chapter 12,
we know that he spent time
straightening that out.
He helped them all see
that the body of Christ is one body
with many different parts.
But the gifts within the church
are distributed by God,
and we're not to boast in those,
and they're to be used for the edification
and the building up of the church as a whole.
But here in chapter 13,
Paul says something different.
Paul says essentially
you're finding your identity
in believing that you are something;
believing that you have something to offer
based on what gifts God has given to you.
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."
What is it that Paul's doing here?
Well, please know this, beloved.
Paul is not minimizing the importance
of spiritual gifts in the local church.
He just spent an entire chapter
letting them know spiritual gifts
are important and vital
to the local church.
Well, if he's not minimizing the importance
of spiritual gifts,
what is it that Paul is doing here then?
He's maximizing the necessity of love.
Paul is not minimizing the importance of gifts,
but maximizing the necessity of love.
He's essentially saying this,
if you have gifts -
even the ones you're all boasting about -
the gift of tongues maybe,
but it's not rooted in love;
it's not used and governed by love,
then your gifts do not help the church.
They distract from the church.
They hurt the church.
Verse 2.
"And if I have prophetic powers
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith
so as to remove mountains,
but have not love,
I am nothing."
And I think is where we'll focus our time.
This is where we in the reformed church
with our emphasis on doctrine
seem to struggle a lot.
Praise God again that we study doctrine,
and we seek to live it out
and apply it in all of our lives.
That's something we must be doing.
But for many in the reformed church,
understanding doctrine
has become everything to them.
At any time I begin to discuss
this type of subject,
like Paul's discussing here in v. 2,
it's not long before I hear from someone,
"Jesse, you're minimizing doctrine,
and doctrine is from God's Word,
and we can't minimize doctrine."
So let me say loudly and clearly,
and I will repeat myself throughout the entire sermon,
I'm not minimizing doctrine.
I agree with you.
All of doctrine is of vital importance
because it comes from the Word of God.
I'm not minimizing doctrine.
I'm not suggesting that we set doctrine aside.
As a pastor, I'll tell you this.
I've given myself to doctrine.
To the study of doctrine.
To the teaching and preaching of doctrine.
To the defending of doctrine.
Week after week, year after year.
I'm not minimizing doctrine.
But I'm maximizing the need for love.
The need for love in our doctrine.
The need for love in our doctrinal differences.
Look what Paul is saying here.
"If I have prophetic powers
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge..."
All mysteries.
One of my favorite portions of Scripture
is in Luke 24
after the resurrection of Christ
on the road with the disciples.
He's speaking to the disciples.
And Jesus unlocks all mysteries for them.
He helps them to see
how He is the fulfillment,
and how all of Scripture finds its fulfillment
in Jesus Christ.
Jesus who understands all mysteries.
What a value that would be to the church!
To have an individual or people in our church
who understood all the mysteries in Scripture
and how they find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
What about the one who has all knowledge?
Deep doctrine.
This may be the person who has
all the covenant issues
sorted out perfectly.
They have all their eschatology down.
Paul says here they have all knowledge.
He's giving them credit.
You understand all mysteries.
You have all the knowledge.
But if you have not love,
you are nothing.
Again, I think this is where
the rubber meets the road for us.
maybe these churches represented here.
There are some of us who believe
we have all the mysteries and knowledge
figured out.
And I think if we're honest,
we need to confess
we don't have it all figured out.
We're all still growing.
These men who have walked in the faith
40, 50, 60 years faithfully,
you could bring them up here one by one
and they would acknowledge,
listen, I'm still growing.
The Word of God is still sharpening
and shaping my understanding of who God is.
The mysteries are still being unlocked to me.
The knowledge and the deeper things of the Lord
are still being revealed to me.
And praise God, we never stop growing.
But what Paul says here is,
what if you did understand all the mysteries
and have all the knowledge?
Even then, without love you're nothing.
In verse 3, Paul goes on to say this:
"If I give away all I have
and deliver up my body to be burned
and have not love, I gain nothing."
Again, I've talked to so many of you.
You're living self-sacrificing lives
so you can be more faithful to Scripture
and give more.
I mean, aren't you the kind of people
you want to see in our church?
The ones who are gifted by God?
The ones who have and are studying doctrine
and have knowledge and understanding?
The ones who are living sacrificially
for the glory of the Kingdom of God?
Aren't these the people we want in our church?
And the answer is yes.
And don't they bring value?
Don't they help edify and build up the church?
And the answer is maybe.
But maybe not.
Do you see the progression that happened
in these first three verses?
Without love, we accomplish nothing.
Without love, we are nothing.
And without love, we gain nothing.
What's the conclusion that we must come to?
In measuring our Christian maturity,
if we have everything without love,
we have nothing.
We have nothing.
Love is essential.
Oh, how important the use of gifts are
in the local church.
Oh, how important doctrine is
in the local church.
Oh, how important sacrificial living
is in the local church.
But apart from love, beloved,
it's nothing.
Right away, some of you may begin to struggle
as we talk about doctrine
and begin to ask a question like,
"So, are you saying that we should
let go of doctrine and pursue love?"
And I want you to know this: No.
It's not truth or love.
It's truth in love.
So often, we have that pendulum swing
in our life, don't we?
Where, okay, I'm pursuing truth.
I'm given to truth. I'm studying.
I'm reading systematic theology. I'm going through all these things.
I'm growing in truth; growing in truth.
And we begin to neglect other areas of our life,
and you realize, wait a minute,
I'm lacking in love.
So what do we often do?
We overcompensate and we set truth down,
and we walk over here
and begin to pursue love.
Saints, it's not truth or love.
It's truth in love.
It's not 50% of truth and 50% of love.
It's 100% of truth and 100% of love
working together.
It's not either/or; it's both/and.
Well, it's at this point that some of you
may say, okay, I'm pursuing truth,
and I believe that I'm loving.
But you may believe that you're loving
because all too often, we find -
especially in reformed circles -
statements like this:
Of course, I'm loving. I told them the truth.
That's the most loving thing you can do.
Well, it is loving to share truth with people.
But Paul now in verse 4
is going to help you see
what does love look like
actually lived out.
He's going to help us see that
love is not just sharing the right,
correct doctrine,
but the spirit in which you share that doctrine
is vital.
Here's what Paul's going to show us.
The genuineness and depth of our love
is not seen in just sharing truth
or how we respond to people
who agree with our doctrinal positions,
but the genuineness and depth of our love
is revealed in how you respond
to people who disagree
with your doctrinal positions.
What I keep seeing in reformed circles
is people pursuing truth.
And typically as I begin this discussion,
I'll see them pursuing truth
as it pertains to doctrines that we would call
non-salvific.
Meaning, we're not usually struggling
in the areas of whether Jesus is God
or we're saved by grace through faith alone.
We're dealing in doctrinal areas
that although very important
and vital because they're from the Word of God,
that we know that some through the ages
have disagreed upon
and come to different conclusions upon.
And that's kind of where I want to focus
my effort and energy today if i could.
Someone begins to study a doctrinal position.
Maybe they were unaware of it.
It wasn't even on their radar before.
They become passionate about truth,
as we all should be passionate about truth.
Well, they begin to talk with others
in their local church about this truth
because they're excited about it.
They see how God can be glorified
in it and through it.
And this is good.
But then they find someone in the church
or different people in the church
who disagree with them.
And it's at this point that I begin to see
that unity that we have in Jesus Christ -
that supernatural bond that we have -
this is where I begin to see a disunity.
Not a working to preserve and maintain that,
but a division beginning to occur.
And I see the divisions occurring really
in two different ways.
One of the divisions that may occur
is they say,
"Well, if you're not going to side with me
in my beliefs, I'll just go find
another group of Christians;
another church who more believes in these areas
the way I believe,
and I'll go be with them."
But another division I'm actually seeing
more likely happening,
and probably more prominent
in our churches represented here
is a division that stays in the local church.
And what this division looks like is this:
When I find someone who doesn't agree
with my new study of doctrine
or my new arrival of understanding,
or I find someone who doesn't
live out their convictions
the same way that I do,
there's division within the church.
And that happens by treating
other Christians in the church who disagree with me
as second-class Christians.
"You're not as spiritual as I am."
"You clearly don't love holiness and God as much as I do."
"There's something wrong with you,
or you would come to the same conclusions
I have come to."
You would live out your convictions
the same way I live out my convictions."
This person that we once had
such intimate fellowship with;
that we shared the joy and union
of fellowship and union in Christ together -
my brother and sister in the Lord -
someone who, like me, has been blood-bought,
now, I realize has come to a different conclusion
in an area of doctrine,
and I don't even treat them
like a brother or sister anymore.
I want everyone in here to know,
especially myself is this:
that's not loving.
That works directly against our call
to maintain the unity that we have in Jesus Christ.
I see this played out in churches all the time.
Maybe you come to a conviction
about how you should educate your children.
Something that never was even on the radar.
And then your eye diffused that quickening ray in the dungeon.
And the light came in and Christ became real.
And then everything in your life
began to look through the lens of the gospel
and the Scriptures as we should do.
And you've come to convictions you've never even thought about.
How should I educate my children?
And you arrive at a conclusion.
I think the best way for me to live this out
might be for me to homeschool my children.
And then you become convinced that's the only way
that you can educate your children
if you're seeking to glorify God.
And you begin to look at other people
who don't follow the conviction
that you follow there.
And you begin to categorize them in your mind.
They don't love Jesus like I do.
They're not willing to make the sacrifices
that I'm willing to make.
Do you see the spiritual pride?
Do you see the classes of Christianity
beginning to divide?
Do you see that the basis
of our fellowship,
which was once the sweet union
of Jesus Christ and the gospel,
now becomes the basis of:
well, how do you educate your children?
What happens when we do that?
Inevitably, whether we mean to or not,
we begin to minimize the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We begin to minimize the power
of the purchasing blood of Jesus Christ.
We begin to find fellowship
in something other than Jesus Christ.
We begin to find our unity
in something other than Jesus Christ.
Saints, it's dividing our churches up.
That does not work to maintain
the unity that we have in Jesus Christ.
How you respond to that person
who disagrees with your doctrinal position;
how you respond to that person
who comes to a different conclusion
on how you should educate your children
or what premarital relationships should look like -
how you respond to that person
is the evidence and depth of your love
in the local church.
You see, if we just keep surrounding ourselves,
within the church,
with little subcultures -
we're the homeschooling group;
we're the courtship group;
we're the amillenial group;
we're this group; we're that group;
and anyone who doesn't agree with you
in those areas, although you do have
union with them in Christ,
that's not good enough for fellowship anymore.
I won't let my kids be around anyone
who doesn't homeschool.
What are you teaching your children?
That homeschool is more important
than union in Jesus Christ.
I think some of us are going to wake up one day
and realize we put all of our hope and faith
in educating our children in our home.
Homeschooling doesn't save anybody!
It's Jesus Christ that saves.
And I homeschool my kids.
Listen, I'm not implying
that the love you have
with the group of people you have surrounded yourself with
that hold to those same convictions -
I'm not saying it's not love.
It is love. I think it's love.
What I want us to look at is this:
But what is the depth of my love?
And Paul seems to think
the depth of your love is revealed
not with those you've gathered around yourself
who affirm you all day,
but the one who doesn't see it the same way
and how you treat that brother or sister
is the reality of the depth of your love
for the local church.
Let's look at it in verse 4.
Paul says, "Love is patient."
Love suffers long.
Assumed in this first characteristic of love
is offense.
He assumes that there's provocation here
between two people.
He assumes there's differences
and disagreements here.
Why do we say that?
Because know this,
you don't have to suffer long with people
who agree with you in every point of doctrine
and live out the same way you do.
You don't suffer with those people.
You just sit around and affirm each other.
Look how spiritual we are!
Look how unspiritual they are!
I don't suffer long if you just build me up all day
and agree with me in every area.
That's not suffering.
But Paul says genuine love suffers long.
Genuine love is revealed in the face of adversity.
In the face of disagreement.
So how long are we suffering
with those who disagree with us
or have offended us
because they haven't come to the same conclusions?
Well, that's the reality of the depth of your love.
What's assumed in the characteristic
again is provocation.
It assumes someone has provoked you here.
They've provoked you
by not seeing it the way that you see it.
"Well, I showed it to them in Scripture.
It's so clear.
Why can't they see it?"
Love when they've been provoked,
does not provoke back.
But it suffers long with the other person.
What becomes very clear in Paul's
definition of love here
is that the love Paul is speaking about
is not the love the world speaks about.
The love the world speaks about
is emotion-driven;
feelings-based.
And know this, genuine love
is full of emotion and feelings.
But it's not feelings-driven or feelings-based.
Beloved, the love that Paul is calling you and I to
to preserve the unity we have in Jesus Christ
is nothing less than the love of Jesus Christ in the gospel.
This is the love that you and I are being called to.
This is not a love in word only.
It's a love in deed and action.
It's a love in the face of provocation
that suffers long.
Let's apply this first characteristic again here.
Suffering long.
Someone in the church disagrees
with a doctrinal position you spent the last six months
reading three books on and listening to 25 sermons on.
And you're convinced you've come to the right conclusion.
You've sat down with them and you've shown it to them,
and they just don't see what you're talking about.
In fact, they see the other side of it.
Now, we become passionate about truth,
and Christians should be passionate about truth.
But what this love does
is it's patient with that person.
Have you ever noticed -
and I've seen this in my own life -
you'll begin to study
and focus on an area of doctrine.
Something that maybe wasn't even on the radar
for the first ten years in your Christianity.
You spend six months studying on it
and you're an expert on it.
You dogmatically go to other people in your church,
and you can't stop talking about it,
and you struggle that they can't see it
the way you've explained it.
You forget that it was ten years in the faith -
it wasn't even on your radar.
But now if they don't come
to the same conclusion as you've come to,
you can't even be in fellowship with them anymore
in the local church.
Know this, saints, suffering long
is more than just biting your tongue
when someone disagrees with you,
and distancing yourself from them.
Because one of the things we need to see here
is that these first two characteristics -
patience and kindness -
actually go together.
One's the other side of the coin of the other.
Let me put them together with you
and show you what this really looks like.
Love is patient. It suffers long
in the face of provocation.
But more than that, love is kind.
The root word here in "kind" has the idea
of being "fit for use."
Usefulness.
Serving each other.
Think with me for a moment here.
True love is demonstrated
when someone disagrees with you
or offends you,
and instead of responding back to them
and provoking them back,
you do not respond back to them with that,
but rather you show them patience.
But more than that,
you move towards that person
to serve them in kindness.
I don't know about you, but that's really hard.
I'm so convinced I'm right.
I'm so passionate
because this is about the glory of God,
and I think they're robbing the glory of God in their life,
so I'm trying to show them,
I'm trying to sit with them and work with them,
I've walked them through every Scripture in the Bible.
They still don't see it.
And they're getting a little frustrated with me
because I won't stop talking about my doctrinal points so much.
And what this says is this:
That even if I'm right in the doctrinal position,
I'm going to be patient with this brother or sister.
But more than that, I'm going to begin
to move towards them
and serve them in kindness.
You know what I see happening?
I shared truth with you and you didn't get it.
You're not going to be in the circle anymore.
I'm not going to fellowship with you
as much as I used to anymore.
It's one thing to bite your lip
and not respond when you've been provoked.
It's a whole other thing to move
towards that person you disagree with
and find ways to serve them
and welcome them in the church.
Can I ask you something?
Isn't that what Jesus Christ did to you?
Weren't you and I provoking Jesus Christ?
In fact, I think the only thing we were doing
was provoking Jesus Christ.
And didn't He pointedly and individually
not only not give you what you deserved
which was His wrath?
He did not. He was long suffering with you.
But more than just suffering long with you,
didn't Jesus Christ move towards you
and seek you out
and look to serve you
by laying His life down for you?
And isn't this exactly what we need to do?
If we're going to maintain the unity
we have in our local churches
in the midst of our diversity,
we need to respond with Christ-like,
gospel-centered love
and move towards those people we disagree with
and serve them.
What a testimony that would be to them
and to those outside.
This is the love we're called to.
Gospel-centered love.
Ask yourself right now,
those in your local church
who view premarital relationships different than you,
who view how to educate your children different than you,
who've arrived at different conclusions of your favorite doctrines,
are you moving towards that person
to serve them and welcome them?
Because that's the genuine depth of your love
in the local church right there.
That's it right there.
Or are you like so many that I see
that say, well, I'm only going to associate
with the people who homeschool like me.
I don't want their lack of seriousness
to rub off on me or my children.
And you forget all along
that you're speaking about someone
purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ.
This is not being patient.
This is not being kind.
And it is unloving.
It's sin.
Do you know that loveless orthodoxy is sin?
In Revelation 2, Jesus warned a church
that seemed to have all their doctrine right,
debated it, stood in the face of false teachers,
and hated evil.
He commended them for all of that.
And then He turned to them and said this:
you need to repent though.
You say, well, they had left their first love
and that's referring to Jesus Christ.
I agree.
But can I ask you this question?
Where is the evidence of your love for Jesus Christ most revealed?
In love for His church.
How can you love Him whom you have not seen
if you can't love your brother or sister who you do see?
"I love Jesus!"
The depth of your love for Jesus
is revealed in how you love His bride.
And the reality of love is not just
those who agree with you,
but those who have disagreed with you
and offended you.
I'm not suggesting in any way, beloved,
that we do not discuss these doctrines
or our convictions in our local churches.
We need to.
It's one of the means of grace
that God has used to grow us and sharpen us.
But I am suggesting that we discuss them
in the context of gospel-centered unity
and clothed in Christlike humility and love.
When we allow something other than Jesus Christ
to become the basis of our unity and our fellowship,
again, we inevitably minimize Jesus Christ and the gospel
and the work against the unity
that He's given to us.
Think of this statement and see if it just
rings wrong for you.
"Yes, you're my brother in Christ,
both saved and redeemed by the grace of Jesus Christ,
and we have that in common
and we agree on those things,
but we've come to a different place eschatalogically,
so I can't even be in fellowship with you anymore."
I'm not minimizing the importance
of any other doctrines.
But I'm saying that the unity
that we share in Christ,
and the love within that unity
should help us be able to work together,
have these discussions, encourage each other,
sharpen each other
without breaking the fellowship and unity we have
in our local churches
which is centered upon Jesus Christ.
So yes, discuss these things.
Yes, encourage and build up each other
in these things.
Yes, sharpen each other in these things.
But do it clothed in love and humility.
And when others disagree with you
or do it differently,
suffer long with them
and move towards them
in kindness and service.
So we don't treat them like second-class Christians.
Because know this,
there are no second-class Christians.
The fact that our rallying point is a cross
says one thing:
the playing field is level.
The only reason why any of us are getting in is grace.
That's it.
And when you make something
other than the cross and Jesus Christ
the basis of our fellowship,
you minimize the work of Christ.
Jesus Christ identifies
with the lowest of understanding doctrine Christian.
They will be welcomed in
to the same degree that you will be.
They are loved by Jesus Christ
in the same way that you are loved,
because the basis of His love
is not rooted in you, it's rooted in Himself.
I'm not condoning immaturity in doctrine.
I'm not condoning indifference
to how we live out our lives
and Jesus Christ is not either.
But again, Jesus Christ identifies with them.
We need to be careful how we speak
about the body of Christ;
how we treat the body of Christ.
Jesus said to Saul,
"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?"
when he was persecuting the church.
Jesus so identifies with His church
that how you treat them,
He views it as how you treat Him.
Know this, we can have our doctrine right,
but the doctrine that we believe we have right
has not had its full work in us
until it manifests in Christlike love
towards each other.
You can have your doctrine right,
but that doctrine has not had its full work in you
until it manifests itself through you
in Christ-centered love.
This love we're called to is patient and kind.
One more here.
Paul says this love "does not envy or boast,
it is not arrogant or rude."
Can I tell you that nothing works faster
at causing disunity in the local church
as spiritual pride?
The Corinthians thought:
We are something. We have these gifts.
We understand this doctrine. We've arrived.
We're living sacrificially. Look at us.
And Paul didn't deny any of those things were important,
but he knew without love,
those things would divide the church.
The genuineness and depth of my love
is not seen with those who agree with me,
but with those who disagree with me
and how I respond to them.
I've often referred to the local church
as a brewing pot of sanctification.
Sometimes I find people just leaving
local church after local church,
looking for people who are exactly like themselves.
One of the reasons God put you in churches
with such diversity culturally
and maturity-wise is to abound you
in Christlike love.
And that's hard.
It's a lot more comfortable and easy
just to keep finding subgroups of Christians
who believe all that you believe
and do it all the way you do.
But that's not how He made the church.
He made the church diverse,
so we could abound in love
as we show patience and kindness
to those who disagree with us.
Can I give you one test that you're being
boastful or arrogant?
If you constantly feel the need
to talk about your doctrinal positions
with everyone in the local church,
that's a sign of arrogance and boasting.
If you view everyone in your local church
as positions rather than people,
and your goal is just to win everyone
over to your position -
you're not even asking people anymore:
hey, how are you doing?
What's going on at work?
How can I be praying for you?
If every time they walk up to you all they hear about is
why they should be doing it this way
or why they should believe this doctrine,
you're in a dangerous place.
If you look down at others
who disagree with you
and only surround yourself with people
who look like you and talk like you
and do like you do,
that's a sign of spiritual pride.
It's not preserving unity.
Let me ask us this question.
What if Jesus Christ did that to us?
What if Jesus said to us:
You know, I know we have this whole gospel thing
that we agree in,
but in these areas of doctrine,
you're wrong.
And He began to treat you
like a second-class Christian.
What would happen?
Every single one of us would be put out
of His inner circle.
Can I tell you this?
Jesus Christ has never done that to you once.
He keeps moving towards you
and pursuing you in love.
How can we as Christians so freely receive
this love from Christ on the basis of grace
and then treat others without love
because they differ from us
in different areas of conviction or doctrine?
You know what that's called?
Gospel amnesia.
You're forgetting how Christ has treated you in the gospel.
To have right doctrine
but lack love for one another,
it is sin.
There's so much more we could say
here in Corinthians about it.
But before I finish, I want to encourage you
because saints, the hope we have
of maintaining our unity in Christ
in the midst of our diversity
is Jesus Christ's gospel-centered love
towards those who disagree.
Again, it's not love or truth,
it's truth in love.
It's a love that suffers long.
It's a love that moves towards others
who disagree; who provoke us.
And it's about that person -
serving them in kindness.
It's a love that keeps no record of wrongs.
It's a love that believes the best about each other.
And why?
Because this is the love that Jesus Christ
has shown to you
and continues to show you day after day,
week after week,
month after month,
year after year.
I will confess to you personally
that as I studied this,
and preached six sermons on it in our church,
I came to the conclusion
that I'm not quite as loving as I thought I was.
In fact, I talked to some people in our church
after we finished six sermons on this.
And they were discouraged.
They said I thought I was loving,
but I realize I've just surrounded myself
with people who think of the doctrines the way I think of them
and do it the way I do it,
but I'm struggling with those who disagree with me
and I'm not as loving as I thought I could be
and it's really hard to love those people.
If that's you today,
if you say if I'm going to be honest,
I haven't been treating people
who disagree with me with kindness,
looking to move towards them,
to serve them and welcome them;
and I've made the basis of my fellowship
in my local church those who
agree with me and affirm me.
And I want to love like you're talking about.
I see that's how Christ loves me,
and I want to love like that,
but I'm really struggling
to love like that.
What do we do?
Well, most of us have been taught
our whole life
that Jesus is our example.
And He is.
And that when you find yourself struggling
in obedience to Him, to just try harder.
And then you keep falling down
and realizing I can't do this.
The reason why trying harder doesn't work
is because the love that you and I are called to
is not something we can produce on our own.
Think of Galatians 5 with me.
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
What does that tell us?
The love you and I are called to is a fruit.
It's something I cannot grit my teeth and produce
by trying harder.
It's something that must be produced
in me and through me.
Well, does this mean I'm not responsible?
I don't have a part in this?
No, you are responsible in this area.
Well, how do we love like this then?
I heard an analogy that I'll close with
and I think will be helpful for you.
As we all look at the call
that Paul's put before us of love,
which is nothing short of Jesus Christ,
and we become discouraged to see
I'm struggling to love like this
and I fall short.
I want to emulate Jesus Christ.
I want to love like He does,
but I'm struggling so much.
What hope do I have?
Is it just try harder?
And here's the analogy.
Let's say all of you love music.
And you love beautiful music.
And I come to you and I say,
well, I want you to begin to produce,
write, and play music like Mozart.
He's your example.
And you say wonderful.
I want that kind of music.
I want to produce that music;
write that music; play that music.
And you sit down and you study Mozart.
You look at Mozart.
You examine Mozart.
And you try really hard.
And you fall miserably on your face
over and over again
and you become discouraged.
You say, I'm trying so hard
to play music like Mozart;
to compose.
I just don't find the strength to do that.
And I would agree with you.
You're not going to play like Mozart if you try harder.
But what if I told you this?
The spirit of Mozart was going to come
and reside inside of you?
And compose through you?
And write through you?
And empower you to write music?
To compose music?
And to play music like him?
Then, you'd be mightily encouraged
and say yes, I can play music!
I can compose like Mozart.
Not because of my strength, my trying harder,
but because the spirit of Mozart lives in me.
Well, beloved, that's what happened in the gospel.
Jesus Christ not only forgives you and I
for our lovelessness,
He takes up residence within us.
It is the Spirit of Christ and His love in us
working through us,
being produced for His glory.
So where do we begin with that though?
You need to begin by confessing inability.
John 15:5 - I can't do this, God.
Then by faith, you abide in Christ.
You be led by the Spirit.
You walk by the Spirit.
And you lay hold of the truth of the gospel
that Jesus Christ in us
will produce His fruit through us
and make it so we can maintain
the unity of Christ in our local churches
for the glory of God.
This is our gospel.
It not only forgives, it empowers.
Let's pray.
Father, in the name of Jesus,
I pray that You would help each of us.
Lord, convict us of our lovelessness.
Help us to mark it for what it is which is sin.
Help us believe the gospel.
That if we confess this sin,
You're faithful and just to cleanse us and forgive us.
But help us believe the rest of the gospel.
That the Spirit of Christ is now in us.
That love that we so seek to emulate.
His power is towards us who believe.
God, that we would abide more
and appropriate the gospel more.
Led by the Spirit; walking by the Spirit.
And that Your fruit would be manifest
in us and through us for Your glory.
God, accomplish these things.
Preserve the unity in Your church
for the testimony of Jesus Christ
to a lost and dying world.
In the name of Jesus we pray,
Amen.