One of the most misunderstood words in the English language, and for that matter in any language that I know of, is the word love. I've had the privilege of officiating at many wedding ceremonies, and so far, as far as I know, nobody that I've married has ceased to be married. None of them have been divorced or have had that occur in their lives, but if we look at the statistics in the United States, in some years we have more divorces than there are marriages. I don't know how that happens, but I mean, it's really amazing that when people stand before a judge or a minister and make their vows and state that they are going to remain together during their lives on earth, And then you find that in a very short time, the marriage ends. And there's often bitterness and divisiveness and major problems that exist between the two individuals. One of the things that I have experienced is that of counseling people who are considering divorce. And often, what appeared months before to be love winds up looking like hatred, just horrible relationships. And it's so sad to see that occurring in the lives of so many people. However, the love that we're thinking of around this time of year, as we go through Valentine's Day, I think can best be put aside. And instead, we need to approach love in a slightly different light. Often when we think of Valentine's Day, and it's a nice day. I mean, we had a good time. I took my wife out to dinner. We enjoyed ourselves and certainly celebrated our love for one another that God has given us and that we've enjoyed and experienced now for 40 years. That was a special day in our lives. But I think one of the things that people forget so often is that the love that exists between husband and wife, and the love that exists within a family, and the love that exists within a church and between those who claim to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, is a love that is founded upon the love of God. And if we do not experience the love of God, then it is difficult and often impossible for us to truly understand what love means in our human relationships. The Bible verse that says, we love him because he first loved us is an interesting verse of scripture. You can leave the word him out because it's not there in the original. It should be translated, we love because he first loved us. In other words, all of our love is founded upon the love that God has expressed for us. In John chapter 13, we read a marvelous passage in which the Lord Jesus Christ gives a commandment to his disciples. He calls it a new commandment. And the new commandment is a commandment of love. And I'm going to read just two verses, John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35, where we read A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." The Lord Jesus, we're going to get into this in a little more detail, but the Lord Jesus here is basically saying that I am going to give you a sign that other people can look at. We all know what signs are. We have a sign in front of the church, and anyone driving by can look at that sign, and there are certain things they can tell by the sign. First of all, they can tell the name of this church. They can tell the type of church it is. It's a Baptist church, and they can tell it is a church. So just by looking at that sign, they learn certain things about us. On that sign, they will read some very well thought out statement, often a verse of scripture or something that relates to scriptural teaching. And then in smaller print, they will read the hours of our worship service. So looking at that sign, they can tell a lot about us, can't they? They know, for instance, that we're not a Methodist church. We're not an Episcopal church. We're not a Presbyterian church. We're a Baptist church. They know that we're not a synagogue or a mosque. They know that we're a church. All of that is pictured for them just on this one sign. If you look at just about any building in the city of Savannah that has any significance, you'll find that there will be a sign there. We can go down to City Hall and we read that it is City Hall. We know what that means. We can go to businesses and read the sign and we can learn something about what takes place in that particular institution. God is saying to us that I have a sign that I want you to put on yourself. And it's not words, it's not something that's written. It's something that people can observe as they look at you and me. It's something that will give them an indication of who we are. He says that this is a sign, not that we can tell one another necessarily, but it's a sign for the world as it looks upon us. That's what he said, by this will all men know that you're my disciples, that you love one another. The sign that he's talking about is a sign of love. Now what does he tell us about this sign? Let's take a look at it. He says, first of all, that he is giving a new commandment to his disciples. Very interesting phraseology here. You know that there were commandments given in the Old, and there were commandments given in the New Testament. We speak of the Ten Commandments, and we know what they are. And those are commandments given by God. Here he says, I'm going to give you a new commandment. Now, in my mind, as I think through this, I have to say that if the Lord Jesus Christ commands something, then it has to be something that is very significant. That's not a term that he used regularly. He did not say, this is a commandment that I'm giving to you. The word commandment is a very strong word. It's one that emphasizes what he is about to say. When the God of eternity gave to the people of Israel the Ten Commandments, these were to be paramount. They were to be written in stone so that they could be seen and understood and obeyed. They were vitally important to the life of the people. They were, in effect, that which demonstrated to them their inability to do God's will, but yet they were the standard that God established and the standard that God set up. When he said, you will have no other gods before me, he meant that We are not to have anything that is a God. It doesn't just mean something made of stone or something made of wood to bow down to. It means we're not supposed to place anything above our God. And we could go through all of the commandments and understand their significance to us. But Jesus said, I'm going to give you a new commandment. It's to be as important in our minds as the Ten Commandments were to the children of Israel. What does he mean when he says a new commandment? Is love a new commandment? No. Nothing new about that. You know, God had commanded love way back in the Old Testament. I mean, we read, for instance, in Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 18, you will not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you will love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. So God already commanded love. There's nothing peculiar about that. The commandment is not new in that it requires love. God required love throughout the ages. It's interesting enough that back in the Old Testament, we're even told that we're to love our enemies. And of course, this is carried forth into the New. In Exodus chapter 23, we read, if you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. You're to care about the needs of your neighbor. Proverbs chapter 24, we read, do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles. What's he saying here? He says, we're to care for even those who would be viewed as enemies of ours. Just because they're our enemy doesn't mean we should not love them. And then, of course, the Lord Jesus amplified this and made it to be even more profound for us when he said in Matthew chapter 5, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That was teaching that had come to them. But he said, but I say to you, love your enemy. And pray for those who persecute you, in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even tax gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" You see, The commandment that Jesus is giving to them is not simply that they should love. They knew that. That was a commandment that had been given to them years before. The new commandment was something very different. He said to us here, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you that you love one another. In other words, he's not talking so much about the fact of love, but about the quality of that love. It's to be a love like Jesus' love. Now, you know, when we start thinking through that, we need to understand that that is a love which is impossible for us to exercise. It's a love which is beyond human capability, and yet that's exactly what he's telling us to do. For how did Jesus love? Jesus loved by giving himself for us, by dying on the cross that we might have life and that that life might be forever. This is what the scripture tells us. Just as the Father has loved me, I've also loved you, he said. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. That's what Jesus did. But God demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And the wonderful passage that we've just begun to study in the first chapter of the book of Ephesians, and we're going to get into this in incredible detail in weeks to come, It says in the third to sixth verse, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. The next words are, In love He predestined us to adoption as sons, through Jesus Christ to himself. That's his love. The whole plan of salvation was a demonstration of that incredible and matchless love that could only be exercised by God. That's why in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 13 we're told, but we should always give thanks to God for you Brethren, beloved of the Lord, because he has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. That's the love of God. That's why in the eighth chapter of the book of Romans, where it talks about his love, it speaks of it as a love that is undying. It's a love that lasts throughout eternity. We talk about love today as if it's something that can be quite fickle. The divorce that takes place six months after the marriage. The husband or wife who speaks in words of hatred rather than love shortly after the marriage vows have been taken. But what about the love of God? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, just as it is written, for thy sakes we are being put to death all day long. We were considered a sheep for the slaughter, but in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." His love is one that never ends. And that's the love that He is requiring of us. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you love one another. You see, the new commandment has nothing to do with the fact of love. It has to do with the quality of love. And as I said, that love that we exercise comes from the love that is given to us by God. First John 419, I quoted earlier, where it says, we love because he first loved us. That's the foundation and that's the basis of our love. Now, we need to ask the question, you know, it's Valentine's Day or the day after Valentine's Day. In what way can we show and demonstrate this love? How do we do it? Is it practical? Is it meaningful? Well, I think it's not only practical and meaningful, but it's essential. That we want to be a testimony to the world. And the only way we can be a testimony is to demonstrate in the way we live the characteristics that God wants us to have. One of the things that I get concerned about in churches, and I don't mean just our church here, but in churches in general, is that often I don't see the kind of love that ought to be demonstrated as an example of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you been in churches where there are people who look around and you can kind of tell that they're thinking, I don't like him. I don't like her. You know, just the way he does this or the way he does that, it doesn't please me and I'm dissatisfied. I think I once told the story of a church that I was once in. I'm not the pastor of this church, but I was there. And there were two families who absolutely hated one another. And I mean hate. not just dislike or didn't care about. I mean, they hated one another. As one family would walk in, if the other one was there, they would literally turn their heads away so that they didn't have to look at these other individuals. It took the intervention of the pastor of that church before these families began to come together and to see that their hatred and distrust of one another was causing incredible dissension and problems in the church and leading to what was much less than a good and godly testimony. What should the church be like? Well, when we walk into church, it should be a place where we really love one another. Does that always mean that we like everything everybody does? No. I mean, we're human beings. We have our own ideas about how things ought to be done. We look about us, and there may be somebody who'll do it a little bit differently, and we wouldn't do it that way. But we need to be able to say, those things don't matter. What matters is that God wants me to love my brother. and my sister in the Lord Jesus Christ. It should be at the time in our service when we break in the morning to shake hands or hug or whatever it is that we do, that that should be a time when we can look face to face at each and every other person in the congregation and be able, whether we say it or not, to think in our hearts, I love you. Our attitude needs to be one that pictures that love in the way we do things, the way we work together, the way we demonstrate our care for one another. If each and every church demonstrated that kind of love, the love that the Lord Jesus was talking about, that would be a place that would be a refuge for multitudes of people. People want to go to a place where there's real love. Nobody wants to walk into a place where what we actually see is dissension, disruption, and discord. What we want is love, compassion, and caring. I think it's important that each one of us think through our relationship with one another. And I think that generally our relationships are pretty good here. But I think we need to think through our relationship with each and every other person. And as we look around, our thought pattern is, what good could I say about him? What good could I say about her? Recently at a memorial service, I think I shared this a bit. One of the things that excited me, we knew the family very well. We were very close friends with the man who died and with his wife who is still alive. And different people got up and shared things. In fact, Nancy got up and gave a word of testimony about him and what he meant in our lives. And the one thing that we heard from person after person was, he was a man who always found the good in somebody else. The comment was, it's easy to find something wrong with another person. He didn't do that. He found what was right. He found what was good. And that's what he talked about. And so people loved him because he would find out what was good about a person and talk about it and encourage him and build him up. That's what all of us need to be like. Jesus said, I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them also that they shall hear my voice and they shall become one flock. with one shepherd. That's what we are, one flock, the shepherd being the Lord Jesus Christ. And we as the sheep need to love one another. How does this apply then to other areas in our lives? Well, one of the places I think that we see less love than just about anywhere else is in places of employment. I've seen many, many workplaces where getting the job done, of course, is the primary task, but where caring for the other person may not be as essential and as important in the minds of other people. I believe that God wants us to love the people with whom we work. What a wonderful testimony that could be. How do you do that? How do you do that? I spent many, many years in the Army. The Army is really not known as a loving institution. I mean, what's the job of the Army? To go out and go to wonderful foreign places and kill people? I mean, isn't that the function of the Army? Really? And you don't think of the Army as a loving institution. And yet, I met some of the most loving people in the Army. I really did. I can remember a commander that I had who cared so much about his people that he would go and he would go to the place where they worked. And boy, they were shocked. I mean, the colonel normally just didn't walk in to visit where the troops were, but he would. He would go in and he'd actually walk up to a soldier and put his arm on his shoulder and say, Sergeant, Specialist, whatever his rank was, how are you doing today? And he meant it, care. It meant something to him that his soldiers were doing well. Having an attitude in our place of employment that says, I care more about you than you could ever know, will change that place. to a place of great joy and happiness for all who work there. And it'll be a testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ. It'll let people know that there's somebody who cares. That yes, the mission is important, but if you're not well, I'm going to send you home because I care more about you than I care about anything else. That's the kind of love that we need to exercise in the places where we work. the places where we go to school, the places where we're involved in various activities. But I think the most important place for us to demonstrate love is in the home. If there is no love in the home, there is no vital testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a pretty strong statement, isn't it? But I mean that. You know, people see who we are. They really do. It's easy to, if this were our desire, to demonstrate something that looks like love for an hour or two a week as we go into church. How many times do we see people who go to church and smile They're involved in all the activities of the church and seem to be loving and caring. And somehow, on Monday morning, they're different people. Have you ever known folks like that? And you know, in church, they sing the hymns, they smile, they do all the things that we need to do to demonstrate that we're Christians. And yet, you don't need to demonstrate you're a Christian in church. That's why you're there. Not that everybody who's in church is a Christian. I mean, that's where you need to be if you're a Christian. The demonstration of our faith needs to be in the home. It needs to be a demonstration in which we take seriously the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, the teaching of the Word of God regarding how we're to live in our home. Where the word tells us, and we'll be getting into this as we continue in our studies in the book of Ephesians. It's going to be a long time before we get to chapter five. But anyway, when we get there, we'll be talking about family relationships. And there it talks about wives being subject to their own husbands as to the Lord. What does that mean? Well, what it doesn't mean is that the wife is some kind of subservient creature. That's not what it means at all. What it means is that the wives are to care for their husbands and to build them up. By the way, ladies, you know, husbands, men are kind of interesting creatures. You ladies probably know that already. But I mean, you know, there's a certain ego that men have. And I don't know, am I giving away a secret? I don't think so, anyway. There's a certain type of ego that men have. And there is a need. that I believe God has built into men, that they need the feeling of being able to have a loving control within relationships. And it's for the wife to help encourage and to build up her husband. One of the things that I have hated more than anything else, and I mean this, I'm using the word hate advisedly because it's exactly what I mean, is when I have seen Groups of women who get together, and sometimes I'll overhear the conversation, and all they do is put down their husbands. All they do is speak about what's wrong with him. He does this, and he does that, and he won't do this, and he won't do that. One of the things that has blessed me in my life is every time somebody talks to me about the fact that my wife has said something about me, It's always something good. It's what I hear. That she's encouraging me and uplifting me. I'm not perfect. I mean, far from it. But I know for sure that my wife is not going to go out and talk about my faults. She's going to go out and share the good things. And when a wife builds up her husband and encourages him, that encourages the husband to love the wife even more. And this develops that loving relationship within the home. You know, I think the greatest responsibility that God gives in the home, though, is to the husband. For it says, husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. In other words, we husbands have the job of loving our wives in such a way that we would give up our own lives for our wives. How many husbands would do that? That's what the Word of God says we're to do. That's the kind of love. Hopefully, we won't have to do that. But we have to be willing to give anything, to build up and encourage and develop the wives that God has given to us. And one of the things, of course, my wife doesn't have any faults anyways. I don't have to worry about it. I'm just kidding. But one thing I've always determined, that any time I talk about my wife, people are going to hear me say something good about her. That's simple, you know? I mean, it's an easy thing to find something good to say, to be able to speak well of the woman that God has given to you as a wife. Again, something that I've hated. I've seen it, though, on many occasions. When you find husbands who get together with their buddies and they put down their wives. I think it's a horrible thing. It's just absolutely horrible. Go home and say, honey, I love you. And then go out with the friends and say, you know that old bag I'm married to, or whatever it is that they say. And I've heard expressions like that. It's just terrible. We need not only to be loving and caring and to speak of our love for one another, but we need others to hear about that love. We need others to hear about how we care. or the person that God has given to us. The new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. You know, in the church we want to be doctrinally sound, and I believe we are. We teach the Word of God from beginning to end. We believe it. It's God's Word. Genesis 1 is God's Word, and Revelation 22 is God's Word, and everything in between. But that isn't going to make any impact on the lives of people around us. They don't care what we believe. We go to church every Sunday. We show up, and we're involved in the programs of the church. People out there, they don't care about that. So what? They'll say. But when they look at us and they see love, real love, that'll make an impact, an impact on this world, an impact on those around us like nothing else that we can do. It's our job to strive to love as Jesus loved. I guess that's the message of Valentine's Day, isn't it? Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your love, that love which is beyond anything that we can comprehend. Help us, Lord. We're not going to be able to love as you've loved, but help us to come close. Help us to come closer each day that as we live, people will look at us and they'll want to know Christ. Bless us, we pray in this, in Jesus' name. Amen.