you Welcome back to Bible time. We're in first Thessalonians 4 10. This message today is the beginning of three verses in a row that are all part of the same Sentence at the end of verse 10. You have a semicolon at the end of verse 11 You have a semicolon at the end of verse 12. You finally have a period so these this these thoughts all tie in very directly and Together, but this is also as we noted yesterday there's been a pivot point in verse 9 whenever he turned from a list of detailed instructions and reproofs and rebukes of potential rebukes there weren't so much rebukes as warnings and he shifted and pivoted to brotherly love and Said but as touching brotherly love you need not that I write unto you for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another verse 10 here our text for the day is And indeed, ye do it toward all the brethren which are in Macedonia. But we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more." Hallelujah. What a study this is today. We're excited about the Word of God, excited to be here, excited to preach the Word, grateful to God for His great love that He's loved us with and which He also gives us to love one another with. Father in Jesus name we pray that you to open our understanding Open our hearts and enlarge our hearts increase our love one for another increase our love Lord God for your people Increase our love Lord God for this lost and dying world Increase our zeal increase our joy increase our rejoicing increase Lord God the fruit that you would have Through us father. It's your will and we're praying according to your will and you said in your word that if we pray and according to your will we know that you hear us and that we have the petition that we ask of you so as we ask these things we know lord that your answer is a resounding yes and we don't even have to wait for that answer we can trust by faith that you will do what we're asking you to do because we're asking you to do what you want to do and what you want us to want you to do and we thank you for this father in jesus precious name amen so here we have three parts in this verse and indeed ye do it and that will see practical love there and then we have toward all the brethren which are in Macedonia and that's filial love which is family affection and then thirdly we beseech you but we beseech you brethren that you increase more and more and that's Christ's love so we have practical love filial love and Christ's love Now, practical love, the word of God says, let us not love in word only, but in deed and in truth. Let us not love in word only, but in deed and in truth. Now, I didn't get the reference for that one. You can look it up. I believe it's in the Corinthians, but I failed to get it. searched up and looked up. But there he tells us to not just love with your mouth, with the words that come out of your lips, but also in deed and truth. We've kind of covered this somewhat in the last nine verses, where we've talked about abstaining from fornication, possessing your vessel. Head over to the book of James. As we review this other stuff, we'll look at a verse in James here in a second. James chapter two, but we've looked at abstaining from fornication, possessing your vessel, not defrauding, not despising. Um, those are all practical ways to love your brother just by not sinning against your brother. But furthermore, there's even more practical application there that we looked at yesterday in our lesson on, but as touching brotherly love, you need not that I write onto you. And we made the application that there's a positive reinforcement of love in every one of the negative warnings that are given in 1 Corinthians 4 verses especially 3 through 8. That here where it says not to despise, it's giving you a clue and a hint that practical love values the brother instead of despising the brother. And so we looked at that yesterday. There's practical love. There's a practical application. Not to abstain from fornication is one way to practically love your brother. but also to practically and purposefully make it a point to protect your brother and his interests and especially his family with your deportment and your behavior is brotherly love. To say that you love a young lady who's a, let's say a young man says he loves a young lady, And he wants to marry her. They're both single. They're there in the church and they want to be married. And the practical love of God would abstain from fornication. He would not go and do sin with her because he loves her. If you love your brother, there's none occasion of stumbling in you, the Bible says. So if that man really loves you, young lady, he will not want you to sin. Any attempt of that young man to cause you to sin is a proof of his love of his own self And that is God is his own belly and you should get distance fast Because true love does not want another person to sin and that's one application of that abstaining from fornication But when we got to brotherly love there in verse 9 we see that there's also a practical application in the fact that a brother will protect and his sister in the Lord from potential sin or from even the appearance of evil. And there's a positive reinforcement of gentlemanly behavior. By the way, this whole concept of a gentleman who opens the door for a lady, who does not offer his hand to the lady for a handshake unless she offers her hand to him, who would be willing like that one man in England who became famous and nearly immortalized in England because the Queen of England was about to get into the carriage and there was a mud puddle between her and the carriage. And he took off his great expensive cloak, his coat, and he spread it over the mud puddle so that the Queen of England would not step in the mud. Nearly insanity. The near insane level of respect that came out of that gentlemanly so-called chivalry. Now the old chivalry of the knights in shining armor, there was a lot of that that wasn't even chivalry at all. It was just human pride. But this gentlemanly affection for the weaker race, the woman race, so to speak, that are weaker physically, that's what the Bible says, whether you like it or not, they're weaker. The wife is the weaker vessel. Now, they have many, in many aspects, they are stronger and can do other things great, better than men can do. But in many ways, they are not, and that's just raw fact. It's what the Bible says, and it's what life proves over and over and over again. We're not going to get into all that right now, but you've basically got to neuter men and pump women on steroids to even get them a shot at competing and trying to take third place every now and then. And that's what our perverted sports system is trying to do in our day and age. But in any case, The women have value. Since we stepped in this, we've got to at least give it enough to help you get over the hump. Women have value that is different from men's value, equal in value before God, equal in value of an eternal soul, but not very valuable in raw strength and extremely valuable in all the womanly virtues. Women have a different set of proficiencies than men have. They are not the same as men. They are not as good as men at things men do better than women, but there are things women do better than men that men are not as good at as women are. So moving on. And if that gets you so upset, you've got to shut it off. I just can't really help you. There's not much help. That's just reality. If you're so bitter against God for making male and female that you can't even survive that little bit of discourse, then there's not really much else help for you until you just repent of your wicked perversion and turn back to God. Now here we have this practical love and that practical love of the brother for the sister. will go beyond not just, listen, this goes beyond just not fornicating with her. This means he doesn't want to defraud her either. He doesn't want to give that young lady any ungodly desires. A man that truly loves that young lady in church, the young man that loves that young lady, does not want her to have ungodly desires even for him. He does, he jealously protects her love for Christ above any kind of love she might have for him. And though he may desire to marry her, he wants to protect her love for Christ primarily. And that is true brotherly love. He will not want her to even be enter into a situation where there could be an appearance of evil. He would not want her name to be spoken evil of because of something he does or something he says, and he will go the extra mile to protect her. That is brotherly love. That's practical love. Here in James chapter 2, I failed to turn there myself. So let me find James chapter two. In James chapter two in verse 14, it says here, what does it profit my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works, can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you saying to them, depart in peace, be you warmed and filled, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit? Now here, James is using this plain life analogy to explain that faith without works is dead. But we're applying this to love, and love here, love is a lot like faith. Love without works is dead. Here in our text, 1 Thessalonians 4.10, and indeed ye do it. So he had exhorted them to brotherly love in verse nine, and in verse 10 he says, and indeed ye do it. That means that love is an action. Love is something that you do now the my wife found that other verse we were looking for my little children Let us not love in word neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. That's first John 3 18 let us not love in word only but also indeed and in truth The do it is the deed. Love without works is dead. Love that doesn't have any kind of feet to it or hands to it is useless love. This secret admirer stuff is a bunch of hogwash. That's called lust. But to actually get down and do something about the love is true love. Now, we've also noticed that doing sin is not love. So those that would say that they, for example, would make love and that use that application in that sense and do it in a sinful way, their action is an action of hate, not an action of love. 1 John 318 we I want to go there real quick That's where it says in verse 16 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's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him." He's saying the proof is in your actions. The proof is in the practical outworking of your love. And here again in our text, Paul says, ye do it. and indeed ye do it. Paul is saying there is proof for your love. So this church is this fledgling church that's also a flagship church. This church is one of the greatest startups in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ. Three Sabbath days Paul was there and this church out of persecution and became examples to all them in Macedonia and Achaia. So their faith was spoken of abroad. People knew about this church. People heard about this church. This church was on fire for God. This church was giving. Liberally to those that were in need this church. They were helping each other when one man would get persecuted The church would gather around and help them and lift them up and there was a brotherly love that was being done Not only that this church, even though it was persecuted Paul says here you do it and look at our next part here, but you do it toward all the brethren which are in Macedonia So this church had a practical love, and this church had a filial love, not just within the walls of their little assembly, but to all the brethren in Macedonia. So throughout their entire region, they were practically reaching out with the gospel, with the word of God, with help for those that were in need. with physical help for those that were in physical distress due to persecution. This church was on fire. This church was in action. This church was a boots-on-the-ground church. This church was carrying the gospel forward. This church was attacking the enemy with a weapon of love. He said, ye do it. Indeed, ye do it. They had a practical love, a vital love, a living love that was expressed in how they lived, and how they talked, and how they walked, and where they went, and what they abstained from, and in what they partook of. This church was a loving church, a practical church, a filial church. This church loved as brethren. By the way, you ought to love the household of faith more than your own household. Go back to Matthew 12. We looked at that yesterday. Matthew chapter 12 and verse 48. This is a cornerstone verse for understanding true biblical filial love. The love of a man for his church should be greater than the love of that man for his own household. Now some of you are already blown out. You've got flat tires and you're The rubbers breaking, ripping the sidewalls off your vehicle because I said that because you've all been focusing on the family for the last 30 years. But I want to tell you a little secret today the devil doesn't want you to know. All of this focus on the family has killed the family. We haven't had any more focus on the family in the whole world, in the whole history of the world than we have had in the last 30 years where family has been number one. Family has been the top focus. Family has been the priority. And we have been losing our families left and right. Families that grew up reading the Bible, praying together, but focusing on the family have blown out. And the remnants of those family are a few people who left of the siblings who will even acknowledge their upbringing at all. Some, most of them are out in the world. Those that will even acknowledge their upbringing have joined Facebook groups that despise and belittle all the movements that their parents were part of. I survived the fundamentalist movement. I survived the such and such movement. I survived the ATI movement. I survived the IBLP movement. I survived moral majority, I survived this, I survived this and that, whatever it is, whatever kind of group it is, whatever kind of movement it was, they survived it and they brag about it and belittle the movements that they were once part of and they run as far the opposite direction from everything their parents taught them about modesty, about music, about godly music, about godly dress, about courtship. If there's any godly standard out there that could or was taught, they're running from it, they're hating on it, they're despising it. They've got their cans of Bud Light in one hand, and they have their church bulletin for the contemporary worship service in the other, and they're gonna get half drunk Sunday morning before they go and praise and worship it out, and go home and watch pornography all afternoon, and turn on all their filthy R-rated movies. And this is what we've gotten for all of our focus on the family. Nowhere in your Bible does God tell you to focus on the family. You are to focus on Christ. Christ has to be preeminent. And if you love Christ preeminently and above all, you will love others, including your family. Your family is your greater responsibility, but your family is not your focus. And whenever you put your family, your mother, your father, your brothers, your sisters, your sons, and your daughters above your brothers and sisters in the church house, it is a train wreck waiting to happen. Now this is heresy, I know that, to many people in our land, especially in conservative circles. To even insinuate that the people in the church house have an equal standing with the people in your own home is absolutely insanity to most people. But Jesus Christ himself evidenced this. Now he called Peter to come and follow him, and Peter's mother-in-law lay in the house sick of a fever. Jesus happened to be there that day and heal her. But we find that Peter followed Jesus around all over the place, night and day, and he had a family. We look down in our great long noses at generations gone by who went to the mission field and they sent their children back home to boarding school at five and six and seven years old because their children didn't have a chance of surviving in those climates and disease-ridden places without any help from modern medicine. They knew their children were going to die. They knew their children were going to not get the education that they needed. And so they would send them back to these boarding schools and we look down our long noses at them. But the reality is that you ought not judge them because we've gone to the opposite extreme. And now we hold up our families above the brothers and sisters in Christ. And if my daughter wants to dress like a slut whore, I'm gonna take her to church and act like it's okay because she's my daughter. And so I hold her up in some kind of high regard and high respect and cause my brethren at the church house to stumble over my daughter's naked legs and say that I am focusing on my family and it's a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God. It's called family idolatry. We have made idols out of our family. Our family is our first responsibility as far as practical responsibility. And there is much in the Word of God about the father's heart being towards his children and the children's heart towards the father. And there's much in the Bible about family relations. And it is a very necessary reality. And it's very important. But the problem is that we have elevated family. and we have put family on a pedestal. And because family is now number one, we exclude the brethren. Because family is now number one, we have cliques in the church amongst our families. Because family is now number one, we feel exempt from all hospitality because we have family coming over for this, and family coming over for that, and family coming over for this. And this cliquishness and this family clannism has no place in the church. There are whole family churches. Churches where a family had multiple children and those children grew up and stayed in the church. And now the son is the assistant pastor, the dad is the pastor, the other son is the song leader, the other son is the Sunday school teacher, the daughter married someone who gets to be the janitor, and what it's called in the world is nepotism. Nepotism is whenever you favor your family for all the positions and rank and things in your business. And we have nepotism in the church house because we have gone to family idolatry. I'm telling you today, whenever you go to church and you sit down in your pew and you look across the aisle, you are supposed to be looking across the aisle at brothers and sisters in Christ. Your philial, your physical philial association with your brothers and sisters in your home is not as high of an association as that which is with the body of Christ. You see, listen to me today. You think I've gone off the deep end. My greatest responsibility as a father is, as far as provision, is for my children. But that does not change my responsibility to my brothers and sisters in Christ at the church. And guess what? My children may be saved, may be lost, but a brother in Christ is part of the body of Christ. And as part of the body of Christ, we are members of the same body. There is, listen to me today, there is no greater relationship between people on the face of the earth that is possible than brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul said in the Corinthians, whenever he was talking about husbands and wives, he mentioned that he and Barnabas had power to lead about a sister, a wife. And he put the word sister in front of the word wife. Did you notice that? He's saying we have power to marry a Christian lady and have this sister become our wife. But the sister comes before the wife. I know this is heresy in our land. But that's one of the reasons we're so upside down and messed up and destroyed in this culture. And it's why our churches are absolutely destroyed across this land. It's because of family idolatry. We have gotten our love out of sorts. We love our daughter more than our brothers and sisters in Christ. We love our son more than our brothers and sisters in Christ, and that is a sin. That is a travesty. You should love your son, and you should love him with all your heart, but you should love your brothers and sisters in Christ more than your lost son, because he's not in the body of Christ. I want to look at a couple verses about this, because I know this is not normal to our thinking, but it's still Bible. Luke 14, 26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." That verse means exactly what it says, and it doesn't need you to explain it away. This, that Christ is saying, is that He's speaking of the filial love of human beings for human beings. He's not talking about the love of the brethren in the body of Christ. And so, this man that would hate his father, hate his mother, hate his wife, hate his children. Obviously, God said, honor thy father and thy mother. God said, husbands, love your wives, cherish your wives, wash them in the water of the Word, etc. All these things are true. But the source of the love that God wants you to have for your wife is Christ's love, not human love. And Christ's love flows out equally to all of Christ's people. So you say, well, what about the family? Well, the family does matter. But again, the family is a responsibility and a jurisdiction. And we are to not be unequally yoked. So whenever I marry a Christian sister in the Lord. She then becomes my physical wife, but in heaven, she will have a place in heaven that is not the place of my physical wife. Jesus said, in heaven, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God. In heaven, there will be perfect love between all of Christ's people, and that perfect love will be without marital love. That part will be done away. So this human part is a temporary part, and it's going to cost you to follow Christ, to be Christ's disciple. It will cost you time away from your family. It will cost your family time away from you. It will cost you profits that you could have made. It will cost you the nicer house. It will cost you the nicer education. It will cost you many things. And Jesus said here, except a man hate, If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." And in our day and in our nation, we think that if we have a family that we are exempt from all Christian service. We think that we can have our little savings accounts and all of our other securities. We can think that we can spend all our money on our family. We can ignore the lost and dying world. We can ignore the needs of the brothers and sisters in Christ. We can each have our own little island and each of us have our own little home, our own little castle, our own little clan. Out here in the Ozarks, most of us people out here are primarily descendants of the Irish. We're very clannish. There's a lot of Indian blood mixed in out here. And the Indians were tribe based and very clan and tribe based. So we keep within our clans and we keep within our tribes and we take care of our clan and our tribe. And brethren, these things ought not so to be. As brethren in the body of Christ adopted, we looked at this yesterday, adopted into the family of God, becoming sons of God. God is our father. Our daddy in the flesh deserves some basic honor in this life, but not at the expense of our father in heaven. And our brothers and sisters in the flesh are no longer our brothers and sisters to the degree that our brothers and sisters in Christ are. Because we have been adopted into a family. We have become joint heirs with Christ. And that means that everyone who is also in the family of God is on equal terms and should be loved and cared for equally. Again, that doesn't negate my physical responsibilities to my physical family, but those must be put in their proper place. Those are subject to the requirements of the service, subject to the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is no price too high to be paid in the service for Christ. We must follow Christ, Christ only always, Christ first. He is our all and He is in all. You still think I've taken it this too far. Paul said to the Corinthian church, he told them to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife. He says, I say this in permission, you can marry. I'm not saying you can't marry, but he said it would be better if you were all as I, so you can attend upon the Lord without distraction. And he said, the time has come that they that are married be as though they are not married. We've got all our marriage conferences and marriage retreats and all this stuff where we try to have a more vivacious, vibrant marriage. And what we need in order to see revival in this land is for husbands and wives to skip the date night and have a fasting night and pray on their faces before Almighty God for their children, and for their nation, and for their church brothers and sisters. And to get right with God, we need to stop worrying so much about the fire in our marriage, and worry about the fire in the church house. It's more important. Now I understand, and I said just the other day, strong families make strong homes, and strong homes make strong churches. And that is true, but that should be part of the motivation for a strong home. It should be that we might be able to serve Christ without distraction. We're going to get into some more practical instruction here in first Thessalonians four, 11 and 12, where he says, study to be quiet and do your own business. Work with your hands that you may have lack of nothing and have to be able to give to those that are in need. This does not negate personal responsibility. This does not make this teaching a proponent of complex marriage or any other filthy perversion out there. Marriage is a jurisdiction and a personal responsibility and deals with your individuality. But your place as a brother and sister in Christ is a higher place. And when your children get saved, born again by the power of God, your children are your equals in Christ at that point. Jurisdictionally, you still have authority. but in the kingdom of heaven your son who is saved is your equal, a joint heir with Christ." Minds blowing everywhere. It says there, I'll read it again, Luke 14, 26, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Truth is truth, whether you like it or not. Matthew 12, 46. Well, he yet talked to the people. Behold, his mother and his brethren stood without desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, who is my mother and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, behold, my mother and my brethren, for whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same as my brother and sister and mother. If we could get a hold of this, it would bring revival just right here. If we could get a hold of this. I know, again, that the Bible's clear about the home and the jurisdiction of the home and the father's role in the home and the mother's role in the home. All of these things are true, but I want you to think, before you just completely throw this out, maybe you're sitting there on the fence, maybe you're listening online and you're on the fence on this thing, you think I've gone off the deep end, I want you to think for a second. Here comes an old widow into the church house and she never could have any children and her husband deserted her and then he died and she's left all alone and there she is in the church house and all she's got is the family of God. That's all she's got is the family of God. I want you to think about the one that is persecuted Man, his wife leaves him and takes all the children with her because he got saved and started trying to take the family to church and read the Bible. And now he's all alone and he comes to church. His children are gone, his wife is gone. What hope is in that? What joy is in that? Whenever we reverse this thing and flip it upside down, where the human love for human progeny, for our offspring is greater than our love for the offspring of God, those that are born of God. Then all of a sudden we have no joy, no peace, and we are under direct attack from the devil. Because if he can wipe out our family, he can wipe out us. It should not be that way. Jesus said, these are my mother, my brother, my sister, they that do the will of my father, which is in heaven. And he did not even stop according to the scriptures. He kept right on preaching and teaching and dealing with those people. And he made his own mother and his own brothers wait their turn for his attention. and they got no special treatment over his flock. Equal treatment, that is near insanity to our thinking, to our thinking. We have elevated our physical brothers and sisters to a position that is idolatry. And we have worshiped them and put them above the brethren in Christ and this ought not so to be. Did you know that when the church gathers together, it's a family reunion every time? This is why I have absolutely no respect for a profession of faith in Jesus Christ that says, I don't need the church. No respect for it at all. If you say you love God, who you cannot see, and love not your brother, who you can see, you are a liar, the Bible says in 1 John. Your love for the brethren is how Jesus said, the world will know that you're real. And the Bible says, we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. This is serious stuff. Because we love the brethren. Anybody that brings schisms in and that starts bringing in a bunch of rules and regulations and disfellowshipping with people for extra biblical rules, they're not of God. Those people running that thing and they exclude people and pull them out of fellowships and bring them into their exclusive little clubs where you have to wear the right kind of dress. You have to do your hair just a certain way. You have to do just this or just that or you can't be part of that group. Those people are not of God. You can't do that in a family. And none of that works in a family. So here we're talking about filial love. First he says there's a practical love and indeed ye do it. A do it love. A literal boots on the ground love. And indeed ye do it. And then he says toward all the brethren which are in Macedonia. They did not exclude any of the brethren. Do you hear me? All the brethren in Macedonia. It didn't matter what town they were in. It didn't matter if there was a feud or a political disagreement between the precinct or the city or the municipality. It didn't matter if they had different football teams that they'd been part of whenever they went to college back in the day and they were rivals. None of that mattered. They loved practically and they loved filially. Now, we're gonna get into the third part here. We're gonna get into the third part here. If you've survived this far, we're gonna look at Christ's love. But we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more. Why, why, why do we have this family idolatry? Because we don't have enough love to love all the brethren in Macedonia. We don't have enough love to go around. Our love gets spread thin. So then we have to pick and choose who to love. And so naturally, We tend to pour it out on our family. And then we run out of love. Often we run out of love before we run out of family. And there's nothing left for the brethren. Here we're beseeched by the Apostle Paul here to do it more and more. To love more and more. And this is kind of crazy. He says we beseech you brethren that you increase more and more. He said and indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in Macedonia. Well how much more love can you have than to Practically love as brethren the way that Paul has just been teaching to love and he says you don't even need us to teach you about this because You exercise brotherly love and indeed you do it to all the brethren which are in Macedonia Not only to your own church, but also to your whole region Everybody that comes in contact with you knows that you love God because you love them and he says then and then he says these impossible words he beseeches them to increase more and more What on earth? But we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more. And this gets us to Christ's love. The biggest problem in America is that we are loving with human love, not Christ's love. And that's why it runs out. And that's why it runs dry. And that's why it runs raw. So Christ's love, he says, increase more and more. Now, when you're already loving as brethren. when you're already of reputation for your love and you're loving your whole region he says increase more and more it should become pretty obvious that what he's talking about is beyond human capability he's talking about a love that goes beyond human love and touches the divine here he says and indeed you do it toward all the brethren which are in macedonia but we we beseech you brethren that ye increase more and more. This means infinite love, more and more, not just more, but more and more. So that whenever you increase more, he says, you need to increase more than what you increased. And then you need to increase more than what you increased. And that gives and implies a infinite increase in love. He is exhorting these brethren in the Thessalonican church to love with infinite love. This is what he is beseeching them to attain to, to not be content with the attainments of love that they have had so far, but to go beyond, to increase more and more. Paul here is not asking the Thessalonican church to express a Christ-like love. They are already doing that. They're already loving his brethren. They're doing it toward all the brethren which are in Macedonia. He is not asking them to express a Christ-like love. He is asking them to express Christ's love. And there is an infinite difference between the two. I might be able to love you like Christ loves you, but to love all men To love everyone like Christ loves them is to love with Christ's love. And there's no other way to do it. Christ is God in the flesh. And how else could he love everyone? The love of Christ proves the deity of Christ, that He would love the whole world so much that He would surrender His own self to die on the cross for our sins. And the Bible says, for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of God. This love of Christ for the world that the Apostle Paul said, the love of Christ constraineth us. This is the love that he's beseeching the Thessalonican church to get. And if we can get tapped into Christ's love, the sky's the limit. We're unstoppable. Once we get involved with Christ's love, the fruit really begins to flow. because love is a fruit of the Spirit. Go to Galatians 5, 5. Now, with love being a do-it, and love needing to increase more and more, and you start to love, you're going to find out really fast that you run out of gas, and you get spent. This thing of increasing more and more means that love is not a static thing. The fact that love must be done means that love is not a state as much as it is an action. Love is not a state like sitting on something, just on it, sitting there. Love is an action, a do it. So here, that means love gets spent and love is always being expended. That means that if you have love and you love somebody, you are using your love up. And when you use all your love up, it can get ugly. Anybody here ever have that happen? I've been there too. We've all been there where you think you're doing great and you love everybody. And then along comes one jerk and then two jerks and then three jerks and however many jerks it takes, eventually you run out of love. And when you run out of love, you snap and it gets ugly and it exposes that you did not have Christ's love flowing through you. So Galatians 5.22 says, but the fruit of the spirit is love. Following love comes joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and the lusts. So here's this fruit, and this ties directly into John 15. John 15 says to, let's just go there, John 15.10, and hold your place in Galatians. We'll be back there in just a second, Lord willing. John chapter 15 has been visited several times in this study that we've been doing so critical to this subject. He says in verse 10, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. Do you notice that Jesus said, he didn't say, if you keep my commandments, you will love like I loved. He didn't say, it will appear that you love people like I loved people. He said, if you keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. I want to present to you the concept from the word of God that love is like a river. that love is like the river flowing from Ezekiel's temple that has an infinite source and it gets wider and deeper every thousand rods until you can't even swim. You have to swim over it. It gets so deep. It's not being fed by human springs. It's not being fed by anything else other than the divine power of Almighty God. And everywhere the river of love goes, it heals. That's what that river in Ezekiel did. Everywhere that that river goes, it heals. And Jesus said that he was abiding in his father's love and that we ought to abide in his love. He said, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. Now, if you're in the river, instead of trying to have the river in you, that's going to change everything. And we're going to look at that a little bit. Help me to remember that. Don't let me finish without going back to that. So here he says, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love, verse 11, these things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. So the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. So here Jesus says, if you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love. And then he says joy is next. You'll find out that he talks in chapter 16 about peace. And he says these things have I spoken unto you that you should not be offended. He goes right down through here and tells him to be long-suffering and and et cetera, to have faith in Him. And you see the fruit of the Spirit flows from this fountainhead of love through the keeping of Christ's commandments, abiding in His love. Now keeping Christ's commandments has been misconstrued. This does not mean keeping the Torah. It does not mean keeping Matthew 5. It means believing on Him whom the Father hath sent, putting your faith and trust in Christ, not only for salvation, but also for sanctification. If you haven't picked up the other lessons, I suggest that you do it because we've talked about much of this and you'll miss a lot that we don't have time to go over again if you've missed those. So he says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my father I have made known unto you look at this verse 16 closely ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you." So God has ordained us that we should go and bring forth fruit and that our fruit should remain. The Bible also tells us that it is God's will for us to bring forth much fruit. He says in chapter 15 verse 2, every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. And then in verse 5, I am the vine, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. So this abiding in Christ then is the key to having access to this infinite love that God has commanded us to have and to exercise toward all men. Go to John chapter 7 and verse 38. This is a powerful verse here. Lord, help us today. There's so much here I can't even begin to express it. It's like swimming out in the middle of that river and getting swept away in the current. How do you stop to describe the river while you're being swept downstream in the flowing love of God? There's so much here. It beggars description, as they would say. It goes beyond human reasoning to even comprehend how this river can flow out from under the temple, and there it is in a rock. There's nothing but rock under the temple. It's just a giant rock. They carved down there until they got a place to start building and they put bus-sized rocks down there to build the temple mount and then they put the temple on top of those rocks and there's nothing down there but rock and there in the Old Testament The children of Israel were thirsty, and they had no water to drink. And God told Moses, smite the rock, and the water will come forth. And he did it, and the water came forth. Later, he was supposed to speak to the rock, all a picture of Christ. The Bible says, this rock is Christ. And here, this temple will have water in Ezekiel. And this is the millennial reign temple. And that water will flow out of the east side of the temple. Where is the water coming from? Water doesn't just shoot up the middle of a rock. Water doesn't go up naturally. The water is springing out of the temple. The water is springing out from the rock, Jesus Christ. And that water then flows out to the east and it heals everything it touches. The only thing that's left unhealed are the salt marshes. Go and read the passages in the latter half of Ezekiel. I believe it's in the 40s. It might be Ezekiel 40 or somewhere right around there. You can read about that river and about that temple. And this is what Jesus Christ is. And this is what we're called to do, to abound more and more, to increase more and more. How do you do that? You can't do it. You cannot love the people at church as much as your own son and daughter. You can't do it. It's not humanly possible. And as soon as you recognize that, you'll be on the first step towards abiding in his love. The first step to abiding in Christ is recognizing that without me, ye can do nothing. You're dead in the water without Jesus Christ, but in Christ you're full of water and the water's flowing out of you look at chapter 7 and verse 38 he that believeth on me as the scripture hath said Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. He didn't say out of his mouth He didn't say, out of his eyes. He didn't say, out of his ears. He didn't say, out of his nose. He didn't say, out of his hands. He didn't say, out of his feet. He said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. That means that the source of the fountain is going to be from deep within you, that you will not have control over it, that rather it will be controlled by that one that lives and dwells within you. Jesus said that if any man believe in me, and he said, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, and my father shall come, and we will make our abode in him. And he said, I will send the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, and he will dwell with you, and he teaches that he will be in you. And so you have the triune Godhead moving into the believer when they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and keep his commandments, i.e. believe. And that's right out of 1 John that says that His commandment is that you should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. And that commandment supersedes all other commandments. That commandment goes above and beyond. Even to love thy neighbor as thyself. And to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength is comprehended in believing in Jesus Christ. And without believing, you cannot keep that commandment. So that believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, that faith in Jesus Christ, is what opens up the fountainhead in your belly. That's what opens up the river of living water to pour out of your life a constant stream, a constant flow. It's not in you. It will never be in you. It cannot be in you, but it is in Christ. And if you get in Christ and abide in Christ and walk in Christ, then out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. This is the source. This is the fountain. This is where the fruit comes from. This is how you increase more and more in love, not by loving like Christ loved, but by letting Christ love through you and you become the conduit and Christ the fountain and the water of life flows freely through your life to other people's lives. Here in John chapter 4 verse 14, Jesus speaking to the woman at the well says, if he had known who it was, who you're talking to, if you even had any idea who you were talking to here. He didn't say it that way. He said to her, verse 10, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water. The woman said unto him, sir, thou hast nothing to draw with and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou this living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well and drank thereof himself and his children and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. Whosoever. drinketh of this water shall thirst again and look at this but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life go to Revelation 22 and verse 17. Here in the final verses of the Scripture, the Lord Jesus Christ goes back to this analogy, and He brings the water through as His final message to fallen man before His return. And He calls out to man to come. And verse 17, And the Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. This is God's will for you. In Zechariah chapter 4, there's some typology there. In verse 2, there are two golden pipes through which the holy oil flows. And this changes types from water to oil a little bit different. We're not gonna get into all that right now, but it's speaking directly of the Holy Spirit of God. You've got the two olive trees in verse three, and these golden pipes continually empty themselves there in Zechariah 2. This infinite love that we are called to is an infinite emptying. You will never experience the love of God flowing through you until you love until you can't love anymore. When you love and you run out of all your love and you throw your hands up to God in heaven and say, God, you commanded me to love and I've loved and I can't love anymore. I don't have any more love left to give. But you said, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, that you shall Ask what you will, and it shall be given unto you. And I'm asking you, Father, in Jesus' name, to fill me afresh and anew with your love. Fill me with your Holy Spirit again, so that the love of Jesus Christ himself can flow through me to this lost and dying world. You are called to be a conduit, not a fountain yourself. The problem a lot of times with modern Christianity is that we think that we're the fountain. We think that all of the good and the power and the love and the fruit has to come from our own effort and our own conjuring up. But God has not called you to be the fountain. Jesus is the fountain. You're called to simply open yourself to Christ and open yourself to the world and be the conduit through which that water flows. The only restriction Get this today, we're talking about infinite love. The only restriction on the flow of Christ's love through us is our own smallness of heart. You can have an aquifer with a hundred thousand million gallons of water in it. And if you only have a one inch pipe coming out the other side, you're going to get that much water. How do you get more water out of that aquifer? You've got to have a bigger pipe. How do you get more love out of you into this world? You've got to stop getting it out of you and you've got to open up the side that's towards Christ through faith. Open wide up to God. Lay yourself bare before God. Let Him purge you. Let Him clean you. Let Him broaden you. Let Him enlarge your heart. And then you've got to open up that other side towards man. And you've got to say, God, let me love men like you love men. God, fill me with your Holy Spirit. And as God opens up and broadens that conduit, the volume of that love that goes through you to the world can then increase. The problem is not the supply. The problem in this day of lack of love, as the Bible says that in the last days iniquity shall abound and the love of many shall grow cold. The problem is not a lack of supply. The problem is not that God has less love to pour out on this lost and dying world than he had before. The problem is not that as the cup of iniquity gets nearer and nearer to full and overflowing that God loves men less because He doesn't. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross while we were yet sinners. He knew we were filthy. He knew we were undone. He knew there was nothing lovable about us. And God loved us so much that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The whosoever is just as true today as it was when Jesus said it to Nicodemus over 2000 or about 2000 years ago, sometime around then. It's just as true today that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. God's supply is not shortened. His arm is not pulled back. His arm is stretched out still. God has not given up. God has not turned us over to our sins. The problem is that we have restricted the flow of God's love to this world. We have allowed lusts of other things to enter in. We have allowed cares and riches of this life to choke the word and we've become unfruitful. In these last days, the call to Christians who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ is the call that the Apostle Paul sounded out to the Thessalonican Church. We beseech you, brethren, that you increase more and more. It's not enough to love like you've loved. It's not enough to do what you've done. It's not enough. You say, come on, you ought to be more grateful for all my sacrifices up at the church house. Listen to me, God doesn't need your sacrifices. You say, you ought to be more grateful for all the money I've sent to missionaries. Listen, God doesn't need your money. The biggest thing that God wants you to do and to be is to be a conduit. and then you get no glory for it. The problem is we're proud of our accomplishments. The problem is we're all stuffed up with iniquity and all kinds of other things. And our pipes are clogged and the holy oil can't get through. And the fountain of living water sits dammed up behind a dead, cold, lukewarm church with clogged arteries. revival. When revival comes, it'll bust it open. The supply is infinite. You are the conduit. I want you to think about how Christ loved for just a few moments as we close here. Christ loved first by preaching. The first mention of Christ's actions on earth as a man ministering on this earth are in Matthew 417. It says that Jesus preached repentance. The first thing he did was preach. He rebuked the people. That was his love, the expression of love. Woe unto you Pharisees. He called them serpents, generation of vipers. He healed, he said, Talitha, Kumi. And that little girl arose. He fed the multitudes. He said, give ye them to eat. But he didn't feed them every day, and he didn't feed them all the time. He fed them to show his love for them, and then he moved on. He provided for them. He told them cast on the other side and you shall find whenever they didn't have, they hadn't caught anything all night. He listened to them. We find Philip speaking to him, all these other disciples speaking to him and he listened to them. He listened whenever they came and said, master, and they had questions and they had needs and they wanted to be healed. He answered them. Philip said, show us the father. Jesus said, have I been so long time with you, Philip? And hast thou not known me? If thou hast seen me, thou hast seen the father. So Jesus answered Philip. He listened to Philip. He answered Philip. He showed them his hands in his side. He told them, be not faithless, but believing. He was forgiving to them. He told Simon, Simon, lovest thou me? He said, feed my sheep. He gave them another opportunity. He gave them his life. He gave them. He gave them apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. He gave the gifts, the vocational gifts. He gave the ministerial, the motivational gifts. He gave gifts unto men. He gave the Holy Ghost. He indwelt them. He abode with them. He filled them with His Holy Spirit. He anointed them with the teaching of the Word of God. He gave them power from on high and He sent the Comforter to teach them. Jesus gave everything he had and everything he was to those people and he said greater love hath no man than this But that a man lay down his life for his friends and he said as I have loved so you should love He told them to go and do what he was doing. And so we're called to love as he loves and How do you do that? You've got to get in His love. Abide in His love. And you've got to open the faucet and let Christ's love flow through you. You must let Christ's love flow through you. This can only be done through faith. This takes the fullness of the Holy Spirit of God. The fruit of the Spirit is love, but to let love flow out of you in its fullness, you must be full of the Holy Spirit, which will then bear much fruit. Father, in Jesus' name, I pray that you'd help us to love as Christ loved. I pray that you'd help us to open the pipe, open the valve, open the faucet through faith, Father God, and let your love pour through us. Help us not to be content, Lord God, with where we're at. Help us, Lord. We've closed up our hearts. We've closed up our hands. We've closed up our eyes and our ears to the needs of the people around us, and we need your help, Father. I pray that You would open our hearts, Father, to greater expressions of Your love, that You would pour Your love through us like a mighty river, Father God, that we would abide in Your love, that we would keep Your commandments, and that we would love one another with a pure heart fervently and increase more and more. In Jesus' holy name, Amen. you.