If not, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Thessalonians, Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians. One of my prayers Before I preach, it's always that God would make me useful to Him. For the first time, I had something come to mind as I prayed that just now. We've been working on Betty's apartment and different things in the house. There's been a lot of times where what I needed to use to accomplish something just wasn't quite right and I had to somehow adjust it to make it useful to me. We had an old dustpan and it was made of metal and it had a lip on it. So you would try to sweep dirt up into that dustpan and you wouldn't get much of anywhere until I took a hammer and I flattened out that lip and I made that tool useful to me. I pray that God does that to us when we stand in need of it. That He would straighten us out. That He would take us and mold us and make us useful to Him. Sometimes that's not pleasant. I don't guess that was very pleasant for the other end of that hammer when I was making that dustpan useful to me. It's not always pleasant when the Lord does that to us, but I pray that even today we would be useful to Him. I'll be honest, the subject and message that is upon my heart as I gathered with you all today and saw different folks assemble themselves, I thought, Lord, are you sure you want that preached right now? And He's not removed from me any burden of that, so He must. We all pray for this message and that I would be useful to the Lord. And that's my heart's desire. 1 Thessalonians 4, I'll begin reading at verse 9. Paul is writing here to the Thessalonians and he's writing on a few different topics. He's written regarding some elements of behavior and of conduct and abstaining from fornication and not being called to uncleanness. He's written about defrauding your brother. So he's written about a lot of practical matters of life. And in verse 9, you've heard me talk about when we see the conjunction, the word but used in Scriptures, when we see something compared to something else or used against something else, that it should grab a hold of our attention. We see that here in verse 9. He says, "...but as touching brotherly love, or as concerning brotherly love, you do not need that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another." And indeed, you do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia. But we beseech you, brethren, that you increase more and more, and that you study, or that you make it your ambition to be quiet, or to lead a quiet life. to do your own business, to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that you may have lack of nothing." We'll stop there, just those few short verses here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Paul's writing, and he's writing about all these practical matters, and he comes to the issue of their conduct with one another, and he says that they would love one another. He says, but we have no need to write this again to you, because God Himself has taught you to love one another. And he says, and you've shown that, that the Thessalonians had displayed this throughout all of Macedonia. I want to underscore that just for a second, because when we're considering this aspect of love here, it is not just within the church, but it also has a significance without, or outside the church, to others that we would come in contact with. And he said, so you have displayed this, you have made this known throughout all of Macedonia, throughout all the area that people know that you are a group of people that love one another and love others, yet he says, still I beseech you and I encourage you to excel or to increase more and more in your love one for another. And he gives some examples of what that looks like in practice. And he says that you would set your aspiration or that you would study or make it purposed in your life that your ambition would be to lead a quiet life. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems in this day and age that we live in that we see that the quiet life is more and more forgotten. And the reason why it seems to be more and more forgotten is that there is just a lot of noise that is around us all the time. There's a lot of noise in our busyness. If you think about what it means to be busy, I don't know what images come to your mind when you picture something busy, but what comes to my mind anyway is a bunch of traffic. I don't know if you've sat in a bunch of traffic where all of a sudden people's blood pressure gets a little increase, and you hear people honking, and everyone getting right up on each other's bumpers, and there's just a big mess of confusion and grumpiness, as it was said earlier. And all of a sudden, all that busyness leads us from quietness to being disquieted. And some of us naturally have this tendency towards us to be disquieted. That we have this nature to us that what we look for in life is not the peaceful things, but instead we look for those things that are a little bit more noisy. In fact, I would go so far as to say that all of us have that tendency and that nature, it's just that some of us have it more than others. Let's be honest, folks. Some of y'all love drama, right? All of us love some element of drama. After all, we live in a country where our greatest export is entertainment, in which we export our drama. People enjoy drama, right? And so we'll find it here, we'll find it there. And by nature of that, what we tend to do is our lives become rather than quieted, they become disquieted. But regardless of your tendency towards that nature or not, I'm here to warn you that our adversary, Satan, makes it his desire to disquiet us. Satan despises to see the Christian at peace in their lives. He was no part of seeing the Christian at a walk with the Lord in the cool of the good day, in the midst of the garden. No wonder it was when we see Adam in the life and the fellowship that he lived with the Lord before he fell from that happy and holy state in which he was created. When he was dwelling with God in the cool of the day there in the midst of the garden that God had made and prepared for him to dwell in and to care for, what do we see? we see a subtle serpent making his way into the picture. And so it always is. As the Christian studies and aspires more and more to live a quiet life, our adversary causes more and more to disquiet us. And Paul here seems to acknowledge that, and that he tells us to study to live a quiet life. That there would be some effort that we would put forth that we would be able to aspire to ascribe to this nature of living a peaceful life. What's that mean? It means that's not going to come easy. It means that's not going to be something that you hop into. that when we find ourselves in these times and more so these patterns of life that is disquieting, that we must apply our hearts and apply ourselves that we would look to the Lord and follow after what we see taught in His Scriptures that we may obtain to that quiet life that He's called us to live. Now what's that not look like? We're given some examples of that as well. It's that you would do your own business. that you would be about your own matters that are at hand, that you would mind your business. Now, what's this look like in the contrary? What's this look like on the other side of minding your business? Well, some of you would say, well, it just means to not mind your business. There's a biblical word for that. And you find it in a couple of places in the scriptures. And the biblical word for it is to be a busybody. Someone that meddles in the affairs of another. Someone who is constantly wanting to stir up drama or hear the latest drama. Your business, your affairs aren't enough for you to mind. You want to go and mind someone else's business as well. Y'all know people like this? I won't ask if any of you are this people, but y'all know people like this? I think we all probably do, don't we? That they'll go and meddle in other people's affairs. They'll be busybodies. And in fact, all right, where I'm about to step, I want you to know I'm stepping very cautiously. Alright. But in fact, I want you to know one of the places where we see this warning against being a busybody, Paul is giving it to Timothy. And he's writing to Timothy concerning widows. And he's writing concerning older widows, that they be a part of the number, that you would take care of them and help them. But he said that there should be some concern when it comes to younger widows. In fact, he would go on a little while later to say his desire for younger widows would be that they would marry. And the reason why is that if younger widows don't get married, they'll be busybodies. They'll be going from house to house and gossiping and doing all these sorts of things. Now, I told you I was being cautious at that. Women, I don't want you to think that it's just you, or women are the ones who are tended towards this. It's all of us. We're all tended towards this aspect of meddling in other people's affairs, and not minding our own business, but minding the business of another. Paul seems to be telling us, if you want to live a quiet life, first stop trying to live someone else's. Y'all hearing me? Mind your business. I don't know about you, but I've got enough business for myself. I don't have time to go meddling in somebody else's affairs. And when I do, that's when I find all of a sudden that my life's not peaceful at all, because I don't have time to mind both my affairs and someone else's. So he says to mind your own business. Listen to what he says next. He says to work with your own hands. Now, there is a teaching in here about our call and our requirement to work. Listen, Scripture deals a lot with man's responsibility to work. We don't need to be a lazy people. If Christians are characterized as lazy, I want you to know we're doing Christianity wrong. The Bible makes clear that we're to be a working people. People that take our hands to the plow. That our work ethic should exceed the work ethic of anyone else. That the Christian work ethic should be something that's looked to and exemplified by saying, look how that person works compared to everyone else. But here, the aspect is not just a teaching to work, but it is also for us to not allow ourselves to subsist into idleness. You ever heard the phrase that idle hands are a devil's playground? They are. Teenagers, I think you guys are probably really prone to this, young people. I remember being 13, 14, 15 years old, and you know what the greatest crime that could ever happen to me was back then was that I would be bored. Y'all remember that? Dads, you have any kids that come to you saying they're bored? And you just want to look at them like, I got work for you to do. Right? The problem with that is when I was bored, My mom and my dad sent me out to play. It wasn't too long before I found some mischief. Right? Because my hands were idle. I think it's good for young people to work. I think it's good for all of us to find something to plow ourselves into. To take up that our good nature that would teach us and create in us an ability to live a peaceful life. And so he says to work with our hands, not to mind other people's business, but to mind our own business and to aspire to live a quiet life. Y'all remember the context that this was being mentioned in? It was within the context of loving one another. Now why would that be such a chief issue for him to address these aspects of the nature of our lives if the context here, if the encouragement and the call to the Thessalonians is to increase in their love one towards another? There must be an aspect of our lives when we start to meddle in these other things that our relationships with one another begin to deteriorate. They begin to break down. You guys remember last week as we entered into the new year, we talked about making the most of 2023? Today I want to talk about how we make the most of our relationships. Turn with me over to the book of Romans. Romans 12. Keep in mind what Paul's encouraging the Thessalonians to. That they would love one another. They would increase or excel in their love one to another. I just want to read one verse here in Romans 12. And Romans 12 is the beginning of an excellent practical instruction that Paul is giving to the Roman Christians concerning how they should live. The first 11 chapters of the book of Romans are all about orthodoxy. It's all about doctrine and belief and the principles that we believe in. And from the 12th chapter of the book of Romans on to the end of the book, it's orthopraxy. It's how we do these things. And in verse 9, here in Romans chapter 12, he says this. He says, Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, and cling to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another. Now we looked at the last part of that 10th verse quite a bit when we consider preferring one another and out honoring each other and submitting our preferences and instead giving preference to one another. But I want to look at that first part of this verse where he says to be kindly affectioned one to another. That's a pretty interesting phrasing, isn't it? for us to be kindly affectioned one toward another." Now, at first glance, we would read that. We'd probably just try to quickly summarize it as saying to be kind to one another. If you were to pop open some other translations of the Scriptures to try to get a deeper meaning of this, you would see that they would use words like devoted, to be devoted one to another. But if you were to go all the way back to the original Greek word, you would find this Greek word, phallostargus. Took me a lot of effort to get that pronunciation right. Philostorgus. And what that word philostorgus is, it's a kind of combination of two different words. And you might hear them, the philo and the storgus. And what you would note about those two is that those are two of the four Greek words that we see in the scriptures for love. Be kindly affection one toward another." And the Greek word is a shoving together of two words that both mean love. Philo. Anyone know what kind of love Philo talks about? Y'all have heard of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. That's what philo is. It is that nature of love that we would have with friends. The nature of love that we would have with one another, even. It's this nature of love that we would have that would just like snoot out of us towards others that we would come in contact with. It's a brotherly love. It's this friendship love that we so often see. Stargus isn't a love that we look at as often, but what it means, it is the love, a familial love. It's talking in particular about the love that a parent would have with their child, or the nature of love that spouses would have, a husband and wife would have with one another, the love that a child would have with their parent. It's a cherishing love. I think that's why we see some of these other translations use the word devoted to look at it. But I want you to see what's happening. There's this brotherly love, and this familial love, and they come together, and the King James translation says to be kindly affectioned one towards another. Now, we know that within the church, within the confines of Christianity, we know and we sometimes talk about being the family of God, and so it is. We call each other brother and sister. We have been adopted as sons and daughters to the Lord. We are the children of God. So we call ourselves the family of God, and we're right to do that. And as a result of that, I think it's peculiarly interesting then that we would see this nature of love being espoused to us as both a brotherly love and a familial love in which we would be kindly affectioned one towards another. So some questions must be asked then about this nature of love. About what we would see regarding a love that looks like this, in which we'd be kindly affectioned one towards another. Now I've already given to you the example of parents and their children, and the example of spouses, and we know there's an intimacy in those relationships and things like that, but what is foremost the nature of those relationships? but that they are committed, they are devoted, and loving one another. It's uncommon among other relationships that there would be a devoted love. You see, I have relationships with people at work. I changed jobs about this time last year, and there's a few people at my former employer that I still stay in contact with, but there's others who, once our relationship as coworkers ended, our relationship ended. Right? Why? Because that's just one of those common relationships that we have in life, isn't it? But the relationship of the people of God is not common. It is an uncommon relationship and one in which the nature of our love and our relationship with one another would be more likened to that love that is reserved between a child and its parents, or between even spouses and how they're devoted to one another, cherishing one another. Now, we use those words cherish sometimes. I think when we do try to use those words cherish, we might get them mixed up every once in a while, how we talk about them. Same thing with the word affection. We use the word affection. And when we do, I think we generally do our very best to try to make sense of that word affection. But I want to read to you Webster's definition of this word affection just quickly. He said, I bent a mind towards a particular object, holding a middle place between disposition, which is natural, and passion. He would go on and say, in a more particular sense, a settled goodwill. Listen to this. A love or a zealous attachment. love or a zealous attachment as the affection of a parent for his child and it was formerly followed by to or towards but is now generally followed by far we have an affectionate relationship towards one another in which we have this zealous passion and attachment that should permeate the bonds of Christianity. Now you might say, well, Derek, you're saying all this stuff. That's all well and good. Yes, we know that we should love each other. Why are you expressing such a big deal about this nature of this relationship? I want you to consider for a moment your closest friends. They can't be related to you. Consider for a moment your closest friendships. Again, they can't be related to you. That's my only rule for you giving this consideration. You consider, now I made some of my closest friends related to me after they got married, or I got married, so maybe I didn't do this all the way right, but just consider this for a moment with me, if you will. Consider your closest friendships. I want you to consider what has made you friends. Common hobbies, common interests, common backgrounds, common upbringings, whatever those things are. But ultimately, what you would see in the midst of those is that you have something about one another that you like. Think about old friends you had back when you were a kid. I had a friend growing up, lived down the street from me, two houses up the street. His name was Mark Belzer. We had just moved into that house and he lived two doors up the road from me. I was just a young kid looking for friends. We were playing one day. I want you to know I was probably second, third grade. I didn't know how to make friends. Someone said, I still don't know how to make friends. But I know how to make friends. And so me and Mark were playing one day, and I looked at Mark, and I said, do you want to be friends? And he said, yeah, let's be friends. So we became friends. But we became friends because we liked being around each other. We would play, and we would chip up ice that would fall and make our gravel lot just a big ice skating rink. So we'd try to chip it all up. We'd do all those things boys would do, get into mischief and things like that. But we became friends based upon what we like. Now what about the church then? How have we come to this bond of love, this bond of affection? We've come to this bond not by common interests or common backgrounds or by those things that would unite us as friends, but we've come to this bond by a bond of blood, by the blood of Jesus Christ, and it is far superior than any other bond that we could possibly have. Let me insert this just real quickly. This is why it is critically important, my friend, that you marry a believing spouse. Because while you will enter into a marriage bond that is greater than any other natural bond that you'll have, it must be excelled or must be set apart still by being united in the blood of Jesus. being united in a common salvation, being united in a common redemption. I just made real uncomfortable people who were here with their boyfriends and girlfriends, but that's alright. I want to encourage you that you need to find a believing spouse. It's important. So we have this blood of Jesus Christ that has united us. And it is a great bond of love that we see in Jesus Christ. In fact, turn over with me to the book of John. I'll try to hurry. Do you remember when we read over in 1 Thessalonians 4 when Paul's writing to them and he says, regarding your love for one another, you've already learned that because God is the one who's taught you that. You've been taught of God to love one another. Here we're going to see that teaching. John 13. Again, let me set you up with just a little bit of context here, because I think it's important. This is just after the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper has been partaken of. Jesus has washed the disciples' feet. We see that He has foretold of His betrayal, that Judas would betray Him. And then after He's told Judas that Judas would betray Him, Judas leaves, and in verse 31, Jesus says this to His disciples. He says, Therefore, when he was gone out, when Judas was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him and himself, and shall straightway glorify him. He's speaking of his crucifixion and being sent unto the Father. Then verse 33 says, Little children, I've just got to stop there for a moment. Jesus is teaching His disciples in such a compassionate and caring way, He's even exemplifying it as one who would be teaching little children. And so He says, little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek Me, and as I said unto the Jews, whither I go you cannot come, so now I say to you, And Jesus is saying, I'm only going to be with you a little while longer. And He says, and I know it's going to devastate you. And I know it's going to cause you heartache and worry and all of these things. And He says, so now I'll tell you this. A new commandment I give unto you. This should cause your ears to perk up. How many commandments are there? Ten? No, no, no, there's eleven. There's a new commandment right here. Jesus is issuing a new commandment to His followers. We go all up in arms about the Ten Commandments, don't we? But here's a new commandment that Jesus Christ Himself is giving to His disciples. It's worthy of our attention. He says, "...a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another." This commandment is unlike the other commandments though. Because what we have seen previous to that is that the other commandments were given with this charge that you would obey the Lord thy God who has brought you out of bondage in Egypt and that you would love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. But now we're seeing a different principle brought forward with this new commandment. In which He says, "...a new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another." How? "...as I have loved you, that you also love one another." No longer is this a love in which we'd be seen by obedience, we'd be seen by something that we'd apply ourselves to as an effort towards, but we would love others not as we love ourselves, but that we would love others as Jesus, the one who has laid down His life for us, that we would love others as Jesus loves us. Do you see the difference? The golden rule says what? Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Right? That's a scriptural precept. But Jesus raises the bar in His teaching that it's not based upon how we love ourselves or what we think about ourselves, but that we would love as He has loved us. Now, our mind immediately goes to that great sacrifice in which Jesus laid down His life for us. And in fact, we're going to see the same teaching in a couple chapters. In chapter 15 in which He provides the same instruction to love one another, and He does so on the basis of Him laying down His life for others. But what I want you to foremost see isn't just that great sacrificial love, but the love that Jesus had shown to His disciples all the years prior. how He condescended to them and their lowly estates. Keep in mind, Jesus didn't go to those who were of great wealth or great admiration or great fame in society. He went to lowly tax collectors and lowly fishermen and all of these things. Why were those the ones that He went to? Lots of people have used that argument of justification to sit with sinners and all of these sorts of things. But Jesus going to those of that nature was that there might be an understanding of love that isn't based upon some human nature, but that is based upon the relationship that we have with Christ. Now you say, Derek, how does that compare? What does that look like? I have sat with people of many regards My life's led me to different places. I've sat in all sorts of rooms with a lot of smart people. I've heard a lot of awesome stories and accounts that would impress and boggle your mind. But if you ask me, Derek, who would you rather spend an hour with? Some big shot that your paths have crossed with or some Baptist preacher who doesn't have a learning past the age of 13, but can tell you of the greatness of God's love, I'm choosing that man every time. Aren't you? Or that little widow woman who it seems like the world would have forgotten about, but she can tell you how God has never failed her or loved her for a moment. Who would you rather talk to for an hour? No wonder Jesus found himself with the lowly, right? No wonder Jesus found him with those that the world would otherwise have cast aside. What's the point that I'm getting to? Where am I trying to reach here? is while our love should reach the heights, the love that we have for one another should reach the heights that we see Jesus' love reaching for us and that He laid down His life for us. Just quickly, let me read over to John 15 just to read you the wording that we see there. Just quickly here if I can find it. We see the teaching of vine and the branches. Then listen here in verse 12. It 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. And he says, you are my friends, if you do whatsoever I have commanded of you. So we see this nature of love that Jesus is ascribing us to that we would even go so far as to lay down our life for our friends. To lay down our lives for one another. And I think if I was to go around and I was to interview people here, we would say, oh yes, we love one another. We'd say, oh yes, we'd do anything for each other. And that's probably true. A lot of you have proved that to me over the years. But let me ask you a different question about your affection one towards another. This question was posed to me about a week ago. I'm going to pose it to you. Do you like each other? We like each other. You might say, Derek, what does that have to do with anything? Do you see the teachings of Christ? Do you see the instruction of Paul, 1 Thessalonians and now to Romans, when he says to be kindly affection toward each other? That there would be this combining of this friendship, love, and this family love. That there would be a love that would surpass what the world may know. that would surpass so much so that when the world sees us, they could identify us with Christ because they see the way that we love each other. That our affection would rise to the degree that we have with our family. That we would truly cherish one another regarding the time that we spend with each other, not as something insignificant that we do as a part of our worship when we come together as church, but the time we spend together, we spend it because we cherish each other. want to spend time together. It's as though we would have a choice of anyone that we could spend time with in the world and we would choose it to spend on each other. You see that? I'm gonna just give you two quick things. I'm a golf fan. I like golf. I like playing golf. Not any good at it, but I like doing it. And every now and then you'll read an interview with some famous golfer, and they'll be asked this question. They'll say, if you could have a foursome, play golf with any group of your buddies, and normally it's with groups of four. So if you had a foursome with any people in the world, who would it be? And you'll hear a golfer, they'll say, well, it's my son, or it's my dad, and all those people that you would expect, right? If I was to ask you, you could have three people that you go to dinner with, who would they be? I might choose people like Sister Norma. I've had her cooking. Right? I might choose people like Brother Terry. I like when he starts telling me, we start comparing notes on different things. I might say Sister Georgia, because I know that she has experienced some things in her health, and I want to hear more about that, how I can help her and encourage her. You hear what I'm not saying? That has anything to do with me. That has everything to do with others. Are you seeing this? This way in which we're kindly affectioned one towards another? Let me give you one last account. We honestly just came through COVID. I feel like we did our level best as a church to figure out COVID as we went through that. Back a thousand years ago or so, there was a plague that struck in Alexandria in Egypt. And that plague that hit, basically the case was that if he caught it, he was going to die. They didn't have modern medicine or things like that. So it was that the noble people of the day, if they had people that were even staying with him, they would kick them out the very first time that they saw signs of this disease or this illness. So much so that they would just throw bodies out. They wouldn't even give them proper burials because they were so afraid of catching this thing. Then there was a group of Christians that were in the city. And they would go to each other when one was ill. And they would take care of one another. And they would give each other proper burials. And they would take care of each other in those matters, in those losses, in those griefs. And it was asked one time of one of those Alexandrian philosophers, and you can go and read about Alexandria and all that happened there. And it was asked about that. And the question was asked, why is it that these Christians are doing this? Do they not know that they're putting their lives at peril? And the answer was given, they follow the teaching of Christ that they love one another. Do you see the difference in that? I don't know what you saw here in COVID, right? All of a sudden we were all like, I don't know. Right? We looked at each other a little bit differently than we looked at each other before. I pray we never have to go through that again. But if we do, I pray that what prevails is that we love one another. Let me just give you one last thing, if you'll bear with me just for a second. Sorry, I pulled up that biography and got myself messed up. I want to close with this. C.H. Spurgeon was preaching about love one time. And he was preaching about that text that I read. I didn't spend any time on it. About love being with dissimilation or hypocrisy. Sometimes you see hypocritical love, and that's another subject for another day. But listen to this, what he said. He said, even if you should know that a professor is a hypocrite, it may be the duty of a Christian to say, let him fall by the hand of another. I would rather not give evidence against him. When I hear my master say, listen to this, one of you shall betray me, I may have a shrewd suspicion that he refers to Judas, but it will be wiser for me to say, Lord, is it I? Rather than to ask, Lord, is it Judas? In a day and age in which we see a world that is caught up in loving ourselves, I think we struggle sometimes with grappling what they love that would surpass a love for ourselves in which we would genuinely love one another. without hypocrisy, without trying to esteem or get ahead of someone else by knocking them down, but a pure love that is undefiled and which we humbly cherish, devote, and are kindly, affectioned one towards another. I thank You for listening to me. I pray that God will bless His message and even amidst the mess that I made of it. I pray that 2023 would be a year where our relationships are marked by something that is far superior than relationships that the rest of the world sees. That we have a love and a bond that is far superior. It's what's on your heart. It's what you say or do.