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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.
The Quiet Life
| Sermon ID | 31023154407436 |
| Duration | 39:07 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 |
| Language | English |
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