Father, we thank you for the Lord's day that you have set in front of us. A day to draw near to you alongside our brothers and sisters. A day to say, not just with our words, but with our actions and with our heart attitudes, that you truly are the rest of your people. You truly have brought us into the rest accomplished by Christ in the foretaste we taste now. Excites us for what heaven will be so what we pray that today would be a day full of rejoicing full of worship a day of rest for your people a day where you build up your saints a day where you Supply us spiritually with all that we need for the week's Demands we pray this our Savior's name. Amen This week and our favorite author together We could talk about charity. Sounds innocent enough. Charity, as you would, I'm sure all would know, would be an older English word for love. So the topic of this chapter in practical religion is love and the role that love plays in the Christian life. The textual support that Mr. Ryle uses for this chapter, First Corinthians 13, 13. So now faith, hope and love abide these three. But the greatest of these is love. It's the only scriptural proof that he provides. I think he felt like that was sufficient. But because I had half a slide to use up, I thought I would throw in there. John 1335. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another. So the chapter on charity, Mr. Ryle calls charity or Christian love the queen of the graces. And for this chapter, he outlines it in four major headings. The place that the Bible gives or the priority the Bible gives to love in the Christian life. the definition of what biblical charity actually is, although the irony is he spends a lot more time talking about what it's not, and then never defines what it actually is, but shows you what it actually looks like. And then number three, where true charity comes from, how is it developed, how is it begun in the heart, and how is it grown? And then why charity is the greatest of graces. So first off, A question for the listener. What place do you think the Bible gives to charity? Is there a typo or something on there? Oh, yeah, I did this. I was like, no. Yeah, because I was giving away the answers. Mr. William, welcome back, sir. but mainly me. So, what place does the Bible give charity? Is charity just one of many things in the Bible that we find that Christians ought to be doing, or is there a special or particular emphasis given to love in the Christian life? Special emphasis. Why would you say that? All right, besides the verse I've already shown you. Yeah, so love would be the kind of like the key component or the sine qua non of other aspects of the Christian life. So if love is missing, though, you have a lot of other things surrounding it. It's a noisy, annoying sound and clanging cymbal. All right. Anything else? I do feel like that is very similar. Yes. So it's put forth as a defining earmark of a Christian. It's kind of an important thing. Anything else? It is the first of the fruits of the Spirit. I do think there is some significance on it heading the list. Let's just sample a few things that the Bible says about the priority that love should have. Colossians 3.14, above all these things, that seems quite the summary. Above everything else, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Again, that sounds a whole lot like 1 Corinthians 13, doesn't it? 1 Timothy 1.5, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. So Paul says the summary of what we do in the church can all be summed up by that word love. Above all, keep loving. So again, notice the priority given to it. Above everything else, at the top of the list, at the front of your charge, above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers multitude of sins. Romans 13 8 Oh no one anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. So there it says that Christians Have a love debt to each other. We we owe it to each other to love one another and then first John 4 7 beloved let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God and It'd be great if we just left it there, but verse 8 anyone who does not love is does not know God, because God is love. I see the Bible gives love a preeminent position in the life of the church. Yes, he does. Yeah, we're to love God. We're to love one another. And we're to love our enemies. So there's no area of our life where we can be like, well, don't, you don't have to love that person or in that instance. So the priority that the Bible gives to love is I think pretty, or it's beyond disputing, it is actually at the top of the list saying basically if you don't have love, you have reasonable cause to wonder if God really has changed your life and made you alive in Christ. And then Mr. Hogg goes on and says, okay, so the Bible says this thing ought to be preeminent. So let's talk about what that thing is. Let's talk about what love is and is not. What things, and I've wrestled with how to ask the question. What is biblical love not? I know that you'd be like, well, that's a huge list. Okay, but let's say there's a cultural definition to what love is, and that is very different from what the biblical definition of love is. So let's consider maybe how love is defined wrongly currently. What would you say? How is love defined wrongly? Well, because Mr. Ryle doesn't. So we would say love is something that can be fallen into. So love is like a pit you can fall into and also fall out of, which is odd. Indiscriminate affirmation. Indiscriminate affirmation. Okay, so never confront. What else? What would be wrongful things that we would call love? They're far more prevalent than we think. When I stand at the Planned Parenthood, they tell me it's not loving because I'm pleading for the lives of babies, but I'm not considering the women. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Turning a blind eye to sin. Yeah. Was that you, Maddie? Acceptance of anyone and anything. I thought I saw another one back there, Lacy. Okay. Loving with strings attached to it. We'll look at some examples that Sherwin gives us. So it's more than emotion. Is it less than an emotion? Is it more than an action? Is it less than an action? No, I actually think it needs kind of both. Charity is not simply external acts such as giving to the poor. Just think of the amounts of money that certain corporations give or certain persons give to charities to get tax write-offs. You can't say that just giving something to someone is definitionally loving. So it's more than an action in this case. Charity is not, and I'm sorry to put some negatives together, but I was trying to keep with the pattern, and then quote Mr. Ryle. Charity is not never disapproving anybody's religious opinions. This is, I think, what TJ was getting at. There are many who would pride themselves on never pronouncing others mistaken, whatever views they hold. So there's a sense of if you truly are an open-minded, loving person, you would never confront someone's religious views. with truth. Isn't that the way we would define love? You would never go around and proselytize, you would never share the gospel, you would never, or even in church, lovingly correct errant views. They would view that as not loving to ever confront someone, which is a ridiculous definition of love. This is a longer one. If you have the misfortune of being my friend on Facebook, you've already seen this. It says, Biblical love does not consist in never disapproving anybody's conduct. Here's another very common delusion. Thousands pride themselves on never condemning others or calling them wrong, whatever they may do. Convert the principle of our Lord judge not into an excuse for having no unfavorable opinion at all of anybody They pervert his prohibition of rash and censorious judgments into a prohibition of all judgment whatsoever Your neighbor may be a drunkard a liar a Sabbath breaker a passionate man. Never mind It is not charity. They tell you to pronounce him wrong you are to believe that he is that he has a good heart at bottom and This idea of love is unhappily a very common one. It is full of mischief. To throw a veil over sin and to refuse to call things by their right names, to talk of hearts being good when lives are flatly wrong, to shut your eyes against wickedness, and to say smooth things of immorality, this is not scriptural love. So love does not blindly accept or refuse to confront. Now I do think that there is a counterpoint to this. Some would really lay their hands on this one and be like, I shall confront everyone and everything because that is love. Not definitionally. You could be a jerk with truth and go around and beat people with it. That also is not love. So avoiding telling people the truth isn't love and telling them the truth with wrong motives or in, in, uh, in a, yeah, I guess I'll just say it wrong motives, um, also isn't love. So, um, These are my additions. They are non-Rilonian. Charity or love is not a feeling that's beyond our control, something fallen into or fallen out of. It's not a generic sense of niceness. It's guided by truth. It's not predicated on what I find pleasing on another. I think someone said something talking about love with strings attached. It's not convenience-based, so it's not just something I do when I feel like it. So, what then is love? I've told you Mr. Ryle doesn't define it, so lucky for you, you get to define it today. How would you biblically define love? while I drink the rest of my tea. Yep. It's an act of the will. What else? A disposition. What do you mean by that? Okay. What else? Yeah. Others before yourself so there's elements of humility and love sure So Inherent in love is is activity So it's not just like I love the Lord so much in my heart, but it doesn't just show itself on the outside It's got to show itself. Yep Yes, so there Mr. Worley has landed quite close to the way I would define it, which would be if we took the act of the will, so a determination to seek the good of another, I would add to it, often at expense to oneself, accompanied by action and affection. It's a longer, kind of cumbersome definition, but if we were to put it all together, it's a decision to do. It is directional in that it seeks others' good, and not good as defined by them, but good as defined by God. It is willing to do it even when it costs something, so it's not convenience-based. And it is accompanied by action. There's movement to it. And affection. Because I think if we lack the affection side of it, you could have quite a cold-hearted approach to love, where it's just like, I am your father, and I do this because I have to. Or I'm your husband, and I'd like, no, there should be affection involved with it. Miss Johnny. What's that? Yes. Mm-hmm. Love doesn't seek its own. It's not rude. There, I would say, love is described with what it is and what it isn't. Absolutely. Anything you'd add to that? Determination to seek the good of another, often an expensive one, self-accompanied by action and affection. All right. No cries of outrage so far. Um, Mr. Rouse says he's that has charity desires to love God. So here he jumps totally over. I was so frustrated by this. He jumps totally over any definition and just tells you, here's, here's what love looks like. And you're like, Oh man, define it. He didn't ask my opinion before I wrote this chapter. He that has charity desires to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength. So there you can see determination, affection, strength, action. You can see some of those pieces of our definition flowing through it. Love to man is its second feature. He that has charity desires to love neighbor as himself. So he says, love is aimed at two primary Objects first and foremost love to God second and then and quite consequentially love to neighbor The good charity works its way out in action. I Will not let him be content with software or it will not let a person be content with soft words and kind wishes True charity does not want wages or its work is its reward. I thought that was a beautiful way of putting it. So that true love isn't, if it is genuine biblical love, it's not content to leave things at like, oh, I hope that all works out for you. Like, or the, I'll pray about that. I do hope you do pray about it, but love needs to work its way out and it doesn't do it to earn something, the very activity of, because it set its affections on the good of another. the pursuit of that is its own reward, which I think is a beautiful way of putting it. True charity shows itself in a readiness to bear, and I think by bear he means endure evil as well as to do good. So love doesn't check out as soon as things get rough, but it continues on in the fight for what is good and right. It will make him patient under provocation, forgiving when injured, meek when unjustly attacked, quiet when slandered. Why do you think love makes a person those things in those situations? What are your thoughts on that? Caitlin. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'd say love's not natural. Tamara. Yeah. I would say that the provoking, the injuring, the being treated unjustly, and the being slandered doesn't change the love's goal. Love's goal is to seek the good of that person. That situation hasn't altered its objective. It's made it harder, but it actually, if we think about it clearly, presents it as more needful. It's actually in those moments where love is most needed. Now, we would like to love at the beach, with the waves lapping at our legs, the sun beating on our face, and a cold beverage of our choice in our hand. That is so easy to be like, I love you, man. I love you. Wife, child, whatever. But it's in the middle of being provoked, or being injured, or being slandered, where the presenting need for love becomes even stronger. He has some questions about, at the end of the chapter, about, so you think you're loving, huh? How about when your kids are, I don't, he's, whoever's idea it was to go through this book was a terrible idea. True charity is the fruit of the Spirit brought forth in a believing heart. So if we could add something to the definition that I offered earlier, but it's getting paragraph length at this point. True love is begun and continued and nurtured by the Spirit would also be a key aspect. An aspect that would say that there's love that is unique to Christians who are alive in the Spirit that can't be had by those who are outside the faith. Then he asks, how little of this charity is seen in the church? This is where he stopped preaching and began meddling. He said, what angry tempers, what passions, what selfishness, what bitter tongues are to be found in private families? what strifes, what quarrels, what spitefulness, what malice, what revenge, what envy between neighbors and fellow churchmen. And then he goes on and says, like, Christians fight about the dumbest stuff. And then he lists some things where we're like, whoa. That's what you're talking about? He says, like, Armenians and Calvinists. You're gonna go, oh, man. High church and low church, not something we fight about as much. But he said, if they're genuinely in Christ, why is there such a lack of love? And yeah, in this part, he says, true love is a rare thing. He says, oh, I'm not talking about in the world. The world doesn't even have it. He said, it's rare within the church as well, which was a hard part to read. Thirdly, where does true charity come from? We've already alluded to this. I think Caitlin already mentioned this point. True charity isn't native or natural to fallen man. We are natural born lovers, but not of others, but of self, right? So we come out of the womb loving in self. Seeking my own good at the cost of others. And to have that fundamentally shifted is a spirit work. The heart in which charity grows is a heart changed and renewed and transformed by the Holy Ghost. And then he mixes in with that, he says, good doctrine. or right thinking about God should produce good practice or love. Holy practice will not flourish without sound doctrine. What God has joined together, it is useless to expect to have separate and asunder. Why do you think he adds good doctrine as part of what is necessary for true love? This makes me think of Augustine and his idea of properly ordered love, and he said it's just loving something over something else. Or, yeah, this loving thing was in it incorrectly, and so if we don't understand how the world works and who God is and what his character is in there, or how we should value things and what that looks like, Yep, so a right understanding of God, His priorities, even the order in which things should be loved or prioritized. So could you say that good doctrines should lead to right loving? Is there an inherent problem in that? Not with the thing, but with our application of it. Explain, because I think you're touching on the thing that I want. Exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, growth in a right understanding of doctrine or of God and theology can be misused or miscarried, would probably be the best way to say it, miscarried into pride. I'm wondering if when we grow in doctrine, if we've bought into a kind of auxiliary lie that says, I don't need love. Like, I'm right over here. Do I really need love as well? I don't have a full answer as to why some of the most, on paper, stout churches or Christians have such a neglect in this area. There's a disconnect happening and I'm trying to figure out why it is and where it's happening. Often the way I've described training in doctrine is like the sharpening of a knife. And if you give a very sharp knife to a toddler, It's actually destructive to them and to all those within arm's reach of them. But if you give a very sharp knife to a surgeon, isn't that a very good thing? Hopefully it's a very good thing. Because that sharp knife is guided with skill and care and seeking the good of another. And so with training and doctrine, Like, there's got to be love. There are some guys who I wouldn't ever recommend go off for more theological training until they could get more love for the saints down to their bones. Maddie? I think you have a wrong way of tying it. You said you had, like, when the church was growing, and the problem set is not right for us. We don't want to carry it for widows and orphans right now. It's for orphans. It's been my problem for a long time. But what would these be? Sure. Yeah, I definitely think that that can be. Yeah, I, I don't fully know why there is that disconnect. I see it in my life and I see it in the lives of those around me. We're going for some reason, in particular, reform folks have a rap, uh, for not being the most loving folks. Some of it is earned. Some of it is not right. Like sometimes we are jerks. Uh, sometimes it, people just don't like being confronted, but I do think that there is a disconnect. I think you're right on that, Kim. for the distrust of anything that smacks of emotion or emotionalism. And so that's the idea, the whole idea of being concerned about how you're treating others and what response that's going to get. You're just worried about, that's emotionalism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, often are. There is an aversion to emotion in reformed circles. We often are like, I'm a dad of three girls, so don't judge me. But like the child's movie, Frozen, conceal, don't feel, don't let them know. You just push it down. Michael. Yeah. Sure. I think living in community with each other in the church gives us ample opportunities to love in difficult ways, right? I wasn't pointing at you with that in mind, Sherwin. Yeah. Yep, a little more spaghetti, a little less waffle. What's that? Gotcha. Gotcha. I thought you were saying, like, I was a minority. I was like, um. I get, well, it's a sad state in the world where beards are in the minority. Tamar. Yeah. Yes. Wary, yep. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where I think we needed to help, or we needed to distinguish between what is rightly earned. Like, if we are being cold-hearted towards people, like, that's on us. But if someone thinks we're cold-hearted because we think that, certain activities are sin, we shouldn't apologize for that. And we should be loving towards them. That doesn't wink at sin. It doesn't say, like, if a child is running out into traffic, We don't want to be like, well, I don't know if they think it's traffic or not. It's objectively traffic. You need to call out to them. You need to chase after them. You need to draw them back. That's the way it is with folks chasing after sin. It will get us the undue reputation of being unloving. And we can deal with that. The difficulty is sometimes we earn it in ways we shouldn't. We push on through, why is it called the chief of the greatest of the graces? He takes a long section and we say, now I'm not saying that if you love, God will save you. So I think that's an important distinction to say, hey, let's make sure that we're not saying, hey, if you do this enough, the result will be salvation. So by greatest of graces, he doesn't mean saving graces. is that charity is the greatest because it is the one in which there is some likeness between the believer and God. So God is love, and when love flourishes and grows within the life of a believer, you become more like him. You are shaped more into his likeness and image. Charity is the greatest because it is most useful or helpful or beneficial to others. So there are other, we'll just call them Christian virtues that might be seen as more inward focused, whereas this is very much an outflowing one. And so he says that that puts it at the top of the list with regards to things that should be pursued. Charity is the greatest because it endures the longest. So here's a quote from 1 Corinthians 13, 13. Love will be, well, it's not a quote. He's quoting about that last one. The greatest of these is love, because the others will pass away. Faith will be swallowed up in sight, and hope in certainty. Their office will be useless in the morning of the resurrection, but love will live on through the endless ages of eternity." So some argue, and there is some debate as to whether or not there'll be faith and hope in heaven. Different topic for a different day. Mr. Ralph says that the day of the resurrection, our eyes will really see him. And at least faith as it's endured, or as it's experienced here, will fade away. Hope is anticipation of what isn't yet received, while on the day of the resurrection, you receive the fullness of your reward, and hope isn't, if it is experienced, it isn't experienced the same way. Love, however, will actually thrive in heaven. Love for God and love for his people. So that's why he would say it's the greatest. It continues on through eternity in greater, increasing ways. Application. Mr. Ryle says, how are you doing with regards to love, especially in the midst of being provoked? That was not a comfortable question. Caitlin. Yeah? So, Mr. Rowlett quotes, I think it's the end of that chapter where he says, like, these acts of love that you did for one another were done in service to the king himself. And the result that that has is obviously massive in the story that was told there. We're told to practice charity diligently. Often, see this is where we kind of fumble into the world's definition of love. It's like, I either love him or I don't. No, love is something that can be worked on. And so for like a spouse who would say, I don't love my spouse anymore. Like okay, repent of that. You're called by God to love them. Or if we see lovelessness or a very stunted view of love in our life, repent of it and grow and be diligent in this. He says, watch your own tongue and temper throughout the day. especially in your dealings with servants, children and near relatives. I don't know how you treat your servants at home, but I got sidetracked on that point. It was very, I'll just say this. It was very interesting serving as a custodian for six years to see how people treated you. You, there were times where we were treated like the garbage that we took out. Michael, Yeah. And I can fly off the handle at you if you don't do exactly what I want, right? Having worked in those industries and having had entire roasts thrown at my head, I can tell you the customer's not always right. Sometimes the customer's violent. Yeah, so how you treat those you deem, whether in reality or not, lower than you in any social setting. Whether that's an employee or children. or near relative, I would say spouse. Your spouse knows the areas that you need to grow in love probably the most. And then his second to last is persevere. Love is not something that is either like checked or unchecked, but it's something that grows and moves and ebbs and flows. Persevere, being faithful to love one another. And then I thought this one was a surprising turn and teach it to others. That's a very humbling, scary thought, to teach others how to love. But isn't that a loving thing to do? To model it for our kids? To model it for those around us? There's times where we would teach it formally, maybe in a more discipleship sense. But often, what's probably the primary way in which we teach love? By example, show them. Be an example of what biblical, faithful, theologically robust love looks like to other people. There are people who stand out in my mind as some of the greatest three-dimensional expressions of love that I've ever seen, and they just, they will always be that for me. RJ. Yep, yep, it needs to be moving. Hard for me to learn if it's just a quiet disposition inside. Let us pray, and then we will get going. Father, thank you for this chance we've had to consider just very briefly the role that love plays in the Christian life. Father, we pray. First, we just confess that we do not love you, and we don't love one another as we should. We pray that you would forgive us. Father, today as this place will be filling up with people, Many, many opportunities for us to love one another. We pray that you would give us eyes to see, ears to hear. kind and encouraging words to say, or open ears to sit and to listen. Father, we pray that no one would come here today and feel alone or unloved or uncared for. Father, what a tragedy for someone to come into your house to feel alone and not loved by your people. We pray that you would make us a congregation that loves you and loves one another, loves our neighbors, ourselves, loves in difficult times and in theologically correct ways. We pray this in our Savior's name. Amen.