We're going to be reading verses 9 and 10, but it's within the context of the whole rest of the chapter, verse 21. Romans chapter 12, verses 9 and 10. Reading out of the ESV. "Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection.

Outdo one another in showing honor." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we want to praise you and thank you for sustaining us, for interceding on our behalf, for being patient with us, for being our hope, our goal. We desire, Lord God, that all these things that we are studying, that we are singing, that one day would be actualized, Lord God, in your coming.

And to that end, help us to put our hope, our desire, our energy, our lives, Lord God, in passionate pursuit of the things that honor you for eternal things, Lord God, not things that will perish with our flesh. We pray that your word would remind us again of the importance of what it means to love.

Help us, Lord, within the context of your grace to actually apply and to tangibly live in a way that honors you. May your grace be sufficient this morning, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Alright, so as we jump back into the book of Romans, chapter 12, again, to give you the larger context, he begins in verse 12 because there's a major transition that takes place in chapter 12 where he says, "In view of God's mercy, to present your bodies a living sacrifice." So he's talking about 11 chapters of summary of what God has done for us.

Basically, it's a detailed message of the gospel. And he needed to do that because the imperative, the commandments that he's giving us starting from chapter 12 is going to be placed on top of that foundation. So without that foundation, everything that he commands here, it can easily just become a burden.

So in appeal, based upon this mercy and grace, he says that our reasonable response ought to be a living sacrifice to God, that not just a part, not just certain portions of our life, but all of it should be a living sacrifice. Well, how do we do that? The first thing that he says in verse 2 is to not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

So again, a practical application of what it means to live a life as a living sacrifice in verse 2, not to be conformed, but be transformed. And then the application in which we are to live our Christian lives, he gives a context of that in verse 3 to verse 8, within the context of the body of Christ.

But where do we practice our Christianity? The gifts that he's given, generosity, whatever gifts that we've given, he has given us the body of Christ, that we are his body. And to offer our physical body as a living sacrifice, first and foremost, happens in the local church. So, Christians cannot be attached in a personal relationship with Christ if we are not physically attached to the physical body of Christ, which is his local church.

And that's the context that we were talking about in verses 3 and 8. So the verses 9 through 21, he's giving us that if we are to live our lives, the specific gifts that he's given us, within the context of the body of Christ, verses 9 through 21 is the explanation of biblical love that needs to be the foundation and the motivation and the fuel that causes us to be able to live a life worthy of the gospel.

So verses 9 through 21, Apostle Paul is going to give rapid fire commandments, which ultimately is a description of biblical love. And so he gives anywhere from 21 through 24 different descriptions or imperatives that's going to describe for us what he means by love, what he commands in this practice of love.

So what we're going to do for the next maybe about 4 or 5 weeks, we're going to just go through it. Today we're going to go through verses 9 and 10, about 5 different descriptions of how to apply the gospel in our lives, specifically in love. And then we're going to work through all of it to the end of verse 21.

And I think if you've been a Christian for any period of time, I don't think I need to remind you just how important and foundational this is. The practice of love, the commandment of love, Jesus said, is the essence of who we are. Jesus says in John chapter 13, "The world is going to identify you by this love, as I have loved you that you love one another." So our very identity, the whole reason why we've been saved is to practice this love.

In fact, Romans chapter 13, 8, he says, "Oh no one, anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law." So think about all the commandments. Think about all the commandments of keeping the Sabbath holy, about cleanness, uncleanness, and the 10 commandments. And he says all of that, all the commandments in the New Testament, all the commandments in the Old Testament, all of it, his ultimate goal is to cause us to love.

That's basically what he is saying. That's the reason why he told us to keep the Sabbath. That's the reason why he told us not to covet. That's the reason why he wanted us to be holy. All of it is summed up in love. Galatians chapter 5, 14, "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Everything that we've been learning up to this point, everything that he has done, ultimately is fulfilled with that practice of love.

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." So if we are confessing Christians and we are followers of Jesus Christ, the identifying mark of a Christian, again, in First John says it is love.

So I don't have to repeat to you, if you've been a Christian for any period of time, this is not deep theology that you have to go to seminary to exposit. You don't have to sit under the expository preaching for years to be able to figure out that that's the core of what God calls us to be.

You can be a brand new Christian and read through the gospel even one time, and you'll understand that Jesus is pointing us to the practice of love. Having said that, there is no other commandment that is more burdensome than this commandment. If you've ever tried to practice biblical love, there's nothing more draining, there's nothing more that will suck the life out of you than to practice this biblical love.

Some of you guys may say, "Well, I don't know if that's the case for me." You have to understand that the commandment to love is not a commandment to be better friends to your friends. It's not a commandment to be a better son, to be a better husband, to be a better wife, which all of that is true.

But when he said the identifying mark of a Christian is to love as I have loved you, it goes way beyond what the world practices. So the biblical love, that's why in the title I said not just love, but biblical love, what Jesus said was love, how he practiced love, and what he ultimately is commanding us of love.

See, the love that oftentimes that we practice in the church is no different than the love that the world practices. To be good friends, you know, and you hear this command, "Yeah, I need to love, and it's the greatest commandment," and then we think of these friends that maybe I've ignored, you know, maybe I need to be better to my wife or my husband.

You can listen to Oprah. You can go to, you can go to, you know, a Buddhist temple. You can go to an atheist meeting and they'll tell you the same thing. You want to be a good human being, be good to your friends, be good to your family. That is not what he is saying here.

He's calling us that and beyond that as he loved us. And the Bible tells us that his love was demonstrated in that while we were yet sinners. People that we wouldn't normally love, people that we are not naturally motivated to love, people that we would just by second nature keep them at bay.

To practice the kind of love that the world does not practice, if you've ever made any attempt to love the way Christ loved, you know that that is the greatest burden. It is the most difficult thing to do. If you've had any trouble doing quiet time, being disciplined, memorizing Scripture, all of these things at times are hard, keeping pure, all of these things are difficult, but if you've made any attempt to love the way Christ has loved, you know what a tremendous burden that is.

It can literally suck the life out of you because it is not within us. We are not naturally given to love people that are difficult to love. As soon as the honeymoon period of any church or any relationship falls apart and we begin to realize just how difficult it is to love sinners, our natural defense mechanism will keep people at bay.

We don't run to people who are difficult. We run away from them. So when God calls us to run to difficult people, it is draining. It is difficult. And this is the very reason why the Scripture says in 1 John 4, 9, "We love because He first loved us." I think it's 19, sorry.

1 John 4, 19. We love because He first loved us. You and I, the kind of love that God calls us to practice, it is in response to what He's done for us. And that's why even in chapter 12, it says, "In view of this mercy." See even though that may seem like a passing statement or a statement that just kind of connects us to what He's about to say, that's the key.

The key to every imperative from chapter 12 on is the "therefore," "in view of this mercy." Because the only way that you and I can practice this love is if we have personally been loved by Christ. That's why Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, 1-2, he's dealing with a very difficult situation with these two prominent women who are not getting along.

In fact, it was so difficult. In fact, I've realized the study through Philippians this last time as I was going through my quiet time, I realized the whole letter is saturated with his concern for this church that's divided. And the key reason why it was divided is because of these two ladies.

So he actually later on begs the church, "Hey, you guys get involved and help these two women to get along." And so I realized so much of what Paul is saying all throughout the letter is really dealing with this issue of division. These two prominent ladies who probably love the Lord in this model church, and it is in that context where Paul tells them in Philippians 2, 1-2, he says, "If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, receive my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and one mind." Before he calls them to unity, he says, "Have you been encouraged by Christ?" Now obviously he's not saying that here's a bunch of Christians and then there's a few of them who've been encouraged, a few of them who've been fueled by the Holy Spirit.

He's saying, "No, you're a Christian. You're a child of God." So he's not calling out a few extra Christians to follow this principle. He's saying, "Those of you who claim to have been encouraged by Christ, been comforted by His love, you've participated in the Spirit, and any affection and any sympathy from Christ, he's saying, "Practice it.

Don't just sing about it. Don't just memorize the Scripture. Don't just recite it to one another. Don't just share with one another." Basically what he's saying, "If you're a child of God who's singing about the affections of Christ and His unconditional love for you, then you do the same thing as Christ did and have the same mind, have the same spirit." So he's calling us based upon the fuel that God gives us by His love.

And that's why it's so important for us why corporate worship is the key to our spiritual walk. Because if you're not being fueled by the love of Christ, everything else that you do by your own strength will only suffocate you. It'll only feel like religion, more burden, more things that we need to do.

So what he is going to tell us here in verses 9 through 21, if we apply that by our own strength, at the end of our study, at the end of five, six weeks, you're going to come out thinking, "That's great in theory." And some of you who've never practiced it may be motivated, and let's try it.

And then there's a bunch of you who've tried it, and you've been a Christian for a while, and say, "Yeah, that sounds good on the pulpit." But the reality is that's just not reality. That's not just the way it works. So that's why, even though we're going to be going through all these imperatives and these commandments, that the key to all of this, the fuel and the energy that's going to fuel all of us is back in chapter 1, chapter 12, when it says, "In view of His mercy." In view of what He has done.

And it is so important for us why, again, we need to connect over and over again, and why we sing sometimes the same songs with the same lyrics over and over again is because ultimately that's our fuel for why we do what we do. So today we're going to be looking at these five imperatives, the five descriptions of biblical love, and then we'll move on to the next ones in the following weeks.

The first principle He gives us, biblical love must be genuine. Biblical love must be genuine. He says literally, "Let love be genuine." The Greek word behind that is "anor kratos," which again means nothing, but literally it means to not to be hypocrites. The first thing He tells us about biblical love that we ought to practice is not to be a hypocrite.

And some of you guys may know that the word hypocrite was a description of an actor in the time of Christ. Today, if somebody was acting, and because of all the budgets that they have, and you hear stories of people dressing up as different characters, and whether it's a supernatural, you know, superhero or whatever, and they would take half a day putting up makeup, and then they would act that out.

Well, during the time of Christ, the way they did that was they would dress up, and then they would hide their face behind a mask. And so these actors who lived in acting out playing somebody else were called hypocrites. And so that is the language that is being used, saying that our love must not be hypocritical.

And this is the way John Stott puts it. He says, "The church must not turn itself into a stage where our love is being practiced with pretense." First Peter 1.22, it says, "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart." Now all of that to say, he's calling us to practice agape, unconditional love.

Because the kind of love that you and I naturally practice is the kind of love that the rest of the world practices. We love because there's something to gain from loving you. We love because we expect from you. And if you've ever received love with strings attached, it's a tremendous burden.

Somebody might give you a gift, and then immediately you feel burdened because now you've got to pay them back. You know they're watching and say, "Well, I gave you this gift, and what are you giving me back? Because if you don't match what they've given, at some point it's going to turn ugly.

It's going to turn to, 'I love you, I love you, I love you, you jerk.'" Like eventually it turns into that when there are strings attached. So the first thing that he calls us to is unconditional love, to love people that are difficult to love, without strings. And the reason why he calls us to do that is because this is the kind of love that he loved us with.

It is not with strings, and it is not burdensome. He loved us, not because he thought, "You know what? I'm going to save these people, and they're going to all come and worship me, and that's going to be my reward." And I, you know, there's some truth to that.

But how many of you in your salvation have paid God back with your awesome worship? How many of you came to God, and now you're living your life, and God is up in heaven saying like, "Thank God I saved him. I really needed him for this generation." You know, most of us, if we're honest with ourselves, probably wondering, "Why did he save me?" Because you know yourself, and I know myself.

If God did not love us without strings attached, without pretense, without hypocrisy, we wouldn't be able to earn his love. We would never be able to pay back his love. And so because he loved us without pretense, he calls us, this biblical love, to love without pretense, to love without expectation.

We love because he first loved us. So it is our nature, it is our calling, it is our duty, and it is our privilege to be the reflection of his love to other people. So we love because he first loved us, not because I expect something from you, not because I want to transform you from one to something else, but simply because it's an overflow of what he has done for me.

That's the first and probably the most important aspect of biblical love. Do we practice this love? Or is the love that we practice no different than the world? We practice love, but it may not be biblical love. Secondly, biblical love must abhor what is evil. Abhor what is evil.

Detest or hate what is wicked or malicious. You might be asking, like, you know, we're talking about biblical love, and then all of a sudden we are called to hate something. See, again, if we're not careful, we may hear, say, "Well, God called us to love," and it's beautiful.

There's a lot of non-Christians who hear the gospel message as God loved us and he tells us to love, and whether they believe in Jesus or not, that's beautiful. If you're an atheist, you're a Buddha, I mean, that's beautiful. God's calling a community of people to be sacrificial and love, a community of love.

God loves, so we love, and then we begin to project what that love is in our own idea. You know, one of the biggest frustrations that I have within the church, I would have debates oftentimes with people who say, "You know what? This is what God says," and I say, "Well, what does it say in the Bible?" They say, "It says somewhere in the Bible." They're always quoting the Bible very vaguely, but they can't find it where it is, and they're absolutely convinced it's in the Bible.

And I'm trying to tell them it's not in the Bible, and that's the problem that we have in our culture. We have an illiterate Christian community that kind of heard bits and pieces of different messages, and we've heard that we ought to love one another, but then we start to contextualize what that love means for me.

And so the love has become relative based upon what is palatable to me, to my generation, to my friends, and then, if we're not careful, it has nothing to do with biblical love because the biblical love calls us to love unconditionally, but it also calls us to hate what is wicked.

Love is not, the biblical love is not a blind sentimental affection for anything and everything. It must be discerning. That's what he means by a poor what is evil. In Matthew 6:24, it says, "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other." You cannot serve God and money.

You cannot serve God and money. He doesn't just describe, say, you know, be devoted to God and then ignore these things. He says, no, our love for God must be so strong that there must be hatred toward these temptations. Again, in Romans 1:32, he said, "The whole reason why the judgment of God is coming is because they have tolerated and accepted what is wicked." In Romans 1:32, "Though they know God, decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them." There are certain things that our generation has been pushing and saying, well, if God is love and you guys actually practice love, how can you possibly say these things about these people? Because they've created in their own mind what love should look like.

But biblical love calls us to love God righteously and to hate wickedness. He has called us to practice this love without pretense in the context of people who hate the same things. It is not enough for us to love Christ. He calls us to hate wickedness. How much of our lukewarmness at times creeps into our lives and our passion for Christ and the things of Christ creeps into our lives because we justify all kinds of sin in our lives.

Whether it's my life or someone else's life or a good friend's life, and we allow it, and we become very comfortable with it, and then bad company corrupts good morals. David, the author of Psalm 101, he says, "I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away.

It shall not come to me. A perverse heart shall be far from me. I will know nothing of evil." That sounds a lot like Jonathan Edwards' resolution. He is resolved to not look at anything wicked. He is resolved not to compromise. He is resolved to run from anything evil.

Again, in Matthew 5, 29-30, he says, "To what degree should we hate sin?" He said, "If your eye causes you to sin, what does he tell us to do? Pluck it out." That sounds extreme. That sounds violent. And then he says, "If your hand causes you to sin, what does he say?

To cut it off." He's calling us to hate sin to the degree that it's better for us to be maimed and enter the kingdom of heaven because of the consequence of that sin. That this is how much God hates sin, because of its consequence. That the only remedy for this sin was to send his only begotten son.

Do you think a God who hated sin to that degree would have covered us with the blood of Christ and said, "Well, now since you're covered, now I'm okay with it over here on this side." The same God of the Old Testament who is holy, holy, holy is the same God of the New Testament who is holy, holy, holy.

And that's why in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 34, it says, "Consider him who endured from sinner such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." You have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

How much of our tolerance towards sin is completely unbiblical. Is not the practice of love. It may be the kind of love that the world practices, but it's not the biblical love that he called us to. Not only are we to practice this unconditional love, we are called to practice this unconditional love without pretense in the context of people who are also hating wickedness.

Thirdly, biblical love must hold fast to what is good. Hold fast to what is good. In some of your translations, it says to cling or to cleave. The root word behind this clinging is to be glued. To be glued. Some of you guys may remember, you know, years ago when super glue first came out.

First service people told me that that glue still exists, right? Super glue, you know, prior to that, we had Elmer's glue, we had rubber cement, we have other glue, but super glue came out and it was literally super, right? And the way that they had the commercial was they had this construction guy wear this hat and then he would put the super glue and then he would go to maybe the third or fourth floor with a metal beam and he would attach his hat and then he would wear his hat and he would put all his weight on that and he would hang and then it wouldn't break off.

And it was a great commercial, you know, because a glue, that glue was so powerful that his full weight couldn't detach it and super glue, I don't know how strong it was now, but it was the strongest thing that I've ever seen, you know, literally. I mean, I think at some point I saw super glue in every family and I don't know about you guys, but everybody I know glued their fingers shut by accident using that glue.

You know what I mean? The Bible talks about our clinging to God, not just casually coming to Him because we don't naturally drift toward Him. I don't know about you, I don't naturally drift toward Christ. I don't wake up in the morning, if I do nothing, at the end of the day I'm praising God.

That's not what happens. My mind, I don't know about you, has a tendency to drift toward the things that are negative. You know, I could have ten things going right and one thing going wrong and that one thing is on my mind all day long, all week long. And next thing I know, my worldview is dictated by what's happening in my heart.

And my heart naturally does not drift toward God. So, to me, quiet time isn't, well I got to do quiet time because that's what a good Christian does and I got to set a good example for the church. It's my lifeline. Because when I don't saturate my mind with God's Word in the morning, right, and I know some of you say, "Well, it doesn't have to be in the morning." I'm not saying it has to be in the morning.

I'm not adding to Scripture. But I am saying that morning is better. The reason why I say morning is better is because if your mind is not saturated with the Word of God, you naturally drift toward the things of the world, naturally meditate and focus on the things that causes you to see the world in a different light.

So, I need to have my mind and my heart be dictated in the morning of the things of God so that the way I view the world is because of what I'm clinging to. In 1 Peter 2, 2-3 it says, "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up to salvation.

If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." All of you guys who have experience or maybe some of you nurses, you know when a child first comes, comes out of the womb, you know, some of them are crying, but you know, some of my kids when they came out of the womb, they were sucking, you know, wanting food.

And I was amazed. Like, who taught him this? You know, in my mind I'm thinking like, did Esther read something to him? Like, how did he know that he needed food? The minute that he comes out of the womb. He doesn't know anything. All of this that God innately put in us, an instinct to live.

And that child, even from the moment that he is born, knows that he needs food to survive. He doesn't know what he's doing. He probably doesn't remember any of it. God created us to have an instinct to survive and to live. And so, Peter is using that as a description.

He's not talking about just casually drinking. He's not talking about, you know, just, "Oh, and I'm hungry." He's talking as an infant, not as an adult who's had a full meal and, you know, just kind of eating because you're tired of the same food. As an infant longs for this pure spiritual milk that you may grow up to salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

This biblical love that he calls us to, calls us to cling to, to be glued to the things of God. You and I cannot, by our own strength, to practice this love that Jesus practiced on us. Try that. When you're not motivated, when you're not moved, and you're not broken by the love of Christ, try to love somebody.

Try the love of a sinner. Try to love somebody who is hurting you just by your pure will. You don't have it in you. I don't have it in me. So he calls us to abhor what is evil, to be glued to the things that are good. In 2 Timothy 2.22, it says, "So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart." Not only are we to cling to what is good, to be glued to what is good, he calls us to do it with other people doing the same thing.

You know, oftentimes I hear within the church, people will say, "You know, it's hard to fellowship with people because nobody is pursuing God, nobody's doing this." And sometimes it can be perceived that way. But I really want to encourage you because I hear it so often. If that's what you perceive, I challenge you to initiate.

If everybody who perceives that, initiate it, a huge chunk of that problem will be solved. Instead of watching, saying, "What's wrong with those people? What's wrong with these people?" To resolve to initiate. And if that's not the case, "You know what, I initiated and they just seem, they have no interest and they're just kind of doing their own thing, they're resisting," then look for people that you can do it with.

Really cling yourself, attach yourself with people who you're going to be fed and run this race together with. To be committed and to be resolved to deliberately fellowship instead of complaining about the fellowship that you are not getting, be active in pursuing genuine fellowship. Cling to what is good, cling to other people who you can do this with.

In Philippians 4-8 it says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." And this is the reason why, again, I encourage you in the morning, be in the Word, even if it's just one verse, to meditate, to cling to, to think about.

You know the story in the Old Testament about Jacob and Esau. Jacob and Esau's story, if you understand it without understanding the larger picture, makes no sense. Because Jacob's the younger brother, Esau's the older brother, he's the manly man going out doing manly things. He's hunting, he's bringing back food.

Jacob, as far as we know, was doing nothing. He's sitting with his mommy playing, I don't know what he was doing, but he wasn't out doing what manly men do. So Esau comes back, he's famished, and Jacob is, you know, he's scheming. And he says, "Well, if you give me your birthright, I'll give you my stew." And we can totally understand Esau, right?

I mean, he's hungry. And this guy is like, "Well, give me your birthright." "Well, what is my birthright right now? I'm going to die because I'm so hungry." Right? A bit dramatic, but we can understand him. He's hungry. And as a result of that exchange, he loses his birthright, him, his children, his grandchildren, and for generations to come, he doesn't get his birthright.

In fact, in Hebrews chapter 12, 16, this is how Esau is described. He says that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. He doesn't simply say, "Oh, that was a mistake." "Oh, he should have gotten his priorities right." He calls what Esau did wicked, unholy, immoral.

What was it about Esau, what did he do that made this action so detestable in the eyes of God? You have to understand that this was no normal family, that his grandparents, his parents' grandparents received the covenant of God. And his whole reason why his family was where they were doing what they were is because God made a promise to his ancestors that, "I'm going to bless you and your children and for many children, and through you, the whole world is going to be blessed." So this was no ordinary inheritance.

This is not just about cows and farms and land. It's about God's promise. And so at that moment, when he was famished, he weighed the odds and said, "No, I'd rather have the food than this promise of God." What was wicked was not that he didn't see the value of these cows and these goats and these lands.

He lived for today and not for the promise of God. How much of the decision-making in our day-to-day life is dictated by our flesh rather than the promise of God? How much of our friendship is dictated by who makes us happy today rather than people who are that we're running with for eternal things?

What he called wicked was he didn't see the value of God's promise. He sold the covenant promise that was made with his family for a bowl of soup. And so what Esau did is exactly what he describes in Romans, that they clung to what was wicked and did not recognize God.

So God calls us, this biblical love that he calls us to is unconditional, is agape love. We uphold what is evil and we are glued to what is good. Fourthly, biblical love must be with brotherly affection. There's two words, similar words that is used, love and brotherly affection are both family words.

It's philo-storge, so some of you guys who know the Greek words behind it, phileo and storge, brotherly love and family love mixed into one word. That's the word that's translated for love one another. And then as brotherly affection is Philadelphia, again where we brotherly love one another. So the fourth principle that he gives us in the way that we practice love, that we practice love to the extent that we would love our family members.

And that's exactly what we have become. Jesus himself says on the cross in John 19, 26-27, when Jesus saw his mother and his disciples whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son." That his death and crucifixion when we've been adopted to his family, we have all become interconnected as family members.

And that's why he said, "Behold your son." Then he said to the disciples, "Behold your mother." And from that hour, the disciples took her to his own home. They didn't look at Jesus' mother and say, "Well, now your son is gone. That's going to be tough luck." He said, "No.

You've all become family members in the church." And I know that it takes some time for us to be sanctified to really be able to see that these aren't just brothers that we just happen to go to the same church. That in God's eyes, we are family. And that's why Paul says in 1 Timothy 5, 1 and 2, "Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father.

Treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters. In all purity." So the standard in which we ought to be called to love one another is, do we love our brothers and sisters like we love our family members? And oftentimes, sometimes, you know, I have to use that standard in the way that I treat maybe the church people.

And there are times when maybe I may be tempted to do this or tempted to do that. You know, even as we carry out church discipline, I have to ask myself, would I do this to my child? Would I do this to my wife? And that's the standard that he calls and he says, "Love your neighbors," what?

"As yourselves." So the biblical love is unconditional. It abhors evil. It clings to what is good. And it is the standard in which we practice. The practical standard we practice is they're our brothers, they're our sisters, they're our uncles. We become family members in the body of Christ. Fifth and finally, biblical love outdoes one another in showing honor.

Biblical love outdoes one another in showing honor. Philippians 2, 3, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." Imagine what the church community would look like when we're actually competing with one another to love one another. And the worldly concept of what it means to be honored is shunned at the door.

And when we come to church, our greatest passion is to outdo one another in honor. How much problems in the church, how much divisions and how much discord in the church would just naturally be solved if the brothers and sisters in the church were determined every time they come to honor and love more than ourselves?

How much of family relationships, even with our children, our friends, coworkers at church, how much of the discord and the problems that we have is because we're all trying to one up one another, to bypass each other. In fact, the passage in 1 Corinthians 13, 1 and 3, I mean, this is a go-to passage because Paul basically is telling this church that this is your main problem.

You're divided, you have chaos in the church, communion, all of these things are happening because you don't practice love. And that's why he says, "If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." He says in application in chapter 14, some of these people were coming out and speaking tongues in public and he said, "Well, it's causing a lot of confusion." And maybe they were saying, "Well, it doesn't matter because I have this freedom to do whatever I want." And he challenges them, "It's better that if you prophecy or if you do things that's going to benefit the church." And he says, "So if you practice tongues without love, all it becomes is utterance, it's noise, it doesn't benefit anybody." If you have prophetic powers and have not love, it's nothing.

And that's exactly what was happening in the Corinthian church in chapter 14. People were standing up and saying, "You know, I have a prophetic utterance." And they were all standing up at the same time. And then one person would stand up, another person would compete with him, and it was creating all kinds of chaos in the church.

Even the way that they were having communion. Instead of being concerned about the people who didn't have money, they were coming and said, "Well, you know, we brought this so we should be able to eat this." And it was causing all kinds of problems in the church. And he condemns them, saying, "What you are practicing is not communion.

You are going through the motion. You are eating the food. You are doing it in the church. But it is not communion that you are practicing. If it is not in love, it is for nothing." In fact, it says, "Even if you have faith that can move mountains, and if you have not love, it is nothing." Do you remember in Acts chapter 9, Philip comes and evangelizes, and this Simon the sorcerer, this magician, he also converts and becomes a Christian.

Peter and John come and they begin to lay hands and the Holy Spirit begins to fall. And Simon watches that and says, "Wow, that would be awesome if I could do that." And he was thinking about probably what he was doing before he became a Christian. You know, even as he was practicing maybe fake magic, he has never had that kind of power.

And all of a sudden he sees it in Peter and John, you know, and says, "Well, how much is this going to cost me? How can I get that?" Peter responds in rebuke and he says to him, "May your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money." You know why we worship God?

If God wasn't love, you and I wouldn't be here. If all he was was powerful, if all he was was almighty and omniscient. We'd be living every single day in terror because he can use that power to squash us and we'd be done. He says if God gives us power and faith to move mountains and if it's not in love, it is a destructive power that will be used to squash other people, to glorify himself, to be on the mountain and say, "Look what I've done.

If you mess with me, this is what's going to happen to you." He says even if you have the gift of faith to move mountains without love, it's not good. It's actually dangerous. If you have generosity, if you have all the knowledge, you've read all the theological books and you're the go-to guy to explain the hypostatic union of Christ and his incarnation and the different hermeneutical principles of dispensationalism, of covenant theology, and you've learned all of these things and you're the PhD and you're writing commentaries and yet you have not love.

All of that is just a tool to glorify yourself. All of that becomes a resource to point out how stupid other people are. And all it does is cause divisions in the church. And don't get me wrong, all of the things that I mentioned are things that we ought to be pursuing, that we ought to be interested in because it is scripture.

But he says if you do this without love, it actually does more harm than good. How many churches and how many friendships have been split over non-consequential things because of men who are good at these things? Without love, it means nothing. Even generosity, you can give to the poor and without love, it means nothing.

Evangelism. And he says even martyrdom. If you give your body to be burned and yet have not love, it's nothing because even sacrificing our own body, we can do it to glorify ourselves. That we can be venerated after we die so that we can have a better place in heaven for whatever the reason he says if it is not out of love, it does no good.

Love trumps spiritual gifts. Love trumps knowledge. Love trumps evangelism. Love trumps theology. Love trumps generosity. Love trumps everything that we have, even martyrdom. So let me go back to our main point. How important is it that we practice this? How important is it that as our church, that not just one of many priorities, not just one of many disciplines, but it is the discipline.

It is the thing that he has called us to, every single one of us. Without it, you don't have a church. This is why he came. This is why he died. This is why we read scripture. This is why we pray. This is why we evangelize. This is why we fellowship.

This is why we study. This is why we worship. Because when we fell from God, the author of life, this is what we lacked. This is what's lacking in our homes. This is what's lacking in our friendships. This is what's lacking in the world. So first and foremost, as we, again, that's our first part in biblical, practicing and understanding biblical love.

My encouragement, and again, you know, we're going to explain this in our members meeting, but the theme of our goal this year in 2018 is to live worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And living worthy just doesn't mean like being good singers and hearing theology and studying the Bible.

All of these things are great things. But in the end, we want to be more than just hearers of the word, but to be doers. You can sit here and listen to these sermons, say, "I agree with that." And who wouldn't disagree with it? It's beautiful to talk about the love of Christ.

But if that's where it ends, you said, "Good." But even the demons believe that and they shudder. Faith without application is dead. So our goal this year is to propel, compel one another, sharpen one another, right, to consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

That this love, this biblical love that he's telling us is actually physically being practiced in our church. Let's have the praise team come up and take some time to worship. And again, I really want to encourage you as we talk about this, don't make applications into these big things that you can't really measure and say, "I want to be a better Christian.

I want to love more." What does that mean practically? What is something specific that you can apply today? What is something specific that you can apply and then you can look back and say, "Well, I did that," you know? And to make tangible applications that you can measure and say, "You know, I really want to apply this biblical love that God has given me," and to really pray in those lines because that's sort of where we want to take our church this year.

So let's take some time to pray as our worship team guides in these.