Strong Love

Love covers a multitude of sins. I hope love also covers the awkwardness of a pastor, because I felt like we were a little disjointed in terms of the flow of the service there, but we do our best.

So thank you for the informality that it's alright that we'd be a little informal and work our way through.

So let's pray and ask that the Lord speak to us about love this morning.

Something that we've all heard and we know is at the center of the gospel and we all know probably most of the verses that we'll hear again this morning, but applying it's another thing, isn't it?

It's hard for us to apply what we'll learn this morning. So let's pray that the Lord would sink it even deeper into our hearts.

Father God, this morning we talk about love and we're talking to a God who loved the world so much that he gave his one and only

Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God, you know what love is and we only love because you loved us first.

And greater love has no one than the one who lays down his life for his friends. So Lord this morning, first of all, we thank you for your love.

Your love for us and we pray that in the likeness of Christ, we would go forth loving one another and loving the world.

Engrain this deeply in our minds, Lord, and we pray it would come out in how we treat one another in the home, in the church, in our workplaces, in our places of recreation,

Lord, that we would be known for our love, that the world would know that there's something different about Christians because of the way we love.

Change us, Lord, this morning by your word till the earth is filled with your glory, in Jesus' name.

Amen. We've been doing a series on what makes for a thriving church.

We've looked at passages in the New Testament and one in the Old that speak of Christ as the rock of our salvation, the cornerstone on on which we are built.

Some of the things that make for a thriving church is, first of all, that the gospel is preached. Luke 20 verse 17, the gospel is the presentation of Christ and him crucified.

Some will stumble on that stone, others will build their lives upon it, but the gospel is the starting point for a healthy and thriving church.

That's number one. Number two, Ephesians 2 20, we talked about how the Word of God needs to take center stage.

Sometimes the stage is filled with all kinds of other things, even on a church Sunday morning.

Many other things happening, but what is most needful is that the foundation be established, which is the

Apostles and the Prophets. The Old Testament, the New Testament, the foundation of the church is the

Word of God. That's why we do expository Bible preaching because, let's be honest, none of us really care that much about what any of us have in terms of opinions, political persuasions.

What really matters is what God says. So my job as a preacher is to get out of the way, to empty myself of myself and say, this is what the text means, and present that to the congregation.

Expository Bible preaching, Ephesians 2 20, that's the foundation that builds a healthy church. Number three, we talked about God -centered theology,

Acts chapter 4. 4 .11, that he is the cornerstone of the church.

The church needs a theology that is robust and can withstand the storms that will come.

Because life will bring us many challenges, and the question is, is your worldview shaped by the scriptures?

How do you think a God -centered theology? Number four, last week we talked about spiritual gifts.

Psalm 95, the rock of our salvation, singing praise from our heart.

Praise is doxological, it's worship, words of praise. Does it come from a heart that's on fire, or from a cold heart?

Well, we need a heart that's warm and on fire for the Lord. We need the fanning of the flame of worship in the church.

Give me a church where people stand and worship the Lord God, and you'll see a growing church more often than not.

Not just numerically, but in depth, in love. We need the

Spirit of the Living God empowering what we're doing here. And today, we talk about the last thing.

And you say, okay, this is least important, right? Because it's last. But no, it's saved for last, because it's most important.

Faith might come before it, hope might come before it, but the greatest of these is love.

A church that loves well will be a strong church. A church that empties ourselves of ourselves, and all malice, and gossip, and slander, and bickering, and instead focuses on love, on caring for the poor, on taking care of those who have needs, of bandaging the wounds of those who are hurting, of caring for one another, and those outside of the church as well.

A church that focuses on that, that'll be a strong church, won't it? Love is the key this morning.

So turn with me. We're gonna find it in another cornerstone passage, 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 22 through 2 8.

Let's begin by reading it. But the metaphor here is of Christ as a cornerstone, and each one of us as a living stone.

You ever thought of yourself as a living stone? Built up on the cornerstone, fitted together, which means we are in close proximity.

When people are in close proximity to one another, it's easy to rub each other the wrong way.

Sharp elbows, a misspoken word, a misperceived intention.

It's easy to be hurt and offended in the church. We're living stones, and we are built side -by -side together as one temple rising to the

Lord to offer spiritual sacrifices. We'll learn what those are.

But the context of this passage begins all the way back in chapter 1 verse 22. The concept here is love.

Let's read it. 1 22 through 2 8. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding

Word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

And this word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice, and all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and all slander.

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation.

If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good, as you come to him a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious.

You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For it stands in scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

Here we have the imagery of a cornerstone. It becomes the cornerstone of the church after being rejected.

Who rejected Christ as the cornerstone? Well, the leaders of Israel for one, but also all those who reject the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Reject him and choose instead to build their lives on a different foundation.

Whatever it is they're chasing in their life could be money, could be pleasure, could be some other kind of agenda.

Whatever it is that motivates them becomes the foundation of their life and they build there. And the characteristic of those who build on a different foundation is that they hate the cornerstone.

Those who build on a different foundation hate that cornerstone. In fact, the point of the text here is rejection and shame.

The stone that is rejected and put to shame and spat upon and his beard is torn out of his face and he's mocked with the crown of thorns and a purple robe is put upon him and he's beaten and he's taken out to a cross and he's tortured and crucified and he dies.

That's the rejected stone. And those who build on that stone are likewise rejected by those who build on a different foundation.

There's a theme here of rejection and shame, but not only that there's a theme of honor.

Because the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone of a church that's built up and rises upon that cornerstone and becomes the glory of the one who died.

The one who died now rises from the dead and a church is built upon him and that stands as a monument to his glory.

So the rejected one receives the honor. And in this there is love for the cornerstone, passionate love for God.

And with that comes love for one another, the living stones built upon the cornerstone.

The church will be hated by the world but should show the world what love is.

And we learned it from him. We wouldn't know what love was unless Jesus had shown us what love is.

How to turn another cheek when somebody strikes you on one cheek not to fight back but to turn the other cheek to love those who hate you.

The church should be characterized by love. That's the imagery we have here. Begins in verse 22, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love.

The first thing we need to understand is that love is purified.

What Peter has in mind here is the love that happens within the church.

Those who have been born again now being born into a special kind of love. A love for the church.

Notice verse 22, having purified your souls, having been made pure, having your sins forgiven, having a righteousness that belongs to Christ imputed to you so that you are declared righteous.

You're counted righteous. This is speaking of believers. How does it happen?

By your obedience to the truth. We'll talk about that in a moment. But it's for a sincere brotherly love.

Love one another earnestly from a pure heart. It seems to me that even

Christians sometimes are quick to dump on the church these days.

The church becomes the ire not only of the world but Christians sniping against people in the church.

Listen, the church is the bride of Christ. The church belongs to Christ.

He is the husband and the church is the bride. How does God feel about those who denigrate his bride?

We as Christians should be pro -church because we're pro -Christ. We're for Christ.

To love the brothers. There's a special purified kind of love. Some people look at church as maybe just a grab bag.

I'll take what I like and I'll leave what I don't. Or maybe you even choose a church based on your own preferences.

Well, this church hasn't really been meeting this need so I'm going to go around the corner to that church. We don't choose our family.

We're born into it. God chooses for us the family that he puts us into.

And if you've been brought into a family, if you've come to belong to a church, recognize it's the work of God.

It's not like choosing friends based on common interests. If you're into cooking, you might like to hang out with people who cook.

If you like to play basketball, you might like to hang out with people who play basketball. If you're into this sport or that sport or this activity or that activity, the world will say choose your friends and have fun.

The church is different. Part of the beauty of the church is that we do have different interests.

The Lord is able to bring together a family of very different people.

And we love each other. The world should see the love of the church, the love that's not based on mere common interests.

But that's built upon a cornerstone. That we come here and we worship and Christ is enough for us.

Yes, we can hang out and have fun with anybody and it's easy to talk basketball with somebody that that you play basketball with.

But I'll tell you what, I can talk to midnight or two in the morning or three in the morning or four in the morning with someone who loves

Jesus or wants to know about Jesus. Because that is what matters most to me.

If you love Jesus Christ, if he's on your heart and on your mind, he is enough to bring a church together.

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. The truth is what brings us together.

Christ can make us one. Love the brother. For his sake, for Christ's sake.

That's the first thing I want you to see. But there's a second thing in this purified motif. Verse 22, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth.

The text makes the point that there is no separation between love and truth.

Rather, love rejoices in the truth.

First Corinthians 13 6. Love rejoices in truth.

Love speaks the truth. And there's a time to speak truth. Now, the reason

I bring this up is because the society in which we live is trying to redefine love. Trying to redefine love by divorcing it from truth.

In any area that you look at, in our society, there is a separation between love and truth.

And we are being told that to love someone, you have to stand against what God says is true.

Brothers and sisters, love is never divorced from the truth. So, there's a concept.

Let's just take, for example, the death penalty. Is the death penalty biblical?

In Genesis chapter 9, when Noah comes off the ark,

God institutes the death penalty for those who shed innocent blood.

And he gives a sign. Maybe you noticed the big storm that blew through here last week. And after the big storm, there was beautiful rainbows in the sky.

That rainbow marks the covenant that God made with Noah.

What does that rainbow symbolize? That God will never destroy the earth in a flood.

And part of that covenant included capital punishment. Before the covenant made with Moses, before the law was given,

God spoke that truth. We see it affirmed again in the New Testament, in Romans 13, that the government does not bear the sword for nothing.

Listen, capital punishment, for example, is taught in scripture.

The truth is there. Love upholds the scripture even while being compassionate and caring towards criminals.

If someone has committed first -degree murder, intentionally murdering someone, we should bring the gospel to that person and lovingly explain the gospel.

And those who have been affected by that should forgive that person. But the government does have a role in capital punishment, according to the scriptures.

Let's move on to another topic. We are being told that we need to affirm the

LGBTQ movement. Affirm the choices that people make sexually.

Not just love the person and treat everybody with respect as we do, but we are being told that we have to say that those behaviors are good and right and acceptable behaviors.

Love, genuine love for a person who is in that movement or doing those activities, does not divorce itself from truth.

Leviticus 18 speaks to that issue in the Old Testament under the law. But in the New Testament, Jesus speaks to the definition of marriage.

Some people will say, well, Jesus never spoke about those things, so obviously he wasn't against it. That's a lie.

In Matthew chapter 19, Jesus affirmed what marriage is and he went back to Genesis 1, 21 to 25, and said it's a man and a woman.

He affirms the teaching that God originally gave through Moses in the Torah. Matthew 19.

There's a positive teaching about marriage that Jesus gives. And in Matthew 5, 17, he says not one jot or tittle will disappear from the law until its purpose is fulfilled.

The moral guidelines that we have in Moses are still the moral truths that we need to live by.

We see it again, 1 Corinthians 6. There was a such thing as homosexuality in New Testament days.

In fact, in the Roman Empire, it was very common. But Paul says, and such were some of you, but you were washed.

You were cleaned. Justified in Christ. That's 1

Corinthians chapter 6. So the teaching of the scripture is that God is willing to forgive.

Through repentance and faith, someone can be set free from those strongholds. And of course, we know the teachings of Romans chapter 1, which says the same thing.

The truth is the truth. And genuine love does not lie to people for the sake of feelings.

Even while being compassionate toward people who are struggling. We need to preach the truth and do so in love.

Love is according to the truth, according to verse 22. And I'll take it one step farther, one other example.

The new movement, now that the LGBTQ movement has the

Obergefell decision that changed the definition of marriage, now the next big thing on the radar is transgenderism.

When people experience gender dysphoria, we are told that we need to accept however they self -identify.

And affirm them in that, and help them in that. I tell you what, if a six -year -old is experiencing gender dysphoria and a parent helps them change their gender by surgery, some kind of mutilation of the body, that is not love, that is child abuse.

It's child abuse. Because the word of God says in Genesis chapter 1, verse 27, he created them, male and female he created them.

A majority of the cases of gender dysphoria, from what I understand, upwards of 90 percent, resolve themselves.

And a person is able to come back to the identity that God created for them.

However, we live in a culture by pushing lies has basically abused children and adults as well, and pushed them farther into the the death spiral that they're in.

Because the wages of sin is death. Listen, my point here, truth is love.

Love speaks truth. We need to be willing to speak the truth in love.

And we see this continuing, verse 23, since you have been born again. What are we born of? Not of perishable seed, but of imperishable.

See, all the opinions of men come and go. They're perishable. The worldviews come and go, they change.

Even science contradicts what they say is scientific fact today, will be something different 10 years from now.

But is there anything imperishable? Well, we have been born again through the living and abiding word of God.

The word of God, the scriptures, they don't change. Verse 24, for all flesh is like grass.

And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls. But the word of the

Lord remains forever. Truth continues to be truth.

The waves of doctrine and the winds of opinion come and go, but the word of the

Lord remains. This is the word, this word is the good news that was preached to you.

Secondly, love is peaceable. Chapter 2, verse 1, so put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander.

We've been talking here about what it takes to build a thriving church. And I think that what happens in churches that dwindle and experience a failure to thrive is usually more about some toxin in the system than it is a lack of any kind of great spiritual gift.

What happens in churches, unfortunately, is that believers fail to obey this verse.

Some gossip, some slander, some agenda begins to work its way through the system like a toxin, like poison in the system.

And the church is destroyed from the inside through slander, through gossip.

Someone will take offense at something that someone says and begin to talk to others about that offense.

Brothers and sisters, obey Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 to 18.

You will be offended and I will be offended, but I am committed to this.

If someone offends me, I will go to that person one -on -one and I will say where I feel the offense happened and I will talk.

And you know what my experience has been after years of doing this? Most times that one -on -one encounter works out well.

Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 to 18. When you are offended, you go one -on -one.

You do not begin talking to other people about it. It's so important for the life and health of a church.

Go and talk to that person. Usually it's a misunderstanding. Sometimes it's a difference of world view, but even talking and seeing a person face -to -face.

Listen, when you're on Facebook or when you're doing some kind of social media, you're not thinking about the person as the real person that you love.

You lose sight of who it is you're talking to. If you wouldn't say that directly to the person, to their face, then don't type it onto Facebook.

We love one another and when you get face -to -face alone with that person, so many of these things work out.

And I thank God that God has protected us from this. I think part of it is the Lord has answered prayer.

On a weekly basis, we pray over the church in Ephesians chapter 2 style that God would preserve the unity of the

Spirit through the bond of peace. It's prayer that keeps us together.

And it's also obedience to the word. Matthew 18 being crucial right there. A couple other verses that say the same thing.

First Peter 4 .8, if you flip a page, above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

I think this is an underrated verse. More often than not, if I feel offended,

I won't go to Matthew 18. Why? Because 1

Peter 4 .8 says love covers a multitude of sins. I pray and I say,

Lord, am I to cover this the way you cover me with your blood? Someone spoke an ill word.

Somebody wrote something that offends me. Am I to say I need to go and fight this or do

I say, Lord Jesus, you covered me. Give me the grace to cover this. And more often than not, the answer

I receive is cover it. Let it go. Cover it. Just let it go.

You'll forget about it in a couple weeks. You'll move on. Life is busy enough to get you occupied on something else, isn't it?

How busy is our life? We don't have time to fight every little squabble.

Love covers a multitude of sins. If your love is strong, you can cover other people's offenses.

Another verse is Ephesians 4 .29. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

If we obeyed just that one thing, churches would not be a dramatic place. If it was only about building others up and we let no unwholesome talk come out of our mouths, let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Colossians 4 .6. James tells us that the tongue is a very powerful, even though a small member of the body.

He compares it with three analogies. One, you can turn a horse, an entire big strong animal with a bit in its mouth.

You can turn a ship, a giant ship with a very small rudder. You can set an entire forest on fire with a tiny spark.

So it is with our tongues. Be careful with the words that come out of your mouth.

The littlest spark, not even intended to harm, but not careful, not wholesome, can set an entire church on fire with controversy.

An entire group, your group of friends, your best friend. How many relationships have been destroyed by a careless word?

Guard your tongue. And in this information world, guard what you write.

Don't start forest fires with your words. Lastly, in 1

Peter 2, 4 to 8, we see the priestly work of love.

In verse 2, it says, like newborn babies, infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the

Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

We talked about this imagery of shame and rejection and honor. Christ is rejected in the same way we will be rejected.

But notice, as we stand, a spiritual house, a temple.

Picture the temple in Jerusalem. It was a place for the worship of the true

God. It was a bloody and a gruesome place where priests were shedding the blood of animals on the day of atonement, but daily sacrifices were offered there, physical sacrifices.

Now we are being told in this text that we are a spiritual house, built together.

The analogy shifts here from a living stone, which is just fitted together, to the actual workers in the temple.

We are told that Christ, the high priest, has now set an example for us that we are a priesthood.

We are active in that building. We are active there. And just like the priest did physical sacrifices, we are in the church to offer spiritual sacrifices.

In the context of 1 Peter 1, we sacrifice some of the things that we used to love.

Verse 14, the passions of our former ignorance. We lay those things down, we die to those things.

Chapter 2, verse 11, we abstain from the passions of the flesh. That's a sacrifice to kill the flesh, to stop doing the things we used to love to do.

But it's not only what we put away, the gossip, the malice, the slander, the former passions.

There's something that we do. A spiritual sacrifice is to get your hands dirty in the life of another person.

It's to come and offer work to serve those who are hurting. It's the love of a person who will take the time and sacrifice your time and your talent and your treasure to come and transform this building into a homeless shelter for a week.

And to come and love homeless people, to cook them a meal and spend time with them and care about them and love them.

There's an opportunity to do that in a couple of weeks. We should have those slots signed up and filled in no time.

That's love. That's a spiritual sacrifice. That's a priestly work. Likewise, we have an outreach to Mount Laurel.

Sacrificing your time on September 16th to go and preach the gospel.

It's a spiritual sacrifice. We all have to sacrifice in order to do that. Or any other work of the church, the kids own teachers.

Love means we give of ourselves to serve the true and living God. Spiritual sacrifices.

So in closing, the thrust of this passage is about love. A church that's built up as living stones together on our cornerstone is a church that loves well.

That serves one another like priests. Let's close in a word of prayer.

And as we do, I want you to think about your own life. Is there a relationship that's teetering because of something that someone said to you or you said to them?

Here's love. Go alone with that person and talk to them about it.

Work it out as brothers who are built on the cornerstone.

It's too important. It's too important just to wash your hands of that person. This is a brother or sister.

You don't choose your family. God chooses your family for them, for you. Love them well.

Guard your tongue. Be careful with how you speak. Give of yourself to others.

Somebody here is hurting. Maybe you feel alone. A kingdom of priests is very active in one another's lives.

Call somebody up and ask them how they're doing. Go spend time with somebody. Be involved in a small group where you can actually be intertwined with somebody's life like living stones built together.

Be involved with others. It's the only way you'll know if one of your brothers is hurting.

Be involved in a small group. Let's close in a word of prayer and we'll ask the worship team to come up. Oh Father, we thank you for your love for us.

It's the fountain of love that fills us that we could love the way you do.

We only love because you first loved us. God, we pray for love in this church.

Let it be according to truth, Lord, that we would speak the truth, but let it be filled with compassion that we would genuinely care about one another and invest our lives like living stones built together.

Increase our love, Lord. God, I can imagine that there's people that are hurting and relationships that are strained.

I pray right now for a supernatural work of your grace. Repair what's broken.

Restore what locusts have eaten away. I pray, Lord, that you protect us from all malice and gossip, slander, hypocrisy, deceit.

Put them away from us, Lord. Protect us from those things and stir us up to love well, to be so ready to serve, quick to help.

Fill us with your love in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand and worship.

Qualify the words of God of the city. God is the

God of this nation, but this is not a Christian nation. We are not a replacement of Israel.

We are the church. God is the God of all nations, and one day, according to Philippians 2, every knee shall bow.

So he is the God of this nation in that sense. He's Lord over all. So the church, though, stands to love, and greater things are yet to come.

Well, maybe things will spin out of control and get worse. We're not post -millennialists that think that it's going to get better and better.

In fact, it might get worse and worse, but this is what's greater, is that God will continue to save.

He will call out from every tribe and tongue and nation a people, and these works are great.

They're around the world. We have missionaries here today. So let's focus on the building of the church, the calling out of a people, and let's love each other well.