Unfiegned Love — Richard A. Bennett

Unfeigned Love and the Unity of Believers

There are advantages and there are disadvantages in being old. One of the disadvantages, you always say, what did I say? Have I said that before? I was at a service, actually it was a Christmas Eve service about three years ago and there was an English teacher in the congregation and after the service he asked if I would give him one of the little books I had written.

So I did and then he said, will you come, we are going to have a meal in the home, will you come for a Christmas Eve meal? So we went to the Christmas Eve meal and when we were there he said, would you sign the book for me?

I said to Dorothy, I've forgotten his name, what's his name? Dorothy said, well I'll find out. So she said, how do you spell your name? He said, B .O .B. Bob. So there's always a way out of it. So I trust you're going to sympathise with me as we go along and we're going to ask the Lord to do something very, very special in our meeting this morning.

You're not really strangers to us. The reason you're not strangers to us is because we have met at the throne and I won't remember your names but I do know that when we're meeting some of you, we have prayed for you and we've prayed for your ministry and we thank God for the honour, and I mean honour, of being here as God's spokesman seeking to encourage you in the ways of God at this particular time.

I feel that God would have me speak on two themes. This morning it will be unfeigned love. There's a verse that talks of unfeigned love in Peter, and this afternoon we'll probably be talking about unfeigned faith.

It's easy for us to know what love should do and then to mimic it, but it doesn't really come from a heart of love. The psychologist tells us that love works from the outside in. God has made a wonderful provision that true love works from the inside out, and we realise that it's impossible to love unless the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God into our hearts.

Ephesians, Christ, and the Body of the Church

So we're going to look at the book of Ephesians a little bit today, and maybe this afternoon we'll look a little bit at the book of Habakkuk. But in both of them we are praying that God will bless you in a very, very special way.

We notice that in many of your prayer requests there is the prayer for family, that God will bind the family together in real fellowship and love and togetherness. Different words, but the request comes up many times in your prayer cards.

We also notice that in your prayer cards one of the requests is that there may be unity in the fellowship where you're serving. And I want to tell you that the theme this morning is the answer to both of those prayer requests.

If we really understand the essence of what it's all about. You see in the book of Ephesians Paul is no longer defending his apostleship, he did that in 1 Corinthians. He's no longer battling the Gnostics, he did that in the book of Colossians.

He's no longer correcting Judaizers, he did that in the book of Galatians. He's no longer rebuking fickleness, he did that in the book of Corinthians as well. He's come through a long, long journey. His ship has sailed through many dangers and now he's approaching the harbor.

And as he's approaching the harbor he's ministering about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And really what it's all about, it's all about Jesus. It's not about our service, it's not about what we're doing, it's not really about where God's called us, it's all about him.

In the book of Colossians it's Jesus as Lord of the church. In the book of Ephesians it's Jesus as head of the church. The head has no function without a body. And the most wonderful truth is that here we are as the body of Christ through whom the headship of the Lord Jesus can function.

In Ephesians 1 .23 we read, he's head over all things to the church which is his body. The fullness of him who all in all is being fulfilled. The head of him who all in all is being fulfilled. Oregon translated it this way, Christ is fulfilled in all that come to him.

Whereas he is still lacking in respect to them before they have come. You and I have the privilege of filling up the lack of the Lord Jesus Christ, going and bringing people into the body of Christ, the body over which he is the head.

Sometimes young people will come to me and I say what are you going to do? They say well I really don't know what I'm going to do. I think I like doing this or I like doing that or I've got an interest in this but I don't really know what I'm going to do.

Or they'll say well this is what I'm to do, this is what I like doing best. And I always say before you decide on it, have you ever really asked what God wants you to do? Is he really the head? Is he really the one who is directing you?

You see the wonderful truth is that when the Lord Jesus says go, he's always behind the one who says go. The call is not really the people to whom we go, the call is the one who says go. And the Lord Jesus himself responded to the call when he was in heaven before ever the world was created.

The Triune God and the Sending of the Son

There was a perfect harmony of fellowship and love. There was perfect tranquility, perfect peace, perfect accord. Love flowed from member to member and from office to office in that marvelous triunity of God.

There was never anything that ruffled the scene but in God's heart there was a desire that others may share such tranquility, such glory, such peace. And he came to the place where he created time in the beginning.

Time began. Out of eternity God moved into time in the beginning. After the beginning and after God had created the splendor of the world and the universe and the marvels of all that we see in creation, after he had created man in his own image, then there came a moment where the Lord Jesus heard of the father, go.

How do I know that? I read through John's gospel last night and I noted I think it was 33 times that the Lord Jesus said the father hath sent me. The father hath sent me. A continual repetition of a phrase the father hath sent me.

How do you send somebody? You say go. And the Lord Jesus in a sense came into a world of suffering and woe as he came to express the love of God. I want to turn with you if you will please to the book of Ephesians and that's where I believe that God would have us share today.

Paul's Concern for the Church and God's Glory

In Ephesians chapter 3 I want to read to you from verse 13. The apostle Paul now was as I say writing to the Ephesians church to establish Christ as the head of the church. And he said wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you which is your glory.

It's interesting that the apostle Paul was not concerned with his circumstances in this letter. He was not telling the people to whom he wrote what was happening to him as he was in that rat infested dungeon in Rome.

He was not complaining about the circumstances that he found himself in. His whole concern was for the church, not for himself. And that's why of course in the opening phrases of the book of Ephesians he was able to say three times over in verse 6 to the praise of the glory of his grace.

Why are we here today? Why are we giving reports in different parts of the world as to what God is doing? To the praise of his glory of his grace. He also says in verse 12 that we should be to the praise of his glory.

And in verse 14 again he says we may be the purchased possession to the praise of his glory. I sometimes go to a platform feeling very inadequate to minister. Felt it again today. The verses that came to me today was I came not unto you with the excellency of man's speech but in fear and trembling.

And there is a sense in which it is an awesome privilege. One that is too much for me to handle. To be before you precious missionaries and you devoted souls who are longing to move forward with God. But the apostle Paul said our sufficiency is of Christ.

And that's the only sufficiency with which I stand before you today. But I'd sometimes pray Lord Jesus today I give you permission to glorify yourself at my expense. That's what it's all about. It's not about God producing wonderful preachers, wonderful teachers, wonderful missionaries, successful evangelists, master church builders.

What it's all about is that through the body the Lord Jesus Christ himself may be glorified. And that often means that it's at our expense as we begin to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings. As we understand in a new dimension what it means to experience the conformity to his death.

Lord glorify yourself at my expense. Indeed the Lord Jesus when he was facing Calvary his whole purpose as he opened the prayer in John 17 was not first of all for the church nor for the people who would be led to Christ through the church that would be established.

He said father glorify thy son that thy son may also glorify thee. He said what I'm praying for is not anything less than that the glory of God may be manifest as I go forward to bear all the unthinkable unprintable filthiness of hell itself.

And as my spotless soul is going to be separated from the eternal God with whom I have known eternal fellowship in the tranquility and peace of eternity. And now oh Lord that's going to be severed and brokered but that's not what I'm concerned about.

What I'm concerned about glorify thyself Lord. Overshadow me today Lord. As I speak to these precious people overshadow me by the outshining of thy glory. That the consciousness may not be of a message from a messenger but I pray that it may be the consciousness of the voice of God getting through all the clutter of our circumstances.

All the joy of our interaction and fellowship together and that we may in this solemn morning hour hear the voice of God penetrating. There's a verse in 1 Peter 1 22. Obeying the truth through the spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren.

Seeing that she loved one another with a pure heart fervently. I love to refer to John Wesley. I've read so much of his material in the course of my life. Realized that God moved in those days in a humanistic age where a country was on the brink of revolution.

John Wesley and Honest Christian Fellowship

And God moved in such mighty power as he said I went up and down the British Isles offering Christ to the people. But after people had come to Christ then he established weekly meetings. And there was one that was called the Oxford Club.

And every week Christians had to gather together. The men separated from the women and they had to lay their hearts bare in the presence of one another in the presence of God. And one of the questions that they had to answer each week was is there somebody whom I fear?

Is there somebody whom I dislike? Is there somebody whom I disown? Is there somebody whom I criticize? Is there somebody whom I hold a resentment toward? Is there somebody whom I disregard? Would you allow the Holy Spirit to penetrate honestly into your mind today as you're thinking about a new baptism of love in your heart?

Would you begin by confessing and telling God that there are those people whom you disregard, there are those people whom you disown, there are those people who you criticize, there are those people who you hold a resentment toward.

Because before ever we can be filled with love we have to be emptied of self. I often say that we want the fullness before we want the emptying. I've got a cup of vinegar here and if I nudge it vinegar is going to overflow.

But I don't want it to be full of vinegar with all its bitterness. I want it to be full of sweet lush orange juice. The only way I can fill it with orange juice is to empty it of vinegar. And most of us want orange juice flooding a life that's already got vinegar within it.

You see the Spirit of God not only sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is genuine love, unfamed love, but first of all he has to empty the vinegar. For in Romans chapter 8 we read, if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body you shall live.

And it's the same Holy Spirit who mortifies the deeds of the body, the deeds of the self-life. And it's nothing that you and I can do for ourselves, it's something that only the Holy Spirit can do. Imagine a man before a court and the judge has to sift the evidence because he's been accused of murder.

And after he's sifted the evidence he has to establish the guilt. And after he's established the guilt he has to pronounce the punishment. And the judge says, I've sifted the evidence, this man is guilty of murder.

And the punishment is this man has taken a life therefore this man is condemned to death. Now if the judge were to take a pistol out from under his bench and kill the criminal, the judge himself would be guilty of murder.

What does the judge do? He hands over to the executioner and the executioner performs the guilty verdict. And if you and I are here today and we begin to sift the evidence and we begin to say, Lord there is in my heart criticism, there are people whom I disown, I don't feel they really are going to be very important in my fellowship, therefore I can't use them, therefore I'll ignore them.

If there's that attitude of mind that lingers as we plan our work and we're only looking for the people who are going to be useful to us, then it's the first operation that we take, is to hand over to the divine executioner.

And through the spirit, he is the executioner, we mortify the deeds of the body. And we say, Lord I can't, you can. And the tense isn't the perfect tense, it's a continuing process, it's not the once and for all.

Sanctification and the Life of Christ Within

When I was first converted, I used to come home from business and there was one two week period when I would go into the drawing room in our house and I'd get on my knees with my Bible open and I longed to be a holy young man.

I longed to be able to resist the temptations that were in the office and all the lewd pictures that hung around. And I would pray night after night, Lord, Lord, sanctify me. Lord, and I thought that if I prayed and waited long enough, there'd be one little click and I'd become a super sanctified synthetic saint.

And then it would be plain sailing from that moment on. But you know it wasn't. And it's only moment by moment handing over to the spirit of God, slay it Lord, bring it to death. There's a critical spirit, Lord, slay it.

Before ever you can put in the orange juice, Lord, empty the vinegar. Take out of me everything that I am, that you may be in me everything that you are. That's what the gospel is all about. God never expects you to live the Christian life.

He never expected me to live the Christian life. He knows it's a total impossibility. There's only one person who can live the Christian life and that's the Lord Jesus. And he's transferred the responsibility of Christian living to somebody else.

He's transferred the responsibility of Christian living to the one who's condescended to come and take up his abode in my heart. Christ in me, the hope of glory. So you nudge a cup that's full of vinegar and bitterness falls out.

And you nudge a cup that's full of luscious orange juice and sweetness and nourishment falls out. And that's what Ephesians is all about and particularly these verses. He says for this cause in verse 14, I bow my knees unto the father of our Lord Jesus of whom the whole family in heaven and in earth is named.

The very concept of fatherhood is derived in the eternal annals and nature of God the father. In all of the world, all the families of the world, when we talk of a father, we derive that concept from the fatherhood of God.

But then he goes on and he says that God would grant unto you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man. What the apostle Paul is about to say. I've got something so staggering to tell you, so shocking, so unreal to the natural mind, that if you're going to understand it, you need to be strengthened by might in your inner man by the spirit of God.

You're not going to pick this up by reading a book on love. You're not going to pick this up by going to a seminar. You're only going to pick this up as God by his spirit comes into your life at this moment and so strengthens you that you may be able to comprehend the staggering, incomprehensible, humanly speaking, reality of the love of God.

Oh Lord, I pray that you may do that in this congregation this morning. The apostle Paul, he talked in terms of, if any man thinketh he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. And every one of us here this morning thinks we know something.

And God turns round and says, really you know nothing yet as you ought to know. Because if you gain knowledge without brokenness, you get academic understanding, but it's devoid of spiritual reality. So when you listen to the word of God, it's not that you may learn some new truth, it's not that you may learn some new principle in the word of God, it's that as you sit here, the Lord Jesus may increase and I may decrease.

And that's what ministry is all about. Not some bit of information, not some new insight, not some new illustration that we can use in our ministry, but somehow or another, we don't know anything yet as we ought to know until we have decreased in the presence of God and been broken before him.

The most staggering times of ministry that I've ever seen in my life has been when people have been broken before the Lord. And the most staggering times of sorrow and sadness in my life is when some people have resisted that brokenness and gone out with academic information that's devoid of spiritual reality.

Hearing God Through Scripture and Prayer

My man goes to a service in Victoria, out in Canada many years ago. God had been moving and the church was now the venue for all the churches in Victoria to come and we were packed out night after night.

And this one particular night I said we will not listen to a sermon, we'll let God speak to us through his word. And the principle of the book Food for Faith, which is here, is what we use that night.

What is God saying to me out of this verse? Is there a promise to claim? Is there a new thought about the glory of God? Is there a new command to obey? And all these questions we said we'll read it verse by verse.

Now you shouldn't do this with a congregation of 1 ,200 to 1 ,500 people, just open it like that, but the Spirit of God was so much in control. And the reality of the presence of God was there in such power and glory.

You see the word of God is not, the Bible is not just a manual, it's not just a textbook, it's a word. And when I say a word I'm expecting you to say a word back to me. Prayer is not a monologue, it's a dialogue.

Prayer is me being on my knees before the Lord with an open Bible and saying Lord speak to me today, not a thought that I'm going to have to preach, but a word from heaven that I'm going to have obey.

Bishop Taylor Smith used to go to a conference, he'd get down to the breakfast table and he'd say, and now my boy what did Jesus say to you this morning? And if you've got any sense you'd say, well Bishop what did he say to you?

And that would last the rest of the breakfast, and that would get you off the hook. But I want to tell you that's what it should be. It should be what did the Lord Jesus say to you today? Has the word of God been living to you today?

You see it can only be living when I'm broken before him, best of all on my knees, and always responding to what he has to say. Now I don't know how I got under that, but there we are. He goes on and he says that God would grant unto you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened by might in his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you may be rooted, that means that you may go deep and grounded, that means that you may be secure, that you may be deeply secure in love.

And he says I pray that this may happen as Christ may dwell in your house by faith. You notice in these verses there's first of all the Father mentioned, and then there's the Holy Spirit mentioned, and then there's Christ mentioned.

This is not one aspect of the triune Godhead moving. The whole family on earth is named as the Father. We get our concept fatherhood from his eternal fatherhood. The Spirit of God shed abroad in our heart who makes Christ real.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is ultimately to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. I was reading as I was going through John last night that once again the Lord Jesus said when he the spirit of truth is come he shall glorify me.

That's why we're here today. That the Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified. Not that we may become successful in our ministries but that as he's filling up that which is behind of the body of Christ and as he's bringing in the last members into that body and as we realize the head is useless without a body and we are his body moving in harmony with heaven and when love begins to flow moving in harmony with one another.

That you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height of the love of God. Does the spirit of God strengthen you in a man? That you may begin to comprehend in a new way what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the love of God.

The Breadth of God's Love in Practical Compassion

What about the breadth? That's the geographic concept of his love. God so loved the world. That's why we're here today. Because of the breadth of his love. It's not isolated to the California bubble. It's not only for the little fellowship of believers in a church who get into a friendly holy huddle after the church is over and people pass by untouched because we weren't sensitive to befriend them.

It's moving out from California. It's going to the far reaches of the world. The breadth of God's love. Dorothy and I'll never forget years ago in Kenya when we were to minister to a hundred pastors in the bush.

Many of them converted three, six months only. Many of them without even a bible. Walking through the equatorial sun. Beginning at four o 'clock in the morning and tramping through the noonday sun to get to the evening meeting.

But as we went it was like a torture chamber. Dorothy being in this particular wagon. She has a neuromuscular problem that has tremendous complications. So we decided the last little bit through the bumpy road in the Kenya bush that we would walk.

And we saw this lady. Those of you from Kenya have seen it many times. And on her back she'd got a great huge bundle of sticks. Her head was bowed and she was looking down. And as she passed we were going to this meeting.

We weren't far off now. The minister's wives were there in their nice dresses all ready for the special meeting. But as we were going Dorothy looked into the eyes of this lady. She had to look down to look up into her eyes.

She was bent over and huddled. And she took one of the sticks. She said I want to tell you about a stick. And as she began to tell about the one who made the stick the lady fell back. Her back cracked on the bundle of sticks.

And as she did so Dorothy stood on the little hill. And she began to tell about the creator of the world who made the sticks. And how some of the sticks he made became the very cross upon which he died for sins.

And other people came down the trail. And they all fell back on their little bundle of sticks. And we said we'll be here again tomorrow night. The ladies in their nice clothes came out said what happened to the meeting.

They said this is where the meeting is. We'll see you tomorrow night again. And by the time the week was over there were four or five hundred ladies who were meeting on the hillside. And when we gave the appeal on the last day you've never seen it.

So many of them. In fact I think almost a hundred percent of them gladly responded to the Lord. Their husbands had come out to see what their wives were doing. Dorothy saw them peeping through the bushes.

One tooth black faces. Gnarling. Dorothy said oh she said I see we've got some honored guests here. She said we must give them the first place. Come and sit at the front. So the man came and sat at the front.

All of them came to Christ. And the translator charity. She continued with them for many many months going through the navigator course teaching in them instructing them in the Lord Jesus. But I tell you this story for this reason I'll never forget it.

On that last day. These wives with nice clothes coming for a special missionary meeting in the bush. When these ladies tried to get the bundles back on their back. Here they were getting their dresses dirty and lifting up the bundles.

And helping them carry them. And I'll never forget as the sun went down. That African sun. The shadows got shorter. And we saw them disappearing into the twilight. We could only think of bear ye one another's burdens.

And so fulfill the law of Christ. The breadth of his love. It was in Nairobi. That we were passing by a man in the gutter. He was the subject of polio. Spindles of legs sitting there just desolate. Dirty clothes.

And as we passed by Dorothy noticed he got bloodshot eyes. She said go and get your eye wash. And I came back and there was Dorothy sitting on an orange box beside him. And she bathed out his eyes and we began to talk to him and found he was a brother in Jesus.

He loved Jesus. Everything he owned was in a dirty little haversack on the back of his back. He got one or two tracks that people had given him. He said I don't beg. He said I sit here. He said somebody comes and puts me under a corrugated iron roof at night.

And we found he was a lovely believer. And when we passed by we'd look for Shadrach. And we'd give him little bits of this. We gave him a Bible. He hugged the Bible. He said I've given him a million dollars.

He kissed it. He didn't know what to do. He got a Bible. And we were going to leave. And he was sitting in the gutter. And I said Shadrach you're not respectable. Your clothes don't cover you. It's a shame.

And I said Shadrach you know and I know that I could give you money. That you could buy a shirt and buy a pair of trousers. But if I'm your source of supply when I go, your source of supply will go as well.

So Shadrach got down on our knees in the gutter. And we said Lord Jesus you know all about Shadrach. You know he needs a brand new shirt and a brand new pair of trousers. Give it in such a way that he knows it comes from you and not from us.

We saw him once more. His face was beaming. And we went over to him and he pulled out his dirty haversack. And out of it he pulled a brand new shirt and a brand new pair of trousers. He said I don't know where it came from.

He said I don't know who it was. He said it might have been an angel. I don't know. But he said as he passed by look what he dropped in my lap. And he pulled out this brand new shirt and this brand new pair of trousers.

You see God looks with love. And you know this beloved. You have a multiplicity of stories that you could share to the praise of his glory. Because nobody can be congratulated when God does something.

The Length of God's Historic Love

The only person who can be congratulated is God who does it. The breadth of his love. The length of his love. If the breadth of his geographic love the length of his historic love. I don't know how long it was that God communed with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

I do know that he named the stars. We read that in Psalms God named the stars. Dr. Dwayne Spencer has said on that verse that it's interesting to note that though there are different names for different animals around the world the one common denominator is the stars are the same in every tribe and culture.

And they all have the same name because God named the stars. And how long he spent with Adam and Eve talking about the stars and talking about his creation. Telling about how to cultivate the ground I don't know.

And God loved that time of communion with Adam and Eve. Now he'd created man in his own image and there was that creature who was able to share the creator's glory. And God loved him. But there came a moment as you know when Eve and Adam ate of the forbidden fruit and there was a flaming sword and God was no longer to be found.

But the wonderful thing is that in the historic love of God he loved Adam and Eve as much after they fell as he did before they fell. And he loves you and me as much now as he did before we blew it. And he loved Samson as much after he had become a wicked adulterer as much as he did before.

And when Adam had his problem when Samson had his problem dealt with because his problem was his eye and he couldn't keep his eye off the women. And God took care of his eye. And with a right heart I and his eye was seared out.

And when God took care of his problem with the power of the Holy Spirit searing out his eye. Then he said oh Lord let the Spirit of God. Doesn't matter what happens to me now Lord. I'm expendable. God loved him as much and even through his failure he used it.

You see Churchill said defeat is never fatal. Success is never final. He said it's courage that counts. But I want to say it's faith that counts. It's rebound that counts. The length of his love that stretched down throughout the Old Testament.

The length of his love that reached out into the Apostle Paul. The length of his love that saw the briny tears of Peter splashing down his broken repentant heart. It's the love of God that looks with you and me today.

The Depth of Christ's Incarnation and Cross

The length of his love. But there's more than that. The length of his love. The depth of his love. If the breadth of his love is his geographic love. And if the length of his love is his historic love.

The depth of his love is his hypostatic love. When God who was never less than God stepped into a human body and became man. You and I need to be strengthened by a might in our inner man to be able to comprehend the significance of it.

That he was never less than God while he walked on earth. But there were times when he only acted as man. He says in John 5 and verse 19 the son of man can do nothing of himself. Now as God he could have done anything of himself.

But as man he renounced the right of independent action. And he said I'm dependent upon my father to do my work. In verse 30 he says I can of my own self do nothing. That's what faith is all about. That's what the Lord Jesus showed us when he came in his being and renounced his right of independent action and became totally dependent upon his father.

And I'm asking you this morning in the presence of God beloved to say oh God I'm renouncing the right of independent action. What I'm doing from this moment on is going to express total dependence upon your adequacy, upon your sufficiency, upon the fact that you are Lord in me everything that I'm not.

And I can say Lord as I become dependent upon you I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The depth of his love. But the depth of his love is not only to express his concern as he became man.

The depth of his love is not only that he may go to the cross to take care of your sin and mine and shed his precious blood. That our consciences may be free and we may have faith and a pure conscience when we come to God.