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One Word By Richard WIlson

You would never get this in a hymn would you?
I hate with the most perfect hatred.
I bet you write a hymn like that.
And I count them as my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart. I hope we can do this.
I hope we can do this and say this to the Lord.
The integrity of a man living by faith should be un-impeachable.
And just search me.
And if the Lord was to found something in my heart,
then we need to repent of it immediately.
And that doesn't mean to say we're perfect,
I'm just saying that there is a consistency
that is always in keeping with a righteous man.
And a righteous woman as well.
And righteous children. Yes, children too.
They can be actually children.
You know the Lord examines a child and says,
unless you become like a child,
you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
That's true.
You know, I love children,
because they know that they live under authority.
They live under the authority of their mum and dad.
They live under the authority of their teacher.
They live under the authority of everyone almost.
Especially younger brother, who do you call younger brother?
A younger brother.
The younger brother, here he is, he's getting up there.
And a younger brother always sees,
well I'm the bottom of the pecking order here.
And in many ways we've got to be at the bottom of the pecking order
to come to the Lord.
We've got to know and humble our hearts.
And the Lord said that, didn't He?
Humble your heart and come to the Lord.
And all of us, whether we're at the top of the pecking order
or at the bottom of the pecking order,
we've got to be like that who is at the bottom of the pecking order
and say, Lord, I want to come to you, in your terms only.
Let us read from the Word of God.
And I'm going to take a passage from Leviticus.
Leviticus chapter 19.
And you might say, this is a very dusty part of the scriptures,
but it's here we find a term that is used by the Apostle Paul.
And he just brings it straight out of the Old Testament.
And he says that there's one thing that is marked
by people who live by faith in the Jesus Christ.
If they genuinely live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
they will be righteous.
There's no doubt about that.
But that righteousness is seen in one word,
that they love God and they love their neighbour.
If you choose my neighbour, it can be our enemies.
It can be our enemies.
I was only talking to a young fellow that was doing all the ceilings yesterday.
And he wasn't really truthful to me.
He says, look, Richard, I don't know anything about religion,
but you obviously do.
And that was the opening line.
And he said, could you tell me what it's all about?
So I asked a few questions, diagnostic questions.
And he said he'd come out of a Raman Catholic background.
But it wasn't very long that I realised
that he had strong Jehovah's Witness influence in his life.
And it got down to that point that I didn't reveal
he wanted to enter into a conversation and I just said, good.
So he talked for about two hours, roughly,
between moving things around the house and that sort of thing.
And he was very, very open.
I think he's very open to looking beyond the Jehovah's Witnesses.
And we got to a point where he didn't argue about the Trinity,
didn't argue about the Godhood of Christ,
because Jesus himself said he was God.
And that would be difficult, not just God's Son.
He said, I was God. I was God.
And I said that the great mark, and this came down to this,
and he wanted to get into all the prophecies and that sort of thing.
I wasn't going to go there.
And I said the thing that is very difficult in the Bible
is many of the very difficult passages,
but the thing that really worries me is not the difficult passages.
It's the ones that are very easy for me to understand.
I find it very difficult to love my enemies.
Yeah, he said those are the ones that are difficult, aren't they?
And to walk in the integrity of one's heart.
I know what that means.
And those are the sort of things he said.
He just got right away from that,
and we got straight on to the redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ.
I didn't want to go into those prophecies
and get into the speculations and that sort of thing.
But it was very interesting that that was also of a very great interest to him.
He smiled to me and he said,
yeah, those are the difficult ones, aren't they?
Well, Leviticus chapter 19,
and then we'll go to Galatians chapter 5.
We've read it about three times now,
so we should get to see it.
This morning I want to continue in a series of studies in Galatians,
and the passage that is before us is in verses 7 through to 15
of Galatians chapter 5 that was read to us earlier.
And I want to particularly give attention
to the summing up of this one word that he says here.
Concerning his discussion, concerning the law,
he says in verse 14,
For all the law is fulfilled in one word,
and even in this, that you shall love your neighbour as yourself.
I take it that one word is the product of living by faith
and the product of righteous living is love.
The love of God that only can be found in the Christian's heart.
That's not to say that non-Christians cannot love.
They are a capacity of great love,
but they are not able to express the love of God
that is so clearly displayed for us
by the Lord Jesus Christ himself upon the cross.
The very love that drove Jesus Christ to the cross on our behalf
is at work in every Christian's life.
It is a product of true righteousness.
Now, no non-Christian can live by true righteousness.
They can have ethical standards that mimic righteousness,
but righteousness comes through the Lord Jesus Christ alone
and it's only Christians that can understand what righteousness is.
For we are those who are living by righteousness in Christ
and it's only Christians who are in Christ.
And if we are living by righteousness in Christ,
it will be visible by our love.
And it's interesting, it would be visible by our love for God first,
but that's something very private,
something that only our hearts can express toward God and ourselves.
But if that love of God between God and ourselves is exactly really there,
it will be expressed outwardly on the vertical,
on the horizontal relationships that we have with every human being
and with every created thing in the order of creation
that we will be those who will love our neighbour.
Now the law of God is broken up into ten parts
and the whole word of God can be summarised into ten parts
and those ten parts were given to Moses
on Mount Sinai and they are written by the finger of God in the stone.
And we find that these Ten Commandments,
the first four of those Ten Commandments have to do with our relationship with God.
You'll have no other God before me.
You will not take His name in vain and you will keep His Sabbath.
All those commandments.
The last six of those commandments have to do with our relationship with one another.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness.
You will not commit adultery.
You will not covet.
All those are those commandments.
And this, when the Lord Jesus was being tested by the lawyers of the day,
He said, now what is the most important commandment?
And they answered and said, you'll love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.
And your neighbour is yourself.
And then they asked Him, who is our neighbour?
And He told them the story about the good Samaritan.
And He says, He is your neighbour.
Now for a Jew to think that the Samaritan could be our neighbour,
they were the scourge of the earth.
They were the worst of the worst.
And Jesus was saying, you've got to love the worst of the worst.
That's what He's saying here.
So here the reason why the Apostle Paul lights on the second part
of the Ten Commandments.
It is because he's emphasising a particular aspect
that the only visible way that we are living by righteousness
is in the acts of our love for one another,
that go beyond the human flesh,
that can only be wrought by walking by the Spirit
and our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
This kind of visible love the world must see
and they will judge us of whether we are of God or not
by the works of our love.
If there is not this measure of God's grace in our lives,
the world can dismiss us as being frauds
because the watching world is desperately looking for Christ
amongst His own people.
And it's probably the only thing they can see.
They can't see Christ in heaven
because He is seated at the right hand of the Father.
They can't see the spiritual world at all.
What they can see is how we love one another
and how we love our neighbour.
And they can see that the Spirit of God
is therefore amongst us
and the living God who rose again from the dead,
His very power is living amongst His people today.
And that will give them hope.
That will give them saying there must be mercy
this side of eternity.
There must be mercy now in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And for many of us we were led to Christ that way,
were we not?
As we saw the fellowship of the Church
speak to us concerning the things of God.
Many of us came to know the Lord.
I know I did.
As I went to the Bible study before the evening service
at Northbridge Anglican Church
and those young people bore with me
and answered my questions and loved me
and I said these people are the genuine article.
I want to be like them.
And then they led me to Christ.
This one word is absolutely imperative.
The love of God that has been shared abroad in our hearts
and it can be only expressed as we love our neighbour
in true righteousness.
Last week we looked at what it meant
to receiving righteousness by faith.
This week we want to see the works of that righteousness.
And the works of that righteousness is love.
Love.
And it is the key outward explanation
of your Christian life.
And without it we have to ask whether we are Christians at all.
And that's what he says here.
So let's backpedal from here and see how he gets to that.
The first thing he gets to do,
and he says in verse 7,
You ran well.
In other words he says to these Galatians,
You ran well.
Your love for God was evident in everything that you were doing.
You loved the hearing of the Word of God.
You loved the preaching that was presented to you.
You became Christians very clearly.
You were willing to suffer much persecution.
And they were those that were jettisoned out of their jobs.
They were not able to do business any longer
because they became Christians in their community.
And so he says,
But something's happened in the process.
Who hindered you from obeying the truth?
This persuasion does not come from him who called you.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
I have confidence in you in the Lord,
that you will have no other mind.
But he who troubles you shall bear his judgment,
whoever it is he is.
And we find in this little portion
that he exalts them to obeying the truth.
Now the truth is a life of faith
that has a productiveness around obeying the truth.
Now obeying the truth is obeying the whole of God's Word.
The truth of God is the first truth God exists.
The truth that God exists, then his Word also exists.
He has communicated that which is fundamental
and foundational to all existence.
And we find that this reality of the existence
of all things based on the existence of God
is called the truth.
And the Maker of all things has told us
that we are all things work together to give glory to God.
Now if we are going to be productive
we must live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes.
But if we are living by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
we will obey the truth.
Now it is not easy for us to do this.
For us to have a lifestyle and a world view
and everything that we are living for based on the truth
we have to be quite different and separate
from those who are not doing it.
You will find many people even inside the Church of Jesus Christ
compromising, doing things that are extra biblical
or less than biblical.
But they are not redoing what is biblical.
They might know all about what the Bible says
but they are not obeying what the Bible says.
And they are not obeying what the Bible says
is because they are not living by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if they were, they would have productive lives.
Now you might say, well churches have produced
bigger churches and greater congregations by not.
And making compromises concerning how churches are to operate.
And it is a very great temptation for us to say
well these churches are more successful than our own.
But ask the question, are these churches
enavered with the biblical doctrines of the Word of God?
They might be flashier.
They might be more outwardly glorious.
They might have wonderful buildings.
But very often these churches have been built
on man-centred doctrines that have been somehow sanctified
by high-flying biblical language.
But it is not as a result of people genuinely
holding to the whole of God's Word.
And therefore, yes we can say, it is tempting,
but we need to have a very strong mind and a strong heart
and given to the Lord Jesus Christ
if we are going to have a world view
that is actually going to obey the truth.
Now the Galatians were such a church.
Yes, they were kicked from pillar to post
by the community they lived in.
They were persecuted, and actually he uses this word,
that one of the reasons why they wanted to compromise,
they didn't want to be in the contrary
with every single human being in their community.
So they said, we will compromise
and we'll just go their way a bit.
Not the whole way, but just go their way a bit
and they will see us as being people
that basically get along with us.
And they no longer are living a life
that is going to speak to their conscience any longer.
And the Galatians, he says,
had been hindered from obeying the truth.
In other words, they had been seduced.
They had vacillated from a biblical stance
in their lifestyle.
Not in their thinking, but in their lifestyle,
that they stopped obeying the truth.
They thought about the doctrines,
but their obedience to those things had waned.
And their condition could not be,
this condition could not be from God
because if it was from God,
they would be standing foursquare upon the word of God.
They would be standing on the unpopular
and unpleasant doctrines of the word of God
as well as the pleasant ones.
And so you have been robbed from godliness.
And why?
Because they had stagnated,
they stopped walking with God, with Christ himself.
And they had started to stagnate
and become churchified rather than Christian
in their behaviour.
And they had been robbed from their liberty in Christ.
There is nobody more dangerous
than somebody living by faith in Jesus Christ.
He will actually say things that will be against the norms
and against the culture of the day.
He will actually live as though
other people's conscience are accused
because if this guy is really fair dinkum with God,
therefore I'm not.
That's why they don't like Christians.
They are concerned,
concerning their want to do things that they want to do.
So the smallest thing can do just this,
can rob us.
And you know yourself, don't you?
I know myself.
It's easy to call the day quits.
You know, I'm so incensed
by the swearing that goes on in my staff con room.
And the most awful swearing.
And I know that they had a long discussion
about before they actually employed me.
He said, if we have this guy,
they said to the head of the department,
we'll have to stop swearing.
And I refused to do that.
And we all feel very conscience-stricken.
And so they went through a long period
of inducting me into the language of the staff con room.
And I had to smile at that.
I had to take it on the chin.
And I don't know whether it was a wise thing for me to do,
quite frankly,
because now Richard is happy
with the level of swearing as long as we don't blaspheme.
Okay.
And I said, I'm not happy with that either.
But at least there has been that settled separation of things.
And I stand there.
I stand there as a testimony against it.
But somehow as time has gone on,
they feel quite happy to use the various words that they use
as long as they don't blaspheme,
because I frown upon that.
But in many ways it's down from my witness to them, I think.
Maybe I should strengthen my witness there
and become a bit more objectionable to them on things like that.
But if the heart's not in it,
I'm not going to change it.
And therefore I'm thinking about writing a letter to them,
each one of them,
to explain their great need for God.
That'll stir it up the pot, I think.
And one of my little assignments for the course I'm doing
at the Grace Bible Institute
is I have to write an evangelistic letter.
And I've got a few of those guys in mind.
I might just write an evangelistic letter to them
to see what happens.
I might not have my job for very much longer,
but nonetheless I've been a witness and a clear witness in the situation.
I just give that up as a consideration.
I don't know.
I'm just giving some kind of application of what's here.
And it might not be the sort of thing I should do.
Maybe I should just live consistently
and just forget about the language going on around the room.
And maybe that's the way I should go.
But a little leaven does leaven the whole lump, little compromises.
You know, it only takes a little insect to do a lot of damage in the garden.
I see the lemon tree down there,
and I was alerted by my next-door neighbour
that there's a little insect that's going to kill that lemon tree
if I don't cut it off, cut it out.
And I could hardly see it.
I said, it's just a little bit of a growth here.
But Anne had found out that this is actually an insect
that's going to kill this little tree.
And so I got the secateurs out and cut it out.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
And it would take a little time,
but that poor little lemon tree wouldn't have had much of a chance
if it didn't cut those insect growths out.
Now, I think that this is also the case in our Christian lives.
We need to have constantly a spiritual inventory in our lives.
Have we been running in vain?
Have we been allowing compromises in our lives
that I don't want to present the idea
that we're some sort of gawky, stupid Christian
that can't bend with the wind a little bit?
I'm not suggesting that.
What I am suggesting is that which is central to our witness,
that is leading us away from the main thing,
that is the gospel of Jesus Christ,
we should not compromise in any way with that.
And we should hold it clear in every place that we are living,
whether it's at home or whether it's at work
or wherever you might be.
It is something we need to be very careful because,
really, those that we are dealing with
it is not very often that they have the opportunity
of having a Christian amongst them.
And I am surprised when I go door knocking
that when I knock on the door and I ask them
and people start to get very serious about hearing the gospel
and I have one-on-one Bible studies with them,
I ask them eventually and say,
Who has ever told you these things?
Have you ever come across any genuine Christian?
And I am surprised to hear
that they haven't had a serious conversation about the gospel
ever in their lives until on this occasion.
And I think there is a growing number of people
in our society that have had no real contact
with a genuine Christian where they can actually interact
with the things that really mean the difference of the gospel.
When we are in a place and we are genuine Christians,
we are the man.
We are the person that God has sent there
in His sovereign purposes.
And we have got to maintain our sincerity,
our integrity as Christians in that circumstance.
And we need to take spiritual inventories
that if our witness is not clear
and our lives are not speaking to their conscience
and we're only speaking to the intellect,
then there is a deep problem with our witness.
We can have amusing thoughts that may be religiously orientated
that will not get to people's conscience.
A life that is obedient to the Word of God, to the truth,
is the kind of life that will go to the conscience
of people that are around us.
And we've got to have that cutting edge
that leads to the conscience.
And that means we must be holy.
We must be people that exhibit the lifestyle
that is obedient to the truth.
Not some sort of rectitude type of truth,
but truth that is bathed in the love of God.
That kind of truth.
Because the gospel in the end is offensive.
And he goes on, he says just this.
He says in verse 11,
And I, brethren, if I still preach circumstances,
if I still preach some kind of religious ceremony
that's going to get you to heaven,
and most churches are doing this in one way or another these days,
in these days it was just become one of us.
Just become like the Judaizers.
And Jesus actually rejected the Judaizers.
He said the Judaizers were like leaven.
Don't eat the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees, he says.
They are dealing with outward religion.
They are dealing with outward truth, but not inward grace.
He says if I said just go and get circumcised,
that would be enough.
Or just go and get baptized as a baby, that will be enough.
Or go through some kind of church membership type of ritual,
that will be enough.
That will not be enough.
There needs to be inward grace spliced into your heart.
Outward circumcision, outward baptism,
whatever you do these days to become a member of the church is not enough.
The inward grace of being circumcised without hands,
of being baptized in the Spirit, not outwards with water.
Those are the graces that must happen in our heart of hearts.
And without it the Gospel will not have its full impact within our lives.
He says if I just said this, keep to Judaism, then it would be right.
I would be only introducing you to a religious system that cannot save you.
And why do I keep pressing the Gospel?
Because it's the Gospel that saves you.
Why do you still suffer persecution?
Because I speak against the conscience of people.
And the conscience when it's awakened can only do one of two things.
It can obliterate the messenger.
Or it can persecute or accept it.
There's no in-between line.
When the Gospel is being preached through our witnessing
and our testifying through our lives,
it speaks to the conscience, not merely to the cerebral intellect.
Surely the gate to the conscience is our mind.
But our conscience must be awakened.
When our conscience is awakened it will either destroy the messenger
or repent of its sin.
There is no in-between position.
And then the offence of the cross will cease.
If I just go along with Roman Catholicism or Presbyterianism or baptism,
views that are merely outward religious views,
they will commend me.
But if I speak of the concernings of the Gospel
and the biblical truth that must deal with the conscience
and deal with our whole lives,
then for sure as age you will never be accepted by the natural man
and particularly by religious people that are still only natural men.
And therefore we need to be asking ourselves the question,
is the offence of the cross clearly portrayed in our lives?
Now what do we mean by the offence of the cross portrayed in the lives?
You have to say that you have to present the Gospel in such a way
that there is no other way to salvation except through Christ's cross.
There is no other way to salvation except through complete surrender to Christ.
There is no other way to the cross except by humbling your heart
and saying, yes God, I'm no longer arguing with you.
I'm no longer bargaining with you.
I'm no longer trying to pay my way to heaven.
I'm not in a position to do deals with God any longer.
That's the offence of the cross.
When you become Christians you must first of all die before you can live.
You must be surrendered to the grave.
You must take up your cross and follow Christ,
which means death to yourself and yes to God.
That's the offence of the cross.
And much religion allows us to be intellectual,
allows us to be very outwardly observant of outward rituals,
and the more ritualistic a church is,
the more symbolism surrounding the Christian church,
the less Christian it is.
Display of religion will save nobody.
But the sacrifices of a heart according to the Gospel
is the only means of salvation.
I remember talking just a few months back into last year,
I was talking to a young yogi of the Hindu faith.
He came to my house thinking that he could have this kind of dialogue.
And he asked me the question at the end,
he says, do you think you're the only one right?
And the Gospel is the only way in which we can find salvation.
I looked him in the eye and I said,
there can be no other way to salvation.
You are totally wrong.
And with that he had to get out of this room as quick as he could.
You are totally wrong.
And there is no discussion, there is no negotiation,
there is no communal meeting of ideas.
Jesus Christ was the only one that was the Son of God.
He was the only one that went to the cross,
and He is the only one that could save us.
And I was absolutely stunned and renewed in my understanding
that the offence of the cross is in this very thing,
the exclusivity of salvation through Jesus Christ alone.
And if there is that cutting edge in our ministry,
we will lead people to Christ as the only means of salvation.
And the way that you are going is hard and it leads to destruction.
And the only thing that will raise people's ire and good people,
religious people, people who are cultured is that very thing,
that the offence of the cross is clearly the thing
that we must keep pressing.
And I know my own discussions in this household and because,
okay, the crunch is coming now,
she has to go make a cup of tea at this point
because she knows that I am going to be quite offensive,
in a winsome sort of a way I hope,
but I am going to be quite offensive
and because I have to press the truth to the point that it requires.
And unless we get to that point, we have never really preached the gospel.
In chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians and verse 18 it says,
chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians and verse 18,
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.
Now everyone who is outside Christ are perishing.
But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
And it goes on and it says,
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
He also says in another place later on in verse 21,
he says, For since the wisdom of God,
the world through wisdom did not know God,
it pleased God for foolishness for the measure of preaching
to save those who believe.
For the Jews request a sign and Greek seek after wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified.
To the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.
But to those who are called, being Jews and Greeks,
Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
And so it proceeds in that manner.
And again we find in 2 Corinthians chapter 4,
and I just want to quickly look that one up too,
because again the necessity of the foolishness of the cross
being commended to our conscience.
And he says in verse 1, therefore in 2 Corinthians chapter 4,
Therefore since we have this ministry,
as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart,
but we have renounced all hidden things of shame,
not walking in the craftiness,
nor in handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth,
and commending ourselves to every man's conscience.
So the conscience is to be addressed.
And that's the difference between preaching and teaching.
Preaching is addressing the truth to the conscience.
It's not merely to the intellect.
If we just leave preaching to teaching, we're not preached.
Because the definition of preaching is
it commends the truth to the conscience.
We must apply to the conscience,
so that we're uncomfortable by it in the sight of God.
Now teaching is something that is just
preparing the mind for preaching.
Of the God of this age has blinded and who do not believe,
lest the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God, has shined on them.
And so he proceeds and gives a further description
of the nature of preaching there.
But the offence of this cross is presenting the truth
to the conscience of every man.
And it's there we begin to see the response and the reaction.
And the reaction of a person's conscience
is either to lash out,
and those who are perishing will lash out.
Those who are being saved, they will respond in repentance
and turn to God and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
their only Saviour.
And so we find that the soul is transformed
as they look to the Lord Jesus.
Their sins roll off their back
and to be never to be resurrected again.
And they are clothed in the garments of Jesus.
And they are set in a path that is narrow, yes,
and sometimes difficult,
but nonetheless it leadeth to eternal life.
And therefore we find that Paul speaks of preaching
this circumcision, this religious outward thing.
But he says, I do not preach this.
If I did, I would find the acclaim of natural men.
But now I do not commend myself to natural man,
I commend myself to God.
And those whom God has called and led before this preaching
will respond and turn to God in repentance.
And if they do, then it is the work of God
and not the work of the preacher.
And so here their conscience is moved.
They realise that they are sinners.
They come under the ministry of the tutor of God's law.
They see that they must turn from the wrath to come
and flee to the one who is the law giver,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And find in the Lord Jesus Christ
not only the justice of the law of God
but also the mercy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And they find that they can come
and they find a holy Father
that embraces them in the spirit of love.
This is the access to the liberty that they have.
And if we are genuinely those who have experienced
the love of God,
we will find it the most normal and natural
and real part of our lives to express
the same love that we have experienced from Jesus Christ
to all those who are around us.
Yes, I know that our relationship with God
is one of loving God with all our heart, soul and mind.
But if that is really there,
that's something very private, very personal.
But something that's not very private and not very personal
is our relationship on the horizontal
with one another, loving our neighbour.
And it's there that our genuine love with God
is expressed with our love with our neighbour.
And he may not be a Christian.
He may not be our very enemy.
But it will include all our Christian brothers and sisters.
We cannot help but love them.
And if that's not there,
and if we are not those that are able to
look beyond our denominational barriers
and see genuine Christian people
that have also been born again to the Spirit,
and we are not loving them as we should
as our brothers and sisters,
they might be in all sorts of strange places
in the denominational structure of our churches.
They might be the only one in their church.
Now normally I would not have fellowship
with some of the people of these apostate churches.
But I find when I go and speak to individuals within them,
I find that there are genuine Christians among them.
And as soon as I do, my heart leaps with joy.
As a chaplain at my school,
my heart melds with his heart,
even though he's in a denomination
that I would not know how on earth
the love of God could be found there,
I say to myself.
And that's my prejudice,
and I should be condemned for that kind of prejudice
because he is this man who is far more holy,
far more really a Christian than I am.
He teaches me every day how to love my neighbour
better than I do,
and I am condemned by his testimony,
and I say, Lord, may I be like him as well.
If we are called to this liberty,
we are now able to see the old dimensions
that once existed pass away,
and new dimensions of love be existing in our lives.
And I believe that this is the one grace
is not our fidelity to the truth
in outward explanations of doctrine
that is going to express our love.
A lot of reformed people can do that better than I can.
But how is his relationship,
in her relationship with God,
are they obeying the truth that they are promoting?
I think not in very many cases.
But if they are those that have a genuine love,
if you're genuine loving, you will be generous.
You will give of your substance.
You will give your money.
You will not hold on to it.
If you're genuinely loving,
you will go and see a person that's in trouble
and sit where they sit and bear the load with them.
That's what love is.
You would prefer to go to a brother
that has been put in prison unjustly,
and you'd rather you take the penalty for him,
at least bear his load with him,
give him encouragement in that situation.
That is what love is.
It is being pulled out of our routine
and making everything inconvenient for yourself
so that another is built up and helped
and you're put behind in your routine
and your nice, comfortable lifestyle
for the sake of another.
You're going to be more patient
with the people that get up your nose,
and you're going to bear with them
in kindness and patience.
You're going to hear all sorts of rot from their lips,
criticism, but it's not going to shake you
from your love for those people.
That's the kind of thing.
We're going to receive people into our home
when it's going to be very inconvenient
and a lot of rot is going around in that person's life,
but you'll inconvenience yourself
and give them a place of solitude,
a place of comfort,
a place that's going to listen to them.
I can think of just a myriad of things.
A person who is loving will always give,
give of their time, give of their substance,
just give when it hurts and give beyond when it hurts.
I've never come across a genuine Christian
that is not generous.
I've never come across a genuine Christian
that is not patient in well-doing
and is not willing to say,
look, brother, look pagan, look pagan,
can I just help you out?
And it can be just a simple thing
like helping to move from one house to another
and going out all your way to make sure that's done properly.
You know the kind of thing that makes a difference
and you don't have to be very different these days
to make a very big difference to individual lives.
And therefore, he says quite clearly here
that if we are genuinely of Christ,
we will express those graces
in a way that is going to express this one thing,
that we love our neighbour as yourself.
And this is going to express liberty of our faith
that nobody else will have except that of Christians.
We will forgive.
We will not seek justice.
We will forgive and we will learn to love patiently
even though it might take the whole of our lives
to see the fulfilment of that love.
We will do it because Christ has first loved us.
And if you have a love problem,
it might be that you've never learnt
and known the love of Christ at the beginning.
Amen.