The Love That Lives Delightfully By Stephen Bignall
Psalm 16:1-3

Now that may seem a rather strange title for this psalm, the word love doesn't appear in my text
anywhere, but nevertheless I believe that this text is an expression of the love of God
in a believing heart, the love of God in a believing heart. It's a Michtam of David or a
Michtam of David. Now no one's quite sure what that means, some people think it means that this
is a tune, a Michtam was a special tune, others have postulated that it's something hidden,
that there's something hidden in this psalm, others have said it means golden or something
that's been engraved in fine letters. Well I'd like to take a little of each and just say that
there's something here precious, there's something here that's worth searching for, there's something
here that's worth examining for us tonight. So it is a golden, a hidden, a graven psalm,
something that can abide with us as we leave this place, that can be written upon our hearts
by God's Spirit and can give that golden glow of the love of Christ to us as we seek to serve Him.
Psalm is full of so many themes for so few verses, it has messianic hope and it was quoted by Paul
and by Peter in the book of Acts in verses 8 to 11, I've set the Lord always before me,
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
It's got heavenly hope, in your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures
forevermore. It's got rejoicing in the redemption and the inheritance that God has given to each
one of His people, you O Lord are the portion of my inheritance and my cup, you maintain my lot,
the lines, the borders of the land that you've given me, the lines have fallen to me in pleasant
places, yes I have a good inheritance. It's full also of a recognition of the grief and the sorrows
and the pains of those who give themselves over to idolatry, their sorrows in verse 4 shall be
multiplied, who hastened after another God. It also gives us an indication of the resolve
of the believing heart, in the latter part of that verse it says, their drink offerings of
blood I will not offer, nor take up their names on my lips. All these things in 11 short verses,
but we want to look at the first three, we want to look where David begins and says,
preserve me O God, for in you I put my trust. O my soul you have said to the Lord,
you are my Lord, my goodness is nothing apart from you, and to the saints who are on the earth,
they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight, in whom is all my delight.
This is a simple and a beautiful description of the love that resides in every renewed heart,
every regenerate heart has this two-fold love, it's a love to God that is reflected in a love
towards God's people, and that's what John and 1 John is really about, it's about the right
aspect of love, and it's particularly about loving the brethren. You notice how John keeps flipping
into sinning not, loving the brethren, sinning not, loving the brethren. When John deals with
the fact that we mustn't sin, he's particularly talking in regards to the love of the brethren.
I'd only noticed that as I started to study this subject of the love that lives delightfully.
Where John intersperses his comments on loving the brethren with exhortations not to sin and not to
be like the world, he's actually exhorting the people not to do this in regard to the brethren,
not to be like the world in regard to the brethren, not to sin in regard to the brethren,
but to love the brethren. When Kevin spoke on Sunday night, and I can only hardly concur
with Don at least for the evening message, it was a short sermon over the Lord's Supper, and it was
a helpful and a gracious sermon, and it set my mind thinking about the love for the brethren,
about the needlessness and the harmfulness of wrong divisions amongst the brethren,
of hard attitudes that hold the brethren at a distance, and alienate us from one another,
and cause us to criticise one another, those for whom Christ has died. And I couldn't get beyond
the first three verses of this Psalm. I hadn't intended to speak on the beginning, but rather
on the messianic hope that was within it, but I couldn't get beyond David's statement. And so
I've been led there and I pray that God will lead us all to his feet and give us a message
that will abide in our hearts, not something that will be forgotten tomorrow morning,
not something that will fall from our minds as easily as the words fall from our lips after
tonight when we gather around the urn and have our cup of coffee, but something that will remain with
us, something gracious, something powerful, something that will do good to us, and give
glory to God, and bring his power into the midst as he be pleased with us and not grieved with us,
as he can be grieved and displeased when we do not manifest the love wherewith he has loved us
towards the brethren. I have been guilty in times past. I have been guilty of not
loving the brethren. There is not a saved soul in this room who has not been guilty
of not loving the brethren. The New Testament is full of exhortations and corrections
and encouragements to love the brethren. The first letter of Corinthians is about
divisions amongst the brethren and how they're to be resolved.
James is about wars and fighting, the evil of the tongue that wanders through the congregation
and sets flaming fires all about the place. There are many, many exhortations in the Scripture
that are designed to help us not to fall from this high and lofty vocation that we have
in loving one another as Christ has loved us. You see, the Lord said, this is my commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
And in Romans it tells us that this is the law, that love is the fulfillment of the law,
that as we love one another, as Christ has loved us, so we fulfil the law.
We want to see therefore that this love that lives delightfully, first of all, has to, must,
cannot exist unless it lives dependently upon God. It cannot exist unless it lives
dependently upon God. It is not a product of the natural man. It is not a product of our natural
inclinations. Our natural inclinations are summed up in the act of Cain who slew his brother
and wherefore did he slay him because his deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.
The first murder recorded for us in the book of Genesis was a murder in which the victim
was slain by the one who was closest to him and is a dreadful testimony to the fact that
man is capable of such hatred towards man as to slay his own brother.
So we need first of all to see that a person before they can manifest this love that delights
in God and is demonstrated towards God's people has to be dependent upon God.
And if you look at verse one we see David's dependence upon God. He says, preserve me O God
for in you I put my trust. Preserve me O God for in you I put my trust.
What does David mean here? Well by preserving he's saying hedge me about,
fortify me Lord, protect me Lord, keep me. When we talk about a hedge of thorns,
the Old Testament talks about a hedge of thorns, it's the same sort of word. It's a preservation
of thorns. It's something set up to protect the one that is inside from that which is outside,
from assault and from danger. And when David says preserve me O God, he's using a name of
God that says O my strength, O my powerful one. You see he's dependent upon God for strength,
he's dependent upon God for power. God preserves David because God is strong, because God is
powerful and David has put his trust in God. He's placed his hope in God, he's confided
his eternal welfare to God. David has exercised faith towards God and therefore he is not
dissimilar to ourselves. The object of his faith was God. He came through the covenant
that God had ordained. He obeyed the call that would have come from the Old Testament to be
reconciled to God and he was saved by grace, by the grace of God his strength, by the grace of
God his powerful one. And he uses the name of God in verse 2 as Jehovah, that's what it means,
O my soul you have said to Jehovah, the covenant God, the self-existent God, the eternal I am,
who revealed himself to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and through Jacob revealed himself to
the nation of Israel and through Judah revealed himself through Christ to the world. This is the
God to whom he comes, the covenant keeping God, the God who calls men and women to enter into
relationship with himself through the merits of another, even the merits of Christ. And he
doesn't only acknowledge that God is his strength and that God is the great eternal self-existent
covenant keeping God, but he says you are my Lord. Now that would seem fairly repetitive to us
today in modern English, preserve me O God, you have said to the Lord, you are my Lord,
all in the matter of one sentence. He's mentioned God three times but Lord here is in lower case in
my Bible because it's not Jehovah. It's another word, it's a word Adonai which means master.
It means master, owner. So you see how in three different ways David acknowledges his
absolute dependence upon God. God is his strength. God is the one who has called him into relationship
with himself and revealed himself to him and God is his master and the one to whom David is now
a bond slave, a bond slave. And as he sits there and calls out to God to preserve him,
the final component of David's relationship with God comes into place. He says my goodness
is nothing apart from you. I'm nothing Lord, I am poverty stricken, I am the most destitute
and bankrupt of men without you. My goodness is nothing apart from you. In the AV it says my
goodness extendeth not to thee and it's a similar sort of meaning. It means all the good, all my
best, it says nothing to you, it cannot be offered to you, it has no effect Lord upon you, it cannot
add anything to you, it's not commendable to you, it's nothing. And the only time that any good
that I do is of any word, is of any value, is when it's directed somewhere else, when it's directed
somewhere else. I cannot add Lord to what you have done for me, I cannot add Lord to who you are,
I cannot add to your glory, I cannot add to your salvation. And so there must be some other avenue
through which goodness flows in the life of the believer. It's rendered to God,
but it doesn't add anything to God and it's nothing apart from God. So if you want to blend
those two renderings together, the AV some of you will have says my goodness extends not to you
and that's the sense in which our goodness, any good that we do, and I'm talking about saved
people here, not talking about people that don't know Christ, people that don't know Christ never
do any good, full stop exclamation mark, because it's all in God's sight odious and sinful and
imperfect. So it's impossible for any to do good who do not know God. But that goodness that the
saints seek to do, that those works that the saints seek to do, in no way add to the glory
that God possesses and are of no worth apart from the God who sustains, empowers and calls us
to those works. So there's a total dependency. I don't want anyone to mistake me tonight that
I'm preaching some sort of legal righteousness, some sort of works righteousness, some sort of
act by which we can add to God's goodness, or commend ourselves to God by our goodness.
I'm talking about the one who is totally dependent upon God for salvation, for every good thing,
and who has acknowledged that humbly. So the love that's going to delight and live delightfully is
going to be dependent upon God. It's going to humble itself before God.
Psalm 61 is a good example of this. Psalm 61 expounds the first and the second verse
of Psalm 16 very well, sort of expands it out.
I've just got to turn it up. Hear me, O God, attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth,
I will cry to you. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy.
I will abide in your tabernacle forever. I will trust in the shelter of your wings.
For you, O God, have heard my vows. You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.
You will prolong the king's life, his years, as many generations. He shall abide before God
forever. I will prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him. So will I sing praise to your
name forever that I may daily perform my vows. You see the dependence upon God?
Dependence upon God there. You've been a shelter, a strong tower. I will abide in you.
I will trust in your shelter. You've heard my vows and you've given me a heritage.
You've prolonged my life. I shall abide before God forever. Why? Mercy and truth, mercy and truth.
And he cries out that the Lord would prepare more mercy, more truth that he may be preserved.
That as he understands more of the truth of God, and as he sees the immensity of the mercies of God,
that he'll be preserved. Preserved from what? Preserved from sin. Preserved from presumption.
Preserved from death, which is the fruit of sin. He wants to be preserved by God.
And that's the cry of the believing heart, to be preserved by God. We want to turn to the second
point and that's this, that a love that lives delightfully, being dependent upon God,
being dependent upon God, primarily and firstly, has to be directed towards God.
But it has to be personally and intimately directed towards God. Because God is the source
of that love. And God is the sum of that love. And God is the originator of that love. And God is the
sustainer of that love. And so David says, O my soul, you have said to the Lord, you are my Lord,
my goodness is nothing apart from you. Speaks to God first. Says it, any good Lord that I do now,
anything that is right and merciful and proper, anything that you have commanded me to,
and I walk in by your power and spirit, it's nothing apart from you. And I'm going to direct
it now towards your people. I cannot add to your glory. I cannot add to your goodness.
I cannot commend myself to you. But I can honour you. I can reverence you. I can imitate you
by your power and your grace, by directing that goodness towards your people. That's what David's
saying here. My goodness is nothing apart from you and to the saints who are on the earth,
or as the AV says, but to the saints, my goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints. See,
he's transferring now. He's saying, the good that I cannot offer to you, I will offer to your
saints. The good that would not add in any sense to your glory, I will offer to your saints. They
are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. They are the excellent ones in whom is all my
delight. John Calvin and Matthew Poole and these other men who are helpful to us at times,
they are all in agreeance that it is through that offering of love to the saints,
that God is glorified in his church on earth. This is my commandment, that you love one another
as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
I believe that it is a teaching that we in this day must heed most closely because we in this day
are very easily led away from love toward one another. You see, we have the problem that we
take truth and we take love and somehow in our minds they're improper to be joined together.
Somehow in our minds we think we can divorce the two. Somehow we think that love is somehow
a lesser thing than truth or that truth is somehow less important than love and so the extremes
within the Christian church run to those two ends. But it's the truth in love that we speak,
the truth of Christ and it has to be a loving thing or it's taken out of the context that
God has put it in because God so loved that he gave that whoever believed in him
should not be condemned. You see, the origin of the truth of the Gospel coming into the world
was the love of God. So we take it and rip it out of its context when we take truth without love.
But if we take love without truth we have no purpose for love. We have no purpose for love
because it has no focus, it has no emphasis, it has no direction. Without the truth of God's
Scripture guiding love it's just mere sentiment and it's empty and it's foolish, it's not
purposeful. So where, where does the love of God meet, meet the needs of the church? Well,
in the church, in the people. The love of God isn't manifested to the church by some mysterious
unearthly means. It's manifested to us by the Holy Spirit's work in each one, in each one.
It's to the saints first and foremost, the ones who are set apart, the ones who are holy,
the ones who are called, the ones who are living and present with us. You see it says that the
saints on the earth, we know that our love cannot reach the saints that are no longer on the earth.
We have experienced that recently but there are those who remain and when they are gone
and we remain they will be as precious to us as those whom we have loved and bid farewell
who have gone to be with the Lord. And while they are with us we are meant to love them
as Christ loved the church. We're meant to love them as Christ gave commandment because they're
the excellent ones in God's sight. They are the worthy ones in God's sight. They were unworthy,
they were miserable, they were unrighteous but now, but now in Christ they are worthy.
Now in Christ they are righteous, now in Christ they reflect His nature and they are wed and
betrothed to Him and therefore they are worthy and excellent. They are the noble of the earth,
though they were foolish and ignorant, though they were ignoble, they are now the saints in
whom should be all our delight. They may not look like that. I'm not a particularly noble looking
fellow and I may not often manifest a great deal of worth in my relationships with others
but in God's sight He loved me and He gave Himself for me and He has created a new heart within
and new desires and a new relationship with Him and a new position whereby I am seated in heavenly
places with Christ Jesus. Therefore in Christ I'm worthy of the love of Christ's people
and the least of you to the greatest of you is worthy of the love of God's people because you are
in Christ. Now where is all this leading? Why is Stephen wound up about the love of God in
Christ towards the brethren? Well brothers and sisters because it is a fragile fragile thing
in this day because the church has been rent and divided because the brethren have been discarded
because a lack of love has led to a coldness and a deadness
that is not worthy of Christ and that's why I'm concerned that's why I'm concerned
and I'm concerned because that deadness is something that dogs my steps.
That coldness that calculatedness towards a brother or sister is something that plagues me
whereby I dismiss them in a moment if what they have to say or the way they conduct themselves
doesn't measure up with my meagre puny summation of what they should be in Christ
and I believe that it's something that can be prevalent in this congregation.
It was prevalent in the New Testament there were divisions among them in the Corinthians
some said I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Christ. Paul was led to cry out
to them is Christ divided? When a number of preachers begin to bring a message in a congregation
it is always dangerous.
It's beneficial but it's always dangerous because we can find in the idolatry of our hearts
we begin to prefer one above another.
We come to worship God, we come to hear from God, we do not come to hear primarily a man
and the body is a body and each one has their part to play and by nature some of them will be
more attractive to us than others but if we only congregated with those whom by nature are
attractive to us we would be no better than the worst of sinners. The Lord Jesus himself said if
you love those that love you what thank have you for even sinners do the same. We're no different
and if you're saying in your heart that's right we are no different then I would challenge you do you
believe in the power of God to salvation? Do you believe that if any man is in Christ he is a new
creation and that the old things are passed away that all things have become new because sometimes
we excuse our sin by denying the power of God in our midst and in our hearts
and it's a destructive thing and it's a dreadful thing and it brings disease and it brings division.
The love that lives delightfully in the presence of God must delight in his saints.
Be they ever so humble? Be they ever so ignorant? Be they ever so irritating?
They are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
Christ while we were yet sinners loved us. Let's turn to first John.
David understood the nature of the love of God. Remember he was a man after God's own heart.
John was the apostle who leant upon Jesus's bosom.
Yet he was at one time one of the Boanages, the sons of thunder, that wanted to call down
destruction upon the unsuspecting Samaritan city. But John learned a lesson.
John saw Christ and he saw him hanging on a tree. He saw the one who was transfigured on the mount,
disfigured on the cross and that changed John because John knew it was for him.
John knew it was for him. And so when he writes to those for whom Christ died,
he says, Beloved, Beloved, do you know that there are those throughout this city that you have never
met or perhaps that you no longer speak with who are the Beloved of God? Isn't it sad?
Isn't it sad that there are those who are the Beloved of God and we are disbarred from fellowship
with them? It's a terrible thing. But sometimes it's a thing over which we have no control.
But to be disbarred from fellowship with one another in such a close community as this
congregation is a terrible thing and a needless thing.
In chapter three, John says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we
should be called the children of God. You see, dependence. God is our Father. What a wonderful
thing. We who believe are called the children of God. The world doesn't know us. We're just fools
to the world. We're just those religious, irritating, stickily people who insist on their
primitive worship. But we're the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.
We're the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.
But we know that when he is revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.
And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.
What is one aspect of this purification?
Seeking to be done with sin and seeking to take up what is right and good and acceptable to God.
Laying aside the old habits, taking up the new habits.
I don't want to deal with this section where John talks about the nature of sin,
the nature of righteousness, the practice of sin, the practice of righteousness.
I want to go down to verse 11 because I think John and David are in concord with one another
and I would be surprised if they weren't because God was the author of both these writings.
The Song of David and the Letter of John are both the work of God. And he says,
for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
This is the message. This is the message. This is the message that Christ came to bring.
He brought the means that we should love one another. But it's also the message that we should
love one another. He himself was the propitiation for our sins, the satisfaction for our sins,
the means by which we've been brought to God. He himself
and the message that he left, the message that he brought, those last moments in the upper room
when the disciples were arguing over who would be the greatest among them, was love one another,
love one another, love one another. And then he said, as I have loved you, as I have loved you,
how has he loved us? He's laid down his life for us. He's laid down his life for us. In verse 16
of 1 John 3, by this we know love, because he laid down his life for us.
And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, for the brethren.
We should live sacrificially for the brethren. We might have to sacrifice our comfort for the
brethren. We might have to sacrifice the comfort zone.
We might have to mix with those who aren't naturally attractive to us.
But Christ mixed with sinners and they were, he was condemned by the world for that.
We've got to mix with those whom Christ came to save. We've got to seek their good first.
We can't do that unless we've seen God in Christ reconciling us to himself.
But when we have seen that, then it's as natural as breathing.
And yet it's as difficult as breathing. Try stopping, just stop breathing for a while.
It's a pretty dangerous thing to do. It's an easy thing. It's part of our nature.
But sometimes we have to fight for breath, because our bodies are unable to sustain
our need for oxygen, or our circumstances choke us in and about. And it's the same with love.
Love to a child of God is part of the new creation. And it's essentially a part of the
regenerant heart, as grace, as any other gift that God gives. But sometimes it's difficult
to exercise. And therefore we have to be constrained by the love of God to exercise
love towards our brethren. We have to have placarded before us again, the enormity of
God's love, that we might then love our brethren. If we don't love our brethren, we do not love God.
If typically, habitually, demonstratively, constantly we don't love our brethren,
we're not gods. Now there are times when I've hated my brother.
And that is after I've believed. There are times when I've alienated myself from my brother.
And if you're honest, in your own mind, you may even be alienated from your brother now,
or your sister. But He gives grace to us to love one another. And love covers
the multitude of sins. Love has no remembrance of sins. Love lays them aside and forgives.
Love demonstrates itself in acts of selflessness. It doesn't vaunt itself. It's not puffed up.
It lifts the other person up, you see. And this is what Christ did when He loved us. He lifted us.
He lifted us from darkness and desolation, and He carried us to God. And we have to bear one
another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ. It's our calling, brethren. It's our calling.
It's our calling. Preach Christ in the world and disciple all nations. And when we disciple them,
we gird ourselves and we serve them as Christ girded Himself and served us.
We have to live a life of love that delights in the brethren. Because if we don't,
then the church, the church suffers tremendously. The light on the hill becomes clouded.
Why? Is God not able to raise up voices from the stone? Of course He is. Of course He is.
But He permits. He chastises. He allows these manifestations of disunity, as He allowed those
who passed through the Red Sea to be an example to us, as they wandered about in the wilderness
for 40 years. For our learning, for our learning those things are recorded. So for our learning,
the trials, the tribulations of the church occur. But that we might learn to abhor disunity
and abhor discord, to hate it, to hate anything that is not as Christ is to us.
Is to us. Any relationship between brother and sister in Christ that does not reflect
the wonder of the relationship of Christ to us. In Romans chapter 14,
Paul is writing to a church that was arguing about food. Now that doesn't seem a very important
thing to argue about, does it? Arguing about what you should and should not eat.
Now I'm of the opinion that Reformed people have argued over far less.
They've also argued over far greater, but often they argue over far less.
But so important, so important was this dissimulation to Paul, that he put it in
the most terrible terms. The results of this dissimulation were portrayed by him in the most
terrible terms. Someone who knowingly offended another brother by chomping away at something
that brother felt was wrong to eat, could be guilty in Paul's summation
of destroying the one for whom Christ has died. Have a look here in verse 15.
Verse 14 Paul says, look nothing's unclean of itself. All food is good, he says that in
Timothy if it be received with thanksgiving, everything is good for food. But if your brother
is grieved because of your food, what are you guilty of? You're no longer walking in love.
That's what he says there, doesn't it? You're no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your
food the one for whom Christ died. Such a simple thing to say, I can eat that. I don't care what
he thinks about me behaving like this. I've got liberty. That could destroy someone. That
could destroy someone. That seems beyond belief, doesn't it? But the Word of God says it. How
careful we must be, brethren, if such a little thing where a conscience is bruised and wounded
is capable of such terrible results, then the greater things, what are they capable of?
What are they capable of? Verse 20 he says, do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.
Destroying the work of God? Now I know that I stood in this pulpit three or four weeks ago and
said, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do and affirm that they cannot be
destroyed? But there is a sense in which the work of God can be hindered. There is a sense in which
people can be made to stumble. There's a sense in which the Holy Spirit can be grieved and the
work of God, the work of God suffers, suffers. There's division as there were with the Corinthians
when love is no longer the law by which we live. Where the love of the gracious God
is not lawfully given to all who believe. When we treasure up to ourselves certain favourites
and we disregard and hold in contempt others who, whose speech is irritant to us,
who have a different emphasis perhaps than what we desire. Perhaps it's like the dentist with us,
we have a tooth that aches and this person, whenever they seem to speak, they just seem to
drive the probe right into the tooth that aches and we say, I don't want to hear this guy.
And we find ourselves alienated. We only want to hear certain things. If your diet consists
in plums, you're going to not be very well after about six months, but if it consists in plums and
bananas and bread and milk and cheese, then chances are if you exercise properly you're
going to be reasonably well-personed naturally. And it's the same with the word of God and the
message of God and the servants of God. The Lord packages his gifts in different forms.
We're all very different. Someone like John Hollier and Kevin Matthews and Stephen Bignall
and Gordon McMurray and Don McMurray and Philip McMurray, if you stood us all up out the front,
we'd be very different people. Someone like those who take the Bible classes or those Sunday school
teachers who labour, so different. Some of those ladies, an earthen vessel into which has been
entrusted the riches of the Gospel and they're seeking to bring those riches to the world and
they're seeking to bring those riches to the brethren. You see, if we are members of one of
another, then we must love one another. Otherwise, division can result, disease can result, destruction
can result. That passage that Kevin looked at last week, I'd never really understood what it was about
the Lord's Supper. I thought it was just their profligacy when they ate the Lord's Supper that
was causing some of them to be sick. But it's evident that it was really, they came together,
but they didn't come together. They were divided before they came together. And that was why
some of them were sick and some of them slept. God had taken them because they were divided when
they came together. Brethren, we want to see the love of Christ conquer the hearts of men.
We love the doctrines of the grace of God because we love God. The Lord is the one to whom we cry.
We must love one another. We mustn't hold in our hearts such disinterest towards one another,
that we allow one another to suffer and take no notice and no heed. We mustn't hold such
enmity and resentment at something that has been said, that we do not pray for one another
and do not take the opportunity to help one another when it is presented to us. We must not
so prefer the person and the personality and the aspect of the message that someone brings,
that we absent ourselves from the worship of God, simply because the vehicle through which
God brings the Word doesn't meet our expectations. If the vehicle through which God brings the Word
is the vehicle that He has chosen, who are we to not wish to attend upon the worship of God
because He doesn't meet with our expectation? If we absent ourselves from meetings because we find
it odious to constantly be with the people of God and we want a break from them, what's the state of
our heart? They are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. It's the testimony of David,
it's the testimony of God, it's the testimony of the Apostle John, it's the commandment of Christ,
that you love one another as Christ has loved you. This has cost a lot to say this to you tonight,
but brethren I have seen churches divide, I have seen a handful of people remain and a work of God
quenched and I have been part of it and I have vowed that I will never sit still and never rest
when I see the potential for that until I have proclaimed the grace and the goodness of Christ
and warned you and pleaded with you because the cause of God can be at stake.
When we alienate our affections from one another, when we take the liberty of disapproving of those
for whom Christ has died, the cause of Christ can languish and yet God is sovereign. But brethren,
we will be held accountable, we will and brethren I plead with you, love one another as Christ has
loved you and if you lack example, look to Jesus, the author, the finisher of our faith who for the
joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, look to him to see how he
loved them, how he loved us, how he gave himself for us and you will have the highest example
and you will see that it wasn't for the wise, wasn't for the noble that Christ died,
it was for the foolish and the ignorant to bring them to God and that will be motivation enough.
May God bless you, may we love one another, may we love one another as Christ has loved us,
for Christ's sake that his cause might be triumphant
and that we might be who we should be to him and to one another. Amen.