The Love of God: Litmus Test

Good afternoon, brethren. All right. Wonderful to see ordinations in God’s Church. Men growing, And it’s just truly, it’s a blessing to see that, to be here, to witness it.

I want to begin with a question for you. It’s a rhetorical question in a certain regard, but it won’t be rhetorical through the message. Just how important is love? How important is it? How big is love? How overarching or transcendent is love? We hear the word love thrown around throughout Christianity at large. You know, professing Christians can speak about almost nothing else.

And we see that they misidentify it, they misuse it. They speak about it all the time, though. But that said, there’s a reason that they focus on love. There is a good reason that they do focus on it, despite the fact that they don’t use it properly. They don’t understand it properly according to how God teaches it in His Word. But there is a reason that they focus on it so much. Turn over to First Corinthians chapter thirteen. This is a very, very big subject in the Bible. The subject of love. But I’ll venture a guess that today, after today’s message, you will walk away understanding the subject maybe as you’ve never done before.

Just how big it is, its scope, and how different it is from, we’ll see, brotherly love. We’ve all heard of brotherly love. We’re going to get into some of the most fascinating things that I’ve almost ever studied with respect to this subject before. First Corinthians chapter thirteen. But the first question we’ll ask is how big, how important is love? First Corinthians thirteen and verse one, Paul’s speaking to the Corinthians, it says this, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels.” Try to imagine that. Imagine if somebody has that ability. The ability to speak not only with the tongues of men, some of the greatest speakers on earth. Paul is saying if I speak as the greatest people who’ve ever spoken on earth, or if I speak as an angel, “and I have not love, I’ve become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”

I might as well just be a musical instrument playing. Crashing cymbals or taking one of those triangles that you play in the elementary school. Ding, you know, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It might as well be a little triangle being played. Brethren, that’s useless to us. A crashing cymbal that has no meaning. You could be the greatest, most eloquent speaker on earth, or you could have the tongue of an angel. But if you don’t have love, it doesn’t matter. Pointless. It won’t get you anywhere in Christianity with God. Let’s take it further, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understanding all mysteries, and all knowledge,” God is the closest to getting to that ability.

Having the ability to have all mystery, all understanding, all knowledge, all of the elements of prophecy sorted out. Imagine if we were as close to God as in that type of understanding. Even if we were that knowledgeable, even if we had all the mysteries of prophecy sorted out in every jot and tittle, what does Paul say? He says, “and though I have all faith, “If he has the faith to be able to move mountains,” it says. But if he has no love, it says he’s nothing. “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,” no matter what you do in this life, no matter how great of deeds you have, one could have, without love, it profits them nothing.

Coming on down to verse thirteen, “And now abides three things, it says faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” From God’s perspective, we can understand greater now, just reading these four verses, why it is that the world puts such great emphasis on love. They just don’t know how to apply it. They don’t know what it means. They don’t know anything about it. They think it’s just some big feeling, but we understand differently, and I would argue that we’re going to understand love as we’ve maybe never understood it before coming away from this message. Love is even greater and even more important than faith.

Just take faith, for example. Faith, hope, and love. Without faith, brethren, you and I can’t be Christians. You understand that. Faith is the foundation of our belief system. Without faith, we can’t know what to believe. And love is even greater than faith. Let the incredible importance of this great doctrine or characteristic of having the love of God sink deep into your bones. Think about it, ponder it, and consider it. Let’s turn over to First Peter chapter four. The great power of having love is seen in this chapter in First Peter four. Our question to start is, how important is love?

First Peter chapter four says this. Verse eight. We’ll just read the one verse. How important is love? “Above all things, have fervent love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins.” But brethren, if love was the only thing we had, we could get a lot further in Christianity than having any other kind of quality or characteristic. Above all things, we’re to have love. And we just saw that, Peter is now emphasizing what Paul told the Corinthians. Take faith, hope and love, take any other kind of quality in Christianity, characteristic in Christianity, and put love above all of them because it is above all things that we’re to have this quality.

In Second Peter, just turning over one chapter, Second Peter chapter one says this. Peter adds an interesting layer to our understanding of what is the love of God. Just begin reading in verse five. Verse four says this, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding a great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that’s in the world through lust, and beside this giving all diligence…” here’s a list of things that Peter says we should have. We’ve read about faith. We’ll see it here “…Add to your faith, virtue…” character.

The faith that we’ve built up in Christianity, we’re supposed to add to that faith the ability to build character, and add to that character, knowledge. Continue to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s what we’re told. And add to “knowledge, temperance.” The ability to control ourselves, and “patience” to that. Add to “patience, godliness.” We’re building one character on top of another, each of them the foundation for the next. And add to godliness, brotherly kindness. And last but not least, “to brotherly kindness, love.”

Now, it may strike you the question I’m about to ask as it struck me. What exactly is the difference between brotherly love and the love of God and how do you know that you have the love of God, and not just mere brotherly love? That question, it ate at me. I wanted an answer. I wanted a clear, concise, easy-to-understand answer, and there is a clear, concise, easy-to-understand answer, and we’ll get to that as the message continues.

If I could say this, there are two great purposes to what I’m speaking about today. One, it’s in our minds separate in a way that maybe we’ve never considered before the idea of brotherly love from the love of God. After this message, never again will we be able to conflate the two. I promise you that. But number two, the second great purpose of this message is to help us know and come away from this message being able to prove whether we have God’s love, the love of God.

It’s one thing to know, “Oh, this is fantastic. I could finally separate in my mind that brotherly love is different from the love of God and what that means.” But in the end, brethren, that’s just knowledge, that doesn’t help us. How do I prove that I have the love of God? How can I prove that? You know, there are two ways to convince somebody of something in the world.

And, you know, psychologists or counselors, or people who are working with others who are trying to be persuasive have two options of trying to persuade them that you can say, “You’re doing this wrong and you need to change,” or the more effective way is to have the other person ask them questions in such a way where they draw the conclusion themselves. You know, human nature is such that we don’t like to be told what to do. We don’t like to be told, “You’re wrong in this area and you need to change.” Oh, okay. I mean, in God’s government, that’s how it works sometimes. And we just simply have to accept it and move on, and actually change.

But if we’re convincing ourselves that we need to change, that’s the better of the two options. So, my goal today is to ask a series of questions. Give us, including myself, all a litmus test to know whether or not we have the love of God. And you can individually sit in your chairs today and prove whether you have it or not. And it’s not a yes or no, “I have the love of God or I don’t have the love of God.” It’s maybe in varying degrees we have the love of God, but we’ll sit here today and go through this litmus test, and understand, hopefully, with extreme clarity, we can say I have it in a greater degree or I have it in a lesser degree.

And if we have it in a lesser degree, then we’ll know how to move forward after this study. The goal of this message is to help us as individuals draw the conclusions ourselves of whether we have God’s love or not. And I’ll call it God’s love litmus test.

Turn over to First John chapter four. First John chapter four. Not too far away. We’re going to start easy. A lot of the verses that we’re going to hear today aren’t necessarily unfamiliar, but it’s how they’re going to be viewed that is going to be unfamiliar and maybe enlightening, hopefully. First John chapter four. Excuse me, verse eight. First John four, eight. “He that loves not knows not God, for God is love.” When we enter into the subject of the love of God, the first thing that we have to understand is where the source of this love comes from. You know, it’s not human love. It’s literally called the love of God for a reason because it’s literally His love.

It’s the love of God because God defines Himself as being love. Here in First John four, eight. Skip down a few more verses, go to verse sixteen. “And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love. And he that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him.” So it’s God who is giving us the ability to have the love of God because He defines Himself as being love. You know, that’s a hard concept to really wrap your mind around.

I don’t define myself as being, I define myself as being a human being or I define myself as being a Christian. I define myself formally before coming into the church as being an architect or I define myself in various ways, but God defines Himself not as something that He does but that He simply is. He is love. And it’s God who works in us through His Spirit that helps us to have that same quality.

Philippians two, thirteen, don’t need to go there, it says that it’s God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Because He is working through us with His Spirit giving us the ability to have the love of God. Romans chapter five. Romans chapter five. We’ll just pick it up in verse one. Again, Paul speaking to these, the Romans here. “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation works patience.”

Here’s another one of these lists. Tribulation we go through in life works patience and patience works experience and experience works hope. “And hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad...” How does God give us His love? How does He operate in us? “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which He has given us.”

So, brethren, what this is saying, it’s actually impossible without having God’s Spirit yet in us to have the love of God. God can work with us with His Spirit prior to baptism, but the love of God is only shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is actually in us, that He’s given to us. So the love of God is something that happens at conversion. And we’ll understand that to a deeper level a little bit when we get into the commandments.

If you recall, we can’t keep God’s commandments fully until we have God’s Holy Spirit. We can’t overcome sin fully until we have God’s Holy Spirit. And that is tied to this love of God. So this is why... This is the first, we could say the first question in the litmus test. This is why having God’s Spirit in us is the only way we can begin to have the love of God. So without God’s Spirit, we can’t yet exhibit this most important quality. So, our first question to ourself is asking ourselves in this litmus test, how much of God’s Spirit do I have?

The amount of God’s Spirit that we have is directly related to the amount of love of God that comes from us. It’s not very hard to grasp or understand. The more of God in us, the Spirit of God in us, who by the way is love, the more love we’re going to express. So, again, I’ll ask, how much of God’s Spirit do we have in us? Turn over to Philippians... or excuse me, Galatians chapter five. Galatians chapter five.

Galatians five and verse twenty-two. The fruits of the Spirit are these, if we have God’s Holy Spirit and God is love, it’s natural that the first fruit that’s going to be born on us, it will be seen, is love. And that’s exactly what it says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.” So by nature, brethren, by asking for more of God’s Holy Spirit, this fruit of love will begin to grow on us.

I gave a sermon at the feast about bearing fruits, and you reap what you sow. And how it’s important for us to not just bear fruit, but to share that fruit. I heard somebody after my message come up and say that he heard somebody back in Worldwide explain a similar concept, that fruits are meant to be eaten. Yes, aren’t they? They are meant to be eaten. So, we’re not supposed to just bear the fruit of love, bear the fruit of joy, or all of these different things.

Those fruits are meant to be eaten by others, and enjoyed by others. And it’s actually our God-given responsibility to share those fruits. So when God says that He is going to give us His Holy Spirit, and part of those fruits that just come from it is love, He doesn’t want us to just, “Oh, I’ve got this massive grapefruit coming off me, it’s called love, and now all of a sudden I’m just going to hoard it, I’m going to keep it to myself.” No. He wants us to share it.

He wants us to give love toward other people. Remember when Christ said that He felt the Spirit leaving Him when He was touched by that woman? The woman who was healed? He felt, I forget the word that He used, but it was the Holy Spirit leaving Him. We need to replenish God’s Spirit in us when we use those fruits. When we share those fruits, it’s up to us to continually go back to God, asking Him, “Father, please give me more of Your Holy Spirit.”

I want to bear bigger, greater fruits so that I can share them with those around me. Brethren, the first of those fruits is love. God sets us up on the right footing. You know, if He says that above all things love is so important, it’s greater than faith, it’s more important that you have love, we might immediately say, “Oh, I sure better hope that I have love. Well, no, God, He sets us on the right footing by giving us His Holy Spirit that just simply bears that fruit of love.

He does a lot of the work for us as long as we’re willing to go to Him and continually ask for His Holy Spirit. We can be very grateful for that. So I’ll just ask this litmus test, we’ve got six questions. Six questions. The first of the six questions is, ask yourself, how much of God’s Spirit do I have? And again, it’s a direct indication of how much of the love of God we have in us. That was a pretty easy point. Nothing real complex there. Pretty simple. Let’s move on to First John chapter four, the second point.

First John chapter four. We’ll pick it up, just read two verses. First John four and verse twenty. It says this, “If a man say, I love God and hates his brother, he’s a liar.” God says it’s impossible for us to say, I hate my brother, I hate my sister, I hate these people over here, while at the same time going to God and saying, “I love you. I love you, Father.” That’s an impossible thing. In order for us to, the prerequisite for us to love God, and be able to tell Him we love Him, is that we actually love one another first, brotherly love.

“…Whom he has seen. How can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, from God, that he who loves God, love his brother also.” So, here’s the second point. Without brotherly love, the love of God is impossible to have. It’s impossible to have the love of God without God’s Holy Spirit in us. We know that. We need that at conversion, at baptism in order to begin bearing fruits of love. But we’ll add to that now, that it’s impossible to have the love of God without first having brotherly love.

In fact, we could just go back and re-read Second Peter chapter one again just to make this abundantly clear. Second Peter one, verse five, remember what we just read a few moments ago. “You have to add to your faith virtue. You have to add to virtue knowledge. You have to add to knowledge temperance, add to temperance patience, add to patience godliness, add to godliness brotherly love.”

Okay? That’s what we’re in discussion of here, and then only once you have all of these qualities, can you add to brotherly love, the love of God. So we know that they’re not the same thing. Brotherly love and the love of God are not the same thing. They’re related. You can’t have the love of God without first having brotherly love. But the way I’ll put it right now is, the love of God is much, much, much bigger than brotherly love. Turn over to Hebrews chapter thirteen.

Just a few pages back. Hebrews thirteen and verse one. So for us to begin to fully grasp and understand what the love of God is, we have to take a little bit deeper dive into what is brotherly love. Define clearly what that is and what it’s not. Hebrews chapter thirteen and verse one says simply, Paul speaking to the Hebrews, “Let brotherly love continue.” Why? Because if you don’t let brotherly love continue in your life, just brotherly love for one another, it’s impossible to even have the love of God without that.

That’s why he says let brotherly love continue. Because he’s the same Paul that, remember, in First Corinthians, he said, “Above all things is the love of God greater.” The love of God is the greatest of all things. Peter emphasized it too. But he remembered and knew that brotherly love is necessary. So if you’re struggling with the love of God, the first thing you need to do is check yourself to see if you have enough of God’s Spirit in you. But secondarily, ask yourself, am I exhibiting brotherly love? Now what is it? What is brotherly love?

The word brotherly love is philia or Philadelphia. Those are two different ways of Philadelphos. There’s different words, but they’re all similar to philia, Philadelphia, Philadelphos. Those are all words that are similar to this word brotherly love. And here’s what it means. Let’s define it from God’s Word. The definition is fraternal affection. Fraternal affection. What is affection? If I have affection towards somebody, I have affection toward my wife, my daughter, I have affection toward you all, I have affection toward my family.

We all have affection toward other people in varying degrees. And affection is a feeling. If you look up the definition at Google or Bing or whatever search engine you use, the definition of affection means a feeling of fondness. And that feeling of fondness, it’s a feeling, it’s an emotion. That emotion or feeling spurs you to act in a certain way. That’s what brotherly love is all about. So when we say that we have brotherly love toward one another, brotherly love is simply put fraternal affection.

Affection or having, you’ve got a certain emotion. Affection is an emotion. You feel fondly toward other people. Those that are around you. And that feeling can be either shallow or it can be deep. You know, some of us could come in contact with somebody for the first time in a parking lot and they see an elderly lady who needs help putting their groceries in the back of their car or carrying two or three bags and you need to help them with their bags. At that instant, you and I would feel a certain level of fraternal affection toward that person.

That doesn’t mean that you have deep roots with them necessarily. You don’t go way back. You may have just seen this person for the very first time, but that emotion stirs up in us. “Oh, that person’s struggling. I want to go help them.” And it’s the emotion that you have at that instant, at that instance that stirs you to act. Now, a lot of our affection toward people runs deeper. Think of our family members. Think of one another.

Me and all of you here have a much deeper affection toward one another than I do with anybody at Giant Eagle or at the grocery store, parking lots of anywhere you go or if you work in the world, you would have a deeper affection toward the brethren or maybe your, your blood relatives and family. A deeper affection toward them than you would toward people that you’ve never met before or have spent less time with. So the amount of affection that we can have toward other people comes in varying degrees. If I have a really deep relationship with you, it’s going to be very easy for me to say, when I see you in need, it’s going to be very easy for me to say, “Let me help you with that.” or I may not even see you in need.

I might just think about you and think, “Wow, I would really like to help them,” because you’ve got a deep-seated affection toward them. But it really just comes down to, that’s what brotherly love is. It’s that emotion that stirs up in you and you act on it. You act on it. Now, because brotherly love is founded on emotions, this is where things get a little bit interesting with respect to brotherly love, our emotions have the ability to go up and down up. None of us are perfect with our emotions and they can be influenced. Our decisions can be influenced by emotions as well.

For example, like selfishness can creep in. You actually don’t want to act on something because selfishness comes in, but as a person, you as a person can in effect alter the amount of brotherly love that you give depending on how much affection you show toward that person at any given point in time. If you decide in your mind, “I don’t really want to show affection or do anything good for this other person,” then that’s up to you. That’s something that you have the ability to control.

Turn over to Matthew chapter nine. Here’s a good example of Christ. Christ acted, of course, He acted on the love of God, but we know that He also operated off of brotherly love as well, and we’ll see that right here, Matthew chapter nine and verse thirty-six. Matthew nine and verse thirty-six. Christ, “When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.” So when He saw these masses, they were fainting. They were hungry and they were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. So what did He do in reaction to that emotion that He felt? He felt pity for them. It says that He was moved with compassion. He felt deep pity for them.

Now that’s an emotion. When He saw them, an emotional response occurred, and what did He do? He acted on that emotion and thus, then He said, verse twenty-seven, unto His disciples, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth laborers into His harvest.” Christ acted on and wanted the disciples to act on this emotion that He felt.

Turn over to Mark chapter one. Mark chapter one and verse thirty-nine. Mark one thirty-nine says this, “And Christ preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee and cast out demons. Then there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him and kneeling down to Him.” He’s probably never met this man before. And said to Him... “The leper came kneeling down to him and saying unto him, ‘If you will, can you make me clean?’ And Christ moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched Him and said unto Him, ‘I will be you clean.’” Christ had a great level of brotherly love at that point. He took that gut feeling that He had in His stomach, that pity that He felt for this man who had been suffering from leprosy and He simply acted on it.

He healed him right then and there because He saw his attitude. This is a perfect example of brotherly love. Now turn over to John chapter thirteen. John chapter thirteen and verse thirty-four. As this point comes to a close. John thirteen, thirty-four, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” The brotherly love that we show one to another is seen by all around us. They know that we’re different. They can tell it. They can see it at the feast. They know that we don’t behave the same way that they do in the world. And part of that is through brotherly love.

We have care and concern for one another. And we have care and concern for people in the world too. We want to do what’s right. And the difference is we don’t just brush off our feelings at times. If we have that gut check that says you should really go help this person, they’re in need. Brethren, what makes us Christians is we actually do it. We go and we act on it. We don’t just quench that feeling. We move forward and act on it. That’s what sets us apart as Christians. But the unique thing is that brotherly love can also be held by the world.

Brotherly love is not something that you need God’s spirit in order to do. People at the grocery store can just as easily look over and see somebody who is in need and say, “You know what? They need help. I’m going to go help them.” So brotherly love is different from the love of God in the sense that we can have it in the world. People in the world can have this. It is not something that is exclusive to God’s people. But without it, it’s impossible to have the love of God. That’s what I want to stress. So my question to us right now is how much brotherly love do you exhibit?

How much brotherly love do you exhibit? When you get that feeling, that gut feeling of I really want to go help that person, I should go help them, do we act on it? When we’re moved with compassion, do we go help people and serve? Do we even at the thought of people suffering or needing help, do we at the thought of thinking about those people, do we act on it or do we put it aside? The more that we can say I act on that gut feeling, that emotion that comes, the more we can say we have brotherly love. Now, this is where things get very, very interesting. While the love of God certainly involves brotherly love, the love of God is much bigger.

I’ve already stated that. So let’s turn over to First John chapter five. We’re going to get into the third of six points. First John chapter five. This is maybe one of the points where the world begins to not understand, or they start to misunderstand or misuse the way that the love of God is actually described in the Bible. First John chapter five and verse three. Verse two, “By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous.”

Now we’re... Mr. Pack has said this before. I like this term. “Now you’ve stopped preaching and started meddling.” You’re getting into... Wait a minute. I have to change the way that I live. I have to keep the commandments in order to have the love of God. But this is where the world shuts down.” They say, “No, no, no. It’s just the feeling. Stop with the feeling. It’s just a feeling. It’s just a feeling.”

They really, what they do is they conflate brotherly love in a way. They conflate brotherly love with the love of God. They say, “Based on the feelings that you have, it’s just this outgoing concern toward other people and so on and so forth. They conflate it with the love of God. The love of God includes but does not limit it to keeping God’s commandments. Now, Second John chapter six, just next page in my Bible, probably in yours too. Second John six says this, “And this is love.” Second John verse six. I’m sorry if I said chapter six.

Second John verse six. “And this is love that we walk after his commandments,” God’s commandments. This is the commandment that you have also, as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. So... Excuse me. This verse perfectly supports First John five, three in proving that the love of God requires obedience to God’s laws and God’s commandments. Now this is where, again, like I said, it gets very, very interesting. The love of God operates when we have to keep God’s commandments. Think about this. The love of God operates oftentimes outside the bounds of our emotions.

Let me do a case in point, explain a case in point. Giving to the homeless. Let’s take that as an example. How many of us, when we see somebody in need on the side of the road, how many of us get that gut feeling of, boy, you see them, they’ve got the sign. Maybe they’re a vet or something that’s been for years. They’ve just been standing there at the same sign, at the same corner, wearing the same rags, saying, “Please help, I’m in need.” How many of us have come across something like that and felt that gut wrenching feeling of, “Boy, I just really want to give to them, I want to help them.” That’s the brotherly love in you feeling that.

Now, we all understand. We, unique to the world in God’s church, understand God’s great plan for mankind. We understand what Christ said. That Christ said, “The poor you will always have with you.” We understand that that person who’s sitting there at the corner, street corner with that sign today, if we give to them, will be there tomorrow and the next day, regardless of the amount of money that you give to them. There was a homeless man sitting across the street from our Headquarters for a while, a number of years back, and he had thousands and thousands of dollars on him.

Now, we don’t know what’s going on in these people’s lives. We don’t know what they have or don’t have. We don’t know how they’re going to use that money. We don’t know what they’re going to do with that money. And brethren, I’m telling you, when I visited Rome for a number of months back in college for study abroad program, and I remember going down before I was called. I remember going down kind of right after I was called, but I wasn’t really. I was in a morass. I was in confusion at that point, but I thought that it was good for me to go downstairs. And I kept seeing the same pitiful-looking woman with her children.

Every day I’d pass by her when I walked down to class, every single day. So I decided, “You know what? I’m going to do something good. I’m going to give her €50. I’m going to move the needle with this woman. I’m going to help her so I don’t have to see her sitting down there so that those kids can be fed.

Guess what, brethren? She was there every single day from that point forward after I gave her that money and I’m betting she was given a whole lot more than what I gave her. I learned a lesson at that point. I said to myself, “Wait a minute. You can’t affect these people. Some of them want to stay homeless.” I’ve been in contact with people when I was out in the West, pastoring in the West Coast, people in Las Vegas, and so on and so forth.

I remember being in contact with them, they were homeless, and they did not want, they wanted to attend services with us, but they did not want to get a job because they loved being homeless. You and I would think, “What? Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you?” No, they want that. We don’t know what’s going on in their minds. So, brethren, I’m here to tell you the love of God at times is not the ability to give into your emotions like brotherly love.

Brotherly love is saying, if I had brotherly love, and I only showed brotherly love, I’d be handing out money, and I’d be poor myself because I’d be giving my money to the poor left and right. But sometimes the love of God is suppressing the emotion, thinking with your head, thinking with your mind, thinking with God’s Spirit in you to say, “We don’t give to the poor, I’m not going to be able to fix the poor at large. This is why we don’t do soup kitchens and things of this nature.”

We understand that God has a much greater plan than us giving them a few dollars here and there, or feeding them a few meals here or there. God’s great plan is to work with them toward becoming part of the family of God. Our job right now is to support the work, to support the work of God which goes and preaches the gospel to the poor so that they can become converted. That’s our job right now, brethren. But do you understand the love of God is in that?

Let’s just take this little, tiny instance with a homeless person, the love of God is actually to not give to them, as strange as it may sound on its face. Because you’re looking at the bigger picture. You’re not letting your emotions drive your actions in every instance. Yes, when you see a little old lady in need, help them. That’s brotherly love. But the love of God sometimes means not acting, not giving, not doing something for somebody because it might help them to their hurt.

In fact, you don’t know if you’re giving money to a person who’s a drug addict, who could go and blow that money, and you’re helping them to their hurt. We don’t know. And that’s precisely why we don’t get into those kinds of things. Turn over to Ecclesiastes chapter three. This is where we start getting into the fascinating, interesting differences between the love of God and brotherly love. We have to have brotherly love in order to have the love of God.

But sometimes to have the love of God means you don’t express brotherly love. Boy, takes judgment, takes discernment. Does it not? Ecclesiastes chapter three says this, verse eight. Ecclesiastes three, eight, “There is a time to love and a time to hate.” Now, I’m not saying that we, because we don’t give to a homeless person, we now all of a sudden hate them. That’s not what this verse is saying. There is a time to love and there’s a time to hate.

I would argue, for the purpose of the discussion here, there is a time to love and there’s a time not to love. There’s a time to express brotherly love. And there’s a time to express, you could say, the love of God, which means withholding that brotherly love. Turn over to Romans chapter fourteen. Romans fourteen. Sometimes the love of God means we override our emotional gut responses, thinking with our heads rather than our hearts at times, thinking with the obedience to God’s law, which is the whole point that we’re in right now. We have to think in accordance to obedience to God’s law.

The reason we don’t give to homelessness, homeless people is because we’re obeying the law, we’re obeying what God wants over our gut feelings. Okay, Romans chapter fourteen verse one says this, “Him that is weak in the faith, receive you, but not to doubtful disputations.” Somebody that’s weak, maybe they’re new, brand new, and they don’t have the full breadth, width, and depth of understanding that you and I might have who’ve been in the Church for years on end. Him that’s weak in the faith, receive you, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believes that he may eat all things, another who’s weak eats herbs.

“Let not him that eats despise him that eats not...” Let not, in other words, let not him that is more mature in the faith and knows all of the details and of what to do and not to do, knows the fuller picture of the commandments of God, let him not despise somebody who knows less of the commandments of God. “And let not him which eats not judge him that eats, for God has received him.”

Now let’s come on down to verse thirteen. “Let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean and of itself but to him that esteems anything to be unclean to him it is unclean. But if your brother be grieved with your meat, now walk you not charitably. You don’t walk according to love.

“Destroy not him with your meat, for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of.” There’s a lot of, kind of funny old language in this. King James-isms, if I could put it that way. So let’s just make it plain. Mr. Pack has used this example, I’ll use it again too, because it’s so easy to understand. If somebody who is new in the church thinks it’s a sin to eat strawberry shortcake or apple pie or some other food, but you and I who have been in the church for a longer period of time know that that’s not a sin, what happens?

This verse proves that it’s actually a sin for us and it’s not having, we see it’s not charitable, it’s not having the love of God toward that person if we go ahead and eat that strawberry shortcake in front of that person. Because their conscience may be saying, “Oh, I can’t be eating that.” And when they see us eating it, they have a crisis of conscience. And it causes ultimately what, brethren, what God says, is that it’s sin for us to eat it in front of them. It’s not right for us. It’s not using the love of God.

So, if we know that somebody is struggling with something like that, it’s better for us to just abstain. The love of God, it’s sometimes to suppress. We might feel frustrated with that new person. How do you not know that it’s okay to eat strawberry shortcake? We have to suppress that frustration that we might have. Acting on the love of God means that we don’t necessarily operate off of emotions. Sometimes we do when we need brotherly love, but oftentimes the love of God is setting aside our emotions and simply doing what’s right according to God’s Word. That’s the point of this account here in Romans fourteen. The love of God is sometimes sacrificial, meaning we make sacrifices in our lives that help others maybe feel more comfortable.

Turn over to First John chapter two. First John chapter two and verse four, “He that says I know Him and keeps not His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but who so keeps the word in him truly is the love of God perfected, hereby know we that we are in Him.” So, I use this example of the homeless person or the person with the strawberry shortcake to explain that God’s laws are the overarching principles that we need to obey. And when we obey those laws, despite how we might feel at any given point in time, if we override, sometimes our emotions, our emotional response, and keep God’s law, that is the love of God. That is the love of God.

It’s always doing what’s right, of course using wisdom and judgment, always doing what’s right according to the law, regardless of maybe the consequences that would come from it. Because sometimes, brethren, when we do certain things, let’s say we’re new in the church and we begin keeping the Sabbath or the holy days, and our family members just look at us and say, “Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this? Why are you stopping yourself from working on Saturday? You could get paid or why are you going away for eight days to this feast?”

Brethren, the love of God is obeying the commandments, even if it means that it cuts a rift between us and our family members or co-workers, even if it means that it causes certain contentions at times. That’s the love of God. Because, brethren, what you’re showing them, you’re thinking about the big picture. When we keep the Sabbath and we keep the holy days, despite what our families might think, we’re setting the example for them. We’re setting the right example for them. We’re doing what’s right and suppressing our emotional response.

Because if we were to just go off of our emotions, we’d say, “Oh, mom and dad, you’re probably right. I fear you, or I don’t want to offend you, or this or that.” And so you go off of your gut reaction, which is to disobey God, and then you’re setting a terrible example. The love of God is always doing what’s right, even if it means there are certain consequences that we have to endure because of it. It’s setting the right example no matter what, even if our emotions tell us differently.

Second Timothy chapter one. Second Timothy chapter one and verse thirteen. “Hold fast the form of sound words which you’ve heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” Love of God is making sure that we don’t slip into giving in to holding fast. Holding fast the commandments, holding fast the doctrines is the love of God. So, the more that we hold fast in our lives, the more we’re going to act on it, the more we’re going to obey God and do what’s right despite the consequences at times. This is the next great step to having the love of God is obedience.

You know, sometimes our emotions help us to do what’s right. I could just put it this way and another, sum it up a different way. Sometimes our emotions help us to do what’s right, like helping that old lady. And other times our emotions hinder us from doing what’s right. If we keep God’s commandments at the forefront of our thinking and hold fast to them, those drive our actions more often than not than what our guts tell us. Our guts are going to keep telling us, “Oh, should I do this? Should I go there? Should I help that person? Should I not help that person?”

Act on that when appropriate. But the love of God means that we keep the commandments above all things. So this is the third of six points and I’ll ask this question as a litmus test. How much of God’s law do I obey? Even if it means I have to set aside my emotions. Obeying God’s law is a direct indication of how much of the love of God we have. How much of God’s law do I obey? Are there areas where I’m weaker in God’s law, where I don’t obey certain things, where I sin and I shouldn’t be and I know it’s wrong?

Brethren, if we have areas where we’re sinning more often than not, that’s breaking God’s law. And therefore, if it’s breaking God’s law, it’s eroding the love of God in us. We have to see it that way. When we break God’s law, it erodes the love of God within us. We can’t have the love of God in the same way if we’re breaking the law. So, keeping the whole law, holding fast to everything, and trying as best that we can to not sin, will maximize the amount of the love of God that we have working in us.

Okay, here’s the fourth point. Luke chapter eleven, Luke chapter eleven. “And the Lord said to him...” Verse thirty-nine, Luke eleven, thirty-nine, now there was a Pharisee, verse thirty-eight, when the-- well, let’s pick up thirty-seven, I’m sorry. “And as he spoke, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him, and as he went in, and sat down to meet. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said to the Pharisee, ‘Now do you Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness, you fools. Did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as you have, and behold all things are clean to you.’”

Don’t worry about these cleaning your hands and plates in the same way, just stop focusing on that and worrying about that all the time. Forty-two, “‘But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs.’” You’re very articulate and specific about how you tithe. You don’t miss a thing with tithing. That’s wonderful. But you pass over judgment and the love of God. You overlook the weightier things in the law. “These ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone.”

Christ is telling the Pharisees, you’re not thinking about the love of God. You’re overlooking the love of God because you’re too focused on the picky things. You should be focused on tithing. You should tithe. That’s what he’s saying. This is proof of tithing in the New Testament. You should tithe. That you shouldn’t have undone. You should keep tithing, but you’re too focused on it. Stop focusing on tithing and focus on the weightier matters of the law like the love of God and judgment. The love of God goes beyond merely keeping the commandments to a tee.

So, from the last point, we saw the last point was the love of God is the keeping of the commandments. Oh, well, now I better become a Pharisee because if I don’t tithe perfectly with every mint…You got to do that. You have to obey the law, but the love of God, what this verse is showing is, the love of God is much bigger, even bigger than keeping the commandments. Wow! How many are a little bit blown away at how big the love of God is? I mean, this is so much bigger than just keeping the commandments or having God’s Holy Spirit.

He told this Pharisee, keep the commandments. But that’s not even it, that’s not the full extent of the love of God. It goes even bigger than that. And hopefully by now, in the message, we’re coming to see just how big the love of God is, maybe even bigger than we ever thought. So, let’s go to this next point, First John chapter four. This is a little bit shorter point, but nonetheless, a powerful, powerful indicator of whether we have the love of God or not. First John chapter four, verse seventeen. “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.” If we have fears in this world, or you could translate that word fear to anxiety, worry. If we have certain fears within this world or anxieties from this world, it’s suppressing the love of God, the amount of the love of God in us.

This is a perfect case in point. This fear or anxiety is an emotion. It’s something that starts here in our stomachs. In our guts. I’m anxious about this. I just keep worrying about it. I’m fretting about it. I’m fearful that this is going to happen. Whatever that fear or anxiety may be, it’s an emotion. And stepping back and seeing it as an emotion rather than acting on that fear or anxiety, God is telling us, if we want the love of God, we have to put that out. Put out anxiety. Put out the fear of man.

One of the great ways to do that is to fear God instead. You know, if we fear anything in this world, maybe it’s losing our job and we stop for any split second and we say, “What do I fear more? Do I fear losing my job over keeping the Sabbath or keeping the Holy Days, or do I fear the judgment when I’m going to be standing before God and have to reckon for why I made the decision to skip the Feast of Tabernacles so that I could go to my job?” What fear outweighs the other? If our fear of man, or our fear of failure, or our fear of anything physical or human-related outweighs the fear of God, we have to balance that. We have to put that away and fear God above all things.

That is how the love of God will continue to grow in us. This is a whole different point. You know, it’s not really related to keeping the commandments, but it’s here. It’s not really related to having as much of God’s Spirit in us as possible. It is kind of, but it’s wholly separate. The less we fear in this world, the less anxiety we have about anything, the more love of God we will have in us because perfect love casts out fear. It pushes it out. It doesn’t let that fear sit in us. Doesn’t let that emotion override us or control us. Again, this is not a long point, but nonetheless, very important. It’s the fifth point or the fourth point, excuse me. How much fear or anxiety do I hold?

This is the point with a fourth point of the litmus test. How much fear or anxiety do I hold in my life? The amount that we hold is a direct indication of how much or how little of the love of God we have. If we are naturally anxious people, talk to your ministers. See if there’s some way that you can counsel about it because oftentimes when I get worried or upset or struggle with something, if I talk to my wife about it or I talk to somebody else about it, it’s like the burden, the weight goes off. The weight lessens.

Communicate. Don’t just hold that anxiety in. It’ll be much harder for you to suppress it if you’re not willing to communicate and talk with others about it, particularly the ministry, or your spouse, but particularly the ministry. That’s what we’re here to help with. If you have anything that you’re struggling with, that’s causing you great anxiety, bring it to us. We’re here to help. We’re not here to judge you because of it. We’re here to help you to overcome it because we love you. We want you to overcome that. We want you to have the love of God, and so on. But fear and anxiety aren’t the only emotions that we manage in order to exhibit the love of God.

Turn over to First Corinthians chapter thirteen. We skipped over these points earlier in the message, and we’ll hit them now. First Corinthians chapter thirteen. Fear and anxiety are a big, definitely a kind of emotion that we have to manage and suppress and put off in order to show the love of God. But here are a number of others. Let’s just read through them.

First Corinthians thirteen and verse four. “Love suffers long.” Let’s just pause for a moment and there’s fifteen different points that we’ll read through here. We’re not going to go extensively into them, but there’s a thread. All of these involve suppressing a particular kind of emotion. The love of God, the first one, it says, suffers long.

Our natural instinct in many cases is to be impatient. I want to get this done. I don’t want to have to wait to do this or that, but the love of God is to suppress that emotion of impatience and suffer long. Maybe you’re enduring a trial and it takes... it’s difficult and you’re angry or you’re upset or you just want it over with. But the love of God is to suppress some of these human emotions. The love of God “is kind.” It is kind in times when you may not want to be kind.

If somebody does something bad to you, our gut reaction will be to kind of rear up. “How dare you do that to me?” But the love of God is kind. It’s suppressing natural emotions. It’s suppressing human nature, if you will, in order to act differently. “Love envies not.” If we’re jealous of somebody, if we see something that somebody has that we would like, or wish we had that quality about them, it envies not. It suppresses that. “Love wants not itself.”

“It’s not puffed up.” It’s not prideful. That’s an emotion, brethren. If we have pride, if we think we’re something, we need to suppress that, put that off, and realize we’re nothing. The love of God is to put these things away. Verse five, number six of these fifteen points. “Love does not behave itself unseemly. Love seeks not her own.” It looks out after the things of others. When humanly, we would be selfish. We want to look after the things of ourselves humanly.

“It’s not easily provoked. It doesn’t get riled up.” So again, suppressing that emotion. “It thinks no evil. It rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things.” It endures when it’s difficult. “It believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and love never fails.” You know, I gave a message a while back on the subject of emotional maturity, and in a certain regard, this message could be kind of a part two to that, if you will, because so much of having the love of God boils down to our ability to control our emotions effectively.

If we are anxious all the time, if we’re worried all the time, if we get angry very easily, the love of God, oftentimes, is to do the opposite of what our guts say that we should do, or how we should react. How well do we control our emotions? You know, I ask the question, how much fear or anxiety do I hold? I could even ask a broader question. I could say this is a seventh question. How well do we control our emotions is even a better point. How well do we control our emotions?

The more effective we are at managing the way that we feel, using those emotions either for good, for right, or holding them back when we know that we shouldn’t use them, how effective are we at controlling our emotions? Because it’s directly correlated to how much of the love of God we have. Here’s the next point, Proverbs chapter three. Proverbs chapter three. Two smaller points to conclude. Proverbs three and verse twelve. Proverbs three and verse twelve. “For whom the Lord loves, He corrects. Even as a Father, the Son in whom He delights, whom the Lord loves, He corrects.” God expresses the love of God toward us by correcting us at times. Sometimes we need to be brought back to the middle of the road. We need to be corrected in our thinking or our actions. We’ve deviated from the truth. We’ve deviated from the right path. And sometimes God needs to correct us. Sometimes it takes a nudge, sometimes it takes a baseball bat. It just depends. But correction is part of who we are in God’s Church. It’s part of the way that God works with us. And He says that it involves the love of God.

When we are corrected, it’s God showing His love for us, not because He wants to tear us down. When I correct my daughter, the last thing I’m doing is trying to tear her down by correcting her. I’m trying to correct her in order to help her, to bring her actions to where they should be, to help her do the right thing, not the wrong thing. And so, of course, giving correction from God’s perspective is an act of love. But I’ll ask the question, is it an act of love to receive correction? Is receiving correction well also a way that we can exhibit the love of God?

Let’s turn over to James chapter one. Yes, it is. I’ll just answer it blatantly. James chapter one and verse twelve. We can express the love of God by receiving correction well. If we receive correction well, that’s pleasing to God. It’s pleasing to the person who has to deliver that correction too. Could you imagine if somebody in ministry is told, “This person needs to be corrected on this. They’re not thinking right.” It’s not easy for a minister to deliver correction. Make it easier on the minister by receiving the correction. And I’m telling you here in James chapter one, it’s a form of the love of God to do so.

James one and verse twelve. “Blessed is the man that endures temptation.” Now, that word temptation is interesting. We often think of it as trials, and it is. But would not correction be a trial? The word actually can be translated discipline, in addition to trials, as we’ve conventionally looked at it. “Blessed is the man...” Let’s just insert the word discipline. “Blessed is the man that endures discipline.” If we’re corrected for something, you’re blessed if you take it well. “For when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love Him.” That word love is the love of God.

So, by receiving correction properly, when we’re tried through correction, if we receive it, it’s expressing the love of God. And God says that He’s got a crown laid up for us if we have that love, if we receive it well. Let’s take the love of God to the extreme. You know, we talked about... earlier in the message, we talked about the difference between the love of God and brotherly love. Second Peter three, you know, God is... You could turn over there, Second Peter three. It’s a chapter about the day of the Lord. When the new heavens and new earth occur, come, God is going to melt the mountains. Other places show that this is when He’s going to punish vast numbers of people on earth.

But this gives you a little bit of a window, an insight into how God thinks. Second Peter. I turned to First John. Second Peter three. And we’ll read in verse one. Excuse me, Verse nine. Verse nine. So, the whole chapter is all about the day of the Lord. Verse seven, “The heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

We’re talking about God, who is coming not because of any emotions, emotions that He has. He’s not operating off of emotions. He’s operating off of the love of God. The love of God is to bring mass punishment to this world that needs it. The world wouldn’t see that as the love of God. It’s not loving to correct people. It’s not loving to punish somebody for doing something. Love is just forgiving them for everything and never holding anybody accountable.

The love of God, from God’s perspective, involves punishment. If somebody doesn’t repent or turn away from their evil ways, punishment is the love of God. It’s love toward the other people that did turn toward Him. It’s love toward the rest of mankind that wants to do the right thing so that you don’t have evil people corrupting the other good people around.

So verse eight says, “But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward.” Here’s an interesting insight into God. He says He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. If God just operated off of His emotions, He wouldn’t want to punish anybody if He didn’t have to, but He’s operating off of the bigger good, the greater good, which is the love of God. He functions using the love of God, which involves punishment at times.

So I’ll ask ourselves when correction comes to us, how well do we receive it? This is the fifth of six points for the litmus test. How well do we receive correction? The better we receive correction, the more of the love of God we have.

Last but not least, brethren, Second Corinthians chapter five. Just a single verse we need to go through. Second Corinthians chapter five. Verse fourteen. Second Corinthians five- fourteen, “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we are all dead.” That word, constrains, opens up a fascinating point. The word “constrains” means to hold us together. The love of God holds us together. In other words, it unites us. It unites us. The love of God transcends all feelings that we might have. The love of God is just simply doing what’s right, and when we obey God’s laws, this is the thing that unites us, and it comes back to obedience and keeping the commandments.

If we were to just operate off of the way that we feel, the things that we feel in life, there would be no unifying element. That’s why God gives us His great law. His law is what unifies us. His law is what allows us to all think the same thing, to operate the same way. This is why when somebody contacts us, who’s interested in attending services, I’ll tell them, “I’m responding the same way that a minister in Abu Dhabi would respond or the way that the minister in India or the minister in...” It doesn’t matter where you are around the world. We all teach and act the same way. We’re of the same mind and of the same judgment.

It’s because, brethren, the love of God in us unifies us. It unifies us. So this is just simply the last point. How unified am I with God’s people? How unified am I with God’s people? If we find ourselves at odds with other brethren, find ourselves having division between brethren, it’s actually an indicator that the love of God is waning. The love of God means that we stay tightly knit, bound together, unified, held together. That’s what the love of God is.

So brethren, without first understanding the difference between brotherly love and the love of God, which I think we all understand now more clearly, we can’t go on to develop the greatest of all godly qualities, which is the love of God. We have to take this litmus test seriously. How much of God’s Spirit do we have? How much brotherly love do we exhibit? How much of God’s laws do I obey? How much fear, anxiety, do I hold? How well do I receive correction, and how unified am I with God’s people?

Now, after hearing the love of God litmus test, I’ll ask one final question, how much of the love of God do you have?