Life in the Local Church, Part 2| Joyful life in the local church

Selected Scriptures

Like I said, from sampling the one another’s in Scripture, we’re going to organize these one another attitudes into the three virtues I named here: love, humility, and unity, okay? Love, humility, and unity. Let’s take that first virtue: love. Turn in your Bibles to John 13. John 13, we’re starting here with love because love is primary. Love is absolutely fundamental. It doesn’t matter what else we do, if we miss this one here, we’ve missed it all, haven’t we? We need to pursue love. Pursue love. If you have not love, you gain nothing, even if you make the ultimate sacrifice, it says in 1 Corinthians 13, “submitting your body to be burned,” giving it to the flames, becoming a martyr. Love is absolutely vital to everything we do.

Look at 1 John 4:9-10, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Wow! There it is, ultimate sacrifice, wholly for the good of the object of the act of love, not seeking anything out of it in return.

You say, didn’t God get something out of it? Nothing that he didn’t already have. I mean, was God completely fulfilled in his inner Trinitarian relationships? Yes. Did the Father and the Spirit love the Son; does the Son and the Spirit love the Father? Does the Father and the Son love the Spirit, perfectly, without any lack? Absolutely. There is no lack in inter-Trinitarian love. There is no lack in the Trinity. There is no lack in God. There is no need in him that prompted him to create the world to redeem sinners like us. He didn’t do it out of need. He did all this out of love.

Love:doing it wholly for the good of us, expecting nothing in return. And notice, his love confronts sin. What does it say there? “He sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.” We need to realize we have sins. We need to face the facts. So God does the hard work of confrontation to show us, here is what you really look like. Don’t fool yourself. Don’t pile up your good deeds and think you’re okay. Look at the standard of the divine Scripture. See God’s character on display. Take a look in that mirror and compare yourself. You know what? We have “all sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” right?

God confronted us in our sin. That’s loving. God sacrificed his own son on the cross. That was loving. He poured out all his wrath on him for the sins of all of those and only those who will ever believe. So costly! And don’t miss those two statements of purpose, there. What motivated God’s love for us? Purpose number one, verse 9, “so that we might live through him.” Purpose number 2, verse 10, “he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.” He wanted us to have life. He wanted us to have forgiveness, a clean conscience. He wanted us to be pure and holy, and to stand perfect and accepted in Christ. How kind. How good. How merciful.

Can there be any confusion about the implication that John draws there in verse 11. Look at it there, “Beloved, if God so loved us,” that is to say, if he so loved us, if he thus loved us, if he loved us in that way, “we also ought to love one another.” This is the natural, logical conclusion, and if we’ll love one another, you know what? We’ll glorify God. Look at verse 12, “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.” Wow!

Well, that’s why, several times, John pointed his Christian readers back to that original command of Jesus in John 13, that they’d be known by their love for one another. Again, here’s some one another’s from 1 John. This is the way they demonstrate their discipleship, their devotion to Christ. 1 John 3:11, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” 1 John 3:23, “This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us.” 2 John 5, “Now I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning, that we,” what? “love one another,” right?

The Apostle Peter, he understood this as well. He commanded Christians to love one another, and he intensified the command with a little modifying word, it’s the Greek word ektenés, which means fervently, earnestly, eagerly, consistently. Listen to just a couple of passages from Peter. 1 Peter 1:22, “Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly.” That’s the word ektenés.

Love one another fervently, passionately, from a pure heart. 1 John 4:8, “Above all, keep loving one another ektenés.” Earnestly, passionately, fervently, constantly. “Since love covers over a multitude of sins.” You want harmony? You want no offense from other people’s offenses against you? Love. Love them fervently. You’ll overlook a lot if you love the person, right? Love one another fervently, earnestly, eagerly, that’s the attitude. God commands us to be aggressive in our attitudes of love for one another.

Paul pressed this love for one another command as well. Romans 12:10 says, “Love one another with brotherly affection.” He’s talking about what comes out of the heart, what actually affects your guts. That’s the terms that are used there. In verse, ah, in chapter 13 verse 8 of Romans, “Owe no one anything except to love one another.” I know every budgeting program in the world uses that “owe no one anything” portion, but don’t forget the rest, okay? Yea, okay, fine, get out of debt, pay your bills, don’t owe anyone anything. But owe everyone this, that you love one another. “For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Okay, so that’s the most important thing. Your finances, okay, good, but love one another, and be indebted to that forever.

Listen, you know what? This sounds so high and holy and hard, but you know what? We can do this. We have the power of the Spirit in the Word of God to help us to do this, to change, to grow. Apart from Christ, there is no hope from doing anything like this because “love comes from God,” after all. And if you don’t know the love of God in Christ, you don’t have any of this. You need to be saved. You need to be born again. You need to be regenerated to a living hope and know the love of God from the very beginning. But if you do know that love, if you have had that love shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit that’s in you, you know what? With God’s help, we can become not only effective, but very effective in loving one another. That is what is so encouraging.

Whole churches can become characterized by loving one another. Thessalonian church was one of those churches. Paul wrote, 1 Thessalonians 4:9, “Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.” Isn’t that amazing, coming from the pen of an Apostle, a giant in church history. He says, you know what? I don’t even need to write about this for you guys. You do it. You love one another. You’ve been taught by God to love one another. They were known for it. The, the reputation of the Thessalonian church had sounded forth throughout all of Macedonia and Achaia, all through the Greek world. I mean, they were known. Isn’t that a great thing to aspire to? Wouldn’t you like this church to be known for its love for one another, not in Greeley, but Colorado? Wouldn’t that be awesome? That is such an encouragement to us, such a thing to aspire to.

Well look, love is just the first of three internal attitudes we see in the one another commands of Scripture, but it is so foundational. Okay, second internal attitude is humility, humility. If we’re going to love one another, we’re forced to humble ourselves with one another as well. There’s no room for pride in the local church, no room for pride. I mean how can you have pride when God the Father sent his son, the perfect Son of God, second person of the Trinity, be incarnated in a little baby, who grew up perfect, sinless, die on a cross for your sins, and then gave you a righteousness you did not deserve. How can you have any pride in light of that? Can you match that? Your gifts pretty good? Gonna measure up to that? No!

Look, we are forced in this love attitude, loving one another, we’re forced to humble ourselves with each other as well. We’re forced to it. Pride is utterly unfitting, here. Let’s start with what’s probably a foundational text for Peter. Turn to 1 Peter 5:5. If you’re in 1 John, just back up a couple of pages and you’re gonna be in 1 Peter 5:5. Peter, as you know, he was the Apostle with the foot-shaped mouth. That guy had so much to learn about humility, and I don’t know about you, but I am grateful Christ chose him because he gives us hope. He is such an encouragement to all of us because if the Holy Spirit can accomplish so much in and through Peter, you know what? All of us have hope. All of us can grow.

You may remember that Peter once promised Jesus and he was standing there in front of all the other disciples. Jesus is promising his, you know, being arrested by the Jewish leaders and tortured and crucified. And he’s saying, “You’re going to all fall away.” And Peter said in front of all his buddies, he’s been spending three years with them, and he was fishing buddies with these guys. He had a fishing business with James and John. And he says, Though, “Though they all fall away because of you, I’ll never fall away.” Jesus, I’m better than them. I’m better than them. Just a few hours after he said that, he fell away. He fell. He denied Jesus three times. Such proud beginnings for this man, so self-confident, so self-assured.

Peter had a lot to learn about humility, and God was so gracious to teach him. You watch him transform after Pentecost; you watch him transform in the church. You see it in his writing in 1 Peter and 2 Peter and after many years of serving the Lord as an Apostle, he wrote this in 1 Peter 5:5, “Clothe,” yourself, “yourselves all of you with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

You know what? In that verse Peter identified the fundamental principle that undergirds our pursuit of an attitude of humility. If you want to hold on to your pride, you know what? God will oppose you. You set yourself on the opposite side of God. You set yourself, there’s the line of scrimmage, you’re on God’s side, as soon as you go into pride, you know what? You go on the other side. And he, like a bulldozer running back is going to run right over you. He’s going to drive you into the ground! God opposes the proud; he’ll thwart you. He will resist you. He will frustrate you. You can’t win against an omnipotent God. He’s too strong for you.

So if you humble yourself before God, he will give you grace. He’ll give you grace. He’ll lift you up. He’ll prosper you. He’ll encourage you. He’ll strengthen you. He’ll use you. Here in the local church, God is going to use you through an attitude of humility that’s dependent on him. Someone once said, “It’s amazing how much can be accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit.” That is true. And that’s why Paul commanded, Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”

Look, when you get yourself out of the way, you’re able to see what God wants done. You’re able to see what Christ wants for his church. And you’re also able, like we said at the beginning to accept and appreciate the diversity in the body of Christ. You’re able to rejoice in how the Spirit uses all kinds of people with all kinds of gifts. Galatians 5:26, Paul said, “Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” “Rather,” Romans 12:16, “Live in harmony with one another. You are not to be haughty, but to associate with the lowly, never being wise in your own estimation.” You’ll come to understand, God uses all kinds of people, the greatest, the least, and everyone in between because nothing is garbage to God. Everyone who comes in these doors counts. Everyone who is a member of the church counts; everyone matters. No spare parts.

Well, motivated by sacrificial love, maintaining an attitude of humility and even striving for it, you can see how those produce a third attitude: a desire for unity. A desire for unity. Again, we’re just moving through these one another commands in the New Testament. One of these humility-producing one another’s that we just talked about, Romans 12:16 says, “Live in harmony with one another.” Live in harmony with one another. You know, that’s also a unity-promoting command, right?

Harmony is the byproduct of attitudes of love and unity. It’s an interest in corporate unity, in people getting along, in people being in agreement. Harmony is what’s produced when all of them are giving of themselves, submitting themselves to the corporate good. That’s the emphasis in Ephesians 4:2-3, we mentioned that last week: “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain,” what? “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” right?

That commitment to the unity of the Spirit, as we said, in Ephesians 4:4-6, the next verses, it’s forged out of a doctrinal clarity that’s outlined there in those verses. That commitment to the unity of the Spirit that’s what supports, that’s what maintains, that’s what even produces an environment that’s permeated with friendship and congeniality. It’s permeated; it creates a spirit of harmony and agreement. Sweetness of Christian fellowship, it’s clear evidence of God’s blessing on a congregation. And Paul acknowledged that in Romans 15:5, he said, “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus.” It’s God who produces that. And he does that through the means of our striving for it, of our working hard for it, counting it worth pursuing, counting it worth of sacrificing for.

Just take a look quickly at Philippians, Philippians chapter 2. Philippians 2. Two times Paul commanded in the epistle to the Philippians and he was writing, you understand, that letter known as the epistle of joy; two times he commanded the pursuit of unity explicitly. I mean it’s thematic in the, in the, in the book, in the little letter. But two times explicitly he commanded it. He says in Philippians 1:27, “Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.”

Remember back to that picture of the symphony and what we learned last week from 1 Corinthians 12. The diversity in the local church is produced by the same Spirit in service to the same Lord. It’s energized and directed by the same God. It is the Word of that one Triune God that brings us all together. It unites us. It’s the Word of that Triune God that unites us all, as he says there, “with one mind, striving side by side for faith of the,” What? “gospel.” Are there many Gospels? No. One Gospel. One Gospel. All of us reading from the same sheet of music, all of us following the same conductor.

Take a look at the next chapter Philippians 2:1-2, “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord,” or full harmony, you could say, “and of one mind.” When Paul says he wants us to be “of the same mind,” he’s literally saying that we’re to be thinking the same thing.

How does that comport with diversity in the body? Are we cult members, turning off our brains to submit to some kind of groupthink, peer pressure? What are we talking about, here? Simply this, just as the diversity of an orchestra is subordinated to the composer’s music, just as each instrument plays in time, following the conductor’s lead, so also are we in the local church. All through our diversity, we are to be subordinated to the same authoritative Scripture.

We’re to be directed through God’s Word by the same Spirit. Same sheet of music, same conductor, right? It forces you to ask the question, Do I trust this sheet of music? Do I even believe that there is a conductor? It’s what you gotta reckon with before God. God calls you to believe it. It’s authoritative Word of God. It’s his sheet music; it’s his, it’s his composition. You either believe it or you don’t. But again, this unity, the same mind, same love, being of full harmony, that unity is going to be produced in the spirit of humility. There in verse 3, “doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant that yourselves.”

We could keep going but we can’t, okay? We, we can honestly, this could cascade into a kaleidoscope of sermons. I could preach on all different aspects of Christ’s demonstration of love and humility, all in the pursuit of unity. ‘Cause that’s where Paul goes in Philippians 2:5 and following. He goes into Christ’s example in sacrificing himself. But I just, we just have to stop here, and next time we’ll pick it up into the next main point, there in your outline. But for now, let’s just bow our heads in a word of prayer and ask God to produce these things in our lives.

Heavenly Father, we do give ourselves to you afresh, having learned from your Word, from these one another commandments. Pretty penetrating, father, especially when we’re confronted with the example of your love for us. When we’re confronted with the example of your love, your sacrifice, expecting nothing in return, we’re amazed, and we do not have any room for pride. We humble ourselves before you. We know that you oppose the proud, but you do give grace to the humble. So we humble ourselves before you.