Pastor Paul Chappell: How Love Is Expressed

first john chapter 3 and we're going to pick up where we left off last week in a verse by verse preaching time uh beginning in verse 17. but whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of god in him my little children let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth and hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him for if our heart condemn us god is greater than our heart and knoweth all things beloved if our heart condemn us not then we have confidence toward god let's pray together father thank you for this time to gather and to enjoy the music and the fellowship and in just a moment the preaching of your word please help us tonight to learn how to love one another with a more biblical love i pray in jesus name amen you may be seated well we've been learning in first john chapter 3 that the theme of this chapter is the love of god the love of god to us and tonight we're going to see the love of god through us love is the fruit of the spirit we should never say of another christian i cannot love them because while we may not feel we can in the spirit we can love one another in fact we learned last week that love is the evidence of our faith and jesus said they will know you by your love love is to be the defining characteristic of the people of god that's why the devil loves to bring division and he loves it when christians aren't getting along because they're not showing forth the presence of god in their life at that time a group of professional people posed this question about love to a young group of four to eight-year-olds and they were doing a little survey to see how they perceive love and as they asked the children some of the questions were answered uh about love in a very unique way billy who was four years old he said well when someone loves you the way they say your name is different you just know that your name is safe in their mouth now i'm not sure of exactly what he meant by that you know because maybe he meant when your mom or dad really scream at you maybe your name's not as safe i'm not sure but he said when somebody loves you your name is safe in their mouth and then carl age five he said love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne like high karate or something like that right and they go out and smell each other that's what he said love was so i've seen some college students doing that from time to time i think out in the gazebo i'm pretty sure is where that happens chrissy age six said love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs how many of you would say that's true love right there especially if they're in and out french fries that's real love i'm telling you right there and then bobby age seven he said love is what's in the room with you at christmas if you stop opening the presents and just listen for a little while now love love is a biblical definition tonight is going to be biblically defined for us tonight and i hope that you'll listen and learn how that we can be the expression of the love of god notice the bible says in verse 17 but whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of god in him tonight we see three characteristics of christian love and i want you to see first of all tonight that christian love is generous love the world likes to speak of christians as being troublemakers and and they said that in the first century of the apostle paul they said he was a pestilent fellow and a divider of men but when you truly study christian history you'll find that christianity has gone from place to place with a heart of generosity and a heart to help as i said i love to study history and if you study some of the history of hawaii you'll find that in the 17 and 1800s there was a great missionary movement in hawaii and you'll find that the congregationalist in particular went there with the gospel of jesus christ if you've ever visited the islands you'll see the old churches made of volcanic rock and they went there to spread the love of jesus christ sadly some of the descendants of the missionaries got into the sugar cane business and so modern day hawaiians sometimes see the americans as simply colonialists or people that took advantage of the business aspects of the islands but in the first place when the gospel was taken there was not a thought of what could the missionary get out of it it was simply the thought of what could they invest in those islands and that has been true all over the world there are missionaries tonight all around the world exhibiting the generosity of jesus christ we have endeavored to exhibit that right here in lancaster and the bible says in verse 17 but whoso hath this world's good and notice this phrase and seeth his brother have need would you say that with me and seeth his brother hath need love is generous but in order for us to be generous we must first of all see the need i like to say to young men when we're talking about the ministry see the need and take the lead when you see someone having need just do something about it you don't have to have the church telling you always to witness or to do this or to do that when you see that someone has these needs then we ought to see the need and take the lead if you see someone that has need of this world's good speaking of sustenance resources assistance physical provision and if we see a brother in particular we should have a sense of that need we must see the needs now i notice sometimes that there are people who are experts at not seeing they they seem to have a way about walking past someone in need and not feeling and that's a sad state of affairs in our country today if you really want god to use you and you'll just keep an open heart and mind and open eyes there are people all around us in this room on this campus and yes throughout our community who have need tonight but we must see those that have the need that's why we have the missions conference in november this year and we're bringing many missionaries to come by and sometimes they show us slides or videos and why because the bible says mine i hath affected mine heart sometimes we need to see that's why we're planning missions trips once we get through this covid because it's always helped our teenagers and college students and sometimes our adults to go to a third world country and see the need and to realize how blessed we really are and to do something about the need that's why it was such a blessing in the last several months to have part in the building of the church uh down in nicaragua and and to hear and see from the missionary but then to be generous and to respond we will never regret those times that we helped the missionaries who came by lancaster baptist church but we must see and then we must respond the bible says in verse 17 that if we see one with need and shut up our bowels of compassion how dwelleth the love of god in us god is calling us to be a responsive people some people see the need but they shut off their compassion they shut off the bowels of compassion the tenderness of heart that they should have toward those in need can i encourage you church as we're in a time of troublesome difficulty in our country and there's much division and sometimes there's even fear in our heart we're afraid we don't want to get involved in something and you know i just want to remind you tonight sometimes the ministry is messy and we need to be willing to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty if that's what it takes to help somebody in their time of need whether that's fixing a car or delivering a meal or whether that's helping someone out i learned long time ago i'm not going to lend a lot of money i'll give some money but that way i don't have to expect getting it back that way i don't have to be burned if it's not given back and and i'm just saying that ministry sometimes is messy and when you see the need don't be this type of person that says i don't want to be in the mess i'll do the clean stuff don't be the kind of a altar worker that wouldn't put your arm around somebody who smells a little bit or somebody who comes from maybe a dirtier background and they just haven't had the blessings you have don't be the type of a member of this church that would not even consider becoming a bus worker we ought to we ought to be open to whatever god has for our heart do you understand there are many thousands of children in the antelope valley living right at the poverty level and many of them do not have a daddy we heard from larry elder last week who spoke very eloquently on the family needs in this state and and he brought to our attention that some 50 of these children are being raised without a father and i'm just saying when we hear these statistics when we when we see these young people walking the streets we can be afraid we can be angry we can keep driving by or maybe we could be a part of something like the bus ministry that actually reaches them and sees their lives changed for the glory of god i'm glad that amongst other things we haven't changed around here i'm glad we still run buses at lancaster baptist church these are children who need us to be a people of compassion let's not be the kind of church that supports the missionaries overseas but doesn't see the need right in our own community and let's have a heart let's be moved you see the wrong response is to see the need and just keep on going and not allow compassion to build in our heart the proper response is to feel that need dr lee roberson was a great mentor of so many and a great encourager in my life and he often said compassion is your hurt in my heart compassion is your hurt in my heart it might be someone tomorrow whose spouse left them over the weekend it might be perhaps some teenager whose dad got into alcohol again it could be a million things but may we be moved with compassion the wrong response is that we would not allow our heart to feel the need that we would shut up our bowels or our heart the seat of our emotion the proper response is to care like jesus cared the bible says in romans 12 15 rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that we john 11 33 when jesus therefore saw her weeping and the jews also weeping which came with her he groaned in his spirit and was troubled and said where have they laid him and they said unto him come and see and john 11 35 the shortest verse in the bible what does it say church jesus he wept i don't know about you i'm so glad i have a savior who feels i'm glad i don't pray to a stone idol like buddha i'm glad i have a savior whose heart is tender though his beard was plucked though he was cursed though they gambled for his garments though he was mistreated by the world he kept loving and loving and loving and keeps loving to this very day i heard about a four-year-old boy whose next-door neighbor had recently lost his wife and he went by the neighbor's house and he was looking in the door he saw the neighbor sitting there this elderly man he was weeping and the little boy just didn't know really what to do he just kind of climbed up by the man and he was just looking at him there in his couch and then after a while he just sat right there on his leg and just kind of put his arm around the man and after a while he finally went home and his mother said son where have you been and he said i i've been next door with our neighbor and the mother said well well what did you do over there and the little boy said nothing really mom i just helped him cry i just helped him cry you know sometimes you don't even have to have all the words to say it's just about being there i'm going to mention jack harper again tonight just came to my mind you know we had jack's funeral a few days ago brother alvarez brother jack came to so many funerals of people he hardly knew just to be a christian just to weep with somebody that was weeping you see this is the sign of christian love i want to feel still i want to have your hurt in my heart yeah but you didn't know them that well they weren't your sunday school class they're not they're not of your background they're they're yeah but they're a part of the family of god and they're going through a difficulty and i want to weep with those that weep i want to care for those in time of need jesus christ was drawn to human need like metal shavings to a magnet every time there was a hurt and he was near he wanted to make a difference he wanted to do something about it matthew 9 36 when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion upon them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as a as sheep having no shepherd hebrews chapter 4 if you turn there very quickly a very familiar passage but i want you to see it again hebrews 4 and verse 15 because god is commanding us tonight to see he's commanding us when we see to feel he wants our eye to affect our heart hebrews chapter 4 and verse 15 says for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin i want you to see that verse 15 that that he's not in high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities jesus was not just some religious figure who came onto this earth scene just to do religious stuff but he came here to feel to sense to know to help to love to heal to to encourage and this is why the bible says in verse 16 let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need when was the last time you went out of your way with compassion to help somebody in their time of need 73 year old aldon strait lived in iowa he heard that his brother henry had a stroke up in wisconsin alden because of his health had his driver's license taken away from him a few years prior he was not able to drive his car any longer but it so bothered him that henry had this stroke and he heard that henry had suffered some paralysis from the stroke and he he didn't know what to do he couldn't just drive up to wisconsin and so he signed he decided his only option was to drive his john deere lawnmower he got on his john deere lawnmower he put a little trailer behind it he filled it with gasoline and a tent and some food and he drove all the way to wisconsin 240 miles on his john deere lawnmower can we get a shout for the green amen just to be with his brother who'd had a stroke compassion is your hurt in my heart church i'm expecting god to do some great things this fall i'm excited i'm expecting friends to come two weeks from today i'm expecting guests to come next sunday there were many that i met this week and i just want to remind you don't look at them and if they don't look like you think they should look kind of have a condescending spirit or don't look at them and think that because maybe they look a little nicer they don't have any need i just want to give you this little hint tonight everybody that comes has some kind of a hurt in their heart everybody's bearing a burden today very very few parents that aren't burdened about their children very few families that don't have somebody who's affected with illness very few people that don't have some kind of a burden when we see them let's be sensitive to their need love is generous love sees the need and takes the lead notice secondly love is active the bible says in verse 18 of our text tonight that we are to be loving in action notice verse 18 my little children let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth let us not love in word and in tongue but in deed and in truth now here we see that love involves more than words turn if you would in your bible to first corinthians chapter 13 first corinthians 13 and i want you to see what the bible says here concerning love first corinthians 13 1 though i speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity i am become as sounding brass or tinkling symbol and though i have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though i have all faith so that i could remove mountains and have not charity i am nothing and though i bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though i give my body to be burned and have not charity it profiteth me nothing tonight god is reminding us that we must have more than words that love must be accompanied by action in our everyday life that we must have a heart behind what we're doing folks i want to tell you there's a difference between a wife that's just throwing out some food and a wife that's doing it with the heart of love there's a difference between a husband that's just going to work because he has to and a husband who's doing that because he loves his family there's a difference between children just obeying or obeying from the heart and god is reminding us that we must have charity accompanying our behavior dr richard swenson his father passed away and one of his siblings was speaking to him and said you know he said mom and dad it seemed like it seemed like they just had a honeymoon all of the days of their life and how long did their honeymoon last and he said well it lasted right up until yesterday when mom went to be with the lord you know god wants your marriage to be like that he wants it to be a marriage filled with true love every step of the way that's his design and it involves deeds from our life it's so important that we would have more than words but that we would have the deeds as well notice what it says there in verse 18 not let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth james chapter 2 and verse 15 if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto them depart in peace be ye warmed and filled notwithstanding he give them not those things which are needful to the body what does it profit even so faith if it hath not works is dead and god is calling us to be a people with a working faith yea if a man say thou has faith and i have works show me thy faith without thy works and i will show thee my faith by my works love is active it is not passive and god is reminding us that as his children he is calling us to a love that is generous and to a love that is active for him it involves more than words it involves our deeds and let me say this tonight love involves truth you don't love someone if you're not telling them the truth and specifically the truth about jesus christ turn if you would in your bible to ephesians chapter 4 and verse 15. ephesians 4 15 notice what it says here ephesians 4 15 but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even christ speaking the truth in love now sometimes people don't understand this and you'll speak the truth and they'll somehow think that that's not loving for example the bible does say that there is a hell that is a truth the bible does say that we're to come out and be separate from the world and the worldliness and sin of this world that is a truth you can say that and still love someone the bible says we're not to look at alcohol when it moveth itself a right in the cup and we're to avoid drunkenness and this party lifestyle that is a truth and it needs to be spoken the bible says that life begins in the mother's womb at conception that is a truth and it needs to be spoken you could go on and on with truths and and sometimes those truths if someone's living in rebellion they don't want to hear the truth but the calling of the christian is to speak the truth in love and the truth is that your neighbor your friend they will spend eternity somewhere and god has called us to lovingly tell them the truth and i'll take it a step further god has called us as a church to earnestly contend for the faith and when there are circumstances and situations in our society or in the church culture that are going farther and farther left into theological liberalism from time to time we need to mark and we need to say we're not removing the landmarks this is where we stand we need to speak the truth in love jude in verse 3 says that we are to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints by the grace of god that's what we've tried to do for 35 years we've tried to love our congregation and love our community enough to tell them the truth from the word of god so love involves truth if you have a teenage child and they're living a wayward life and they're beginning to seek acceptance in a relationship or breaking the rules of the family and your concern for them because you love them you speak the truth to them it's not because you're upset with them it's because you care for them speaking the truth in love and so it's vital that we understand the bible says in romans 12 9 let love be without dissimulation abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good and so god is calling upon us to be the manifestation of his love in this world and he wants us to be reminded first of all tonight love is generous when we see a need whether it's a missionary a bus child whether it's some other person god brings into our life when we see that need we're to be sensitive to that don't don't live a callous life you say well i've been burned and i i helped this one ministry once and it was terrible and i gave to this one guy and it was terrible i remember years ago brother rick hauck and i were working together in the ministry and we were both really young and we're still pretty young brother how but we were probably maybe in our 20s at that time and somebody called the church and they said we need some help and and i said all right how can we know he said well he said i fought in vietnam and i i have agent orange and i i've got to have someone to come and give me some assistance and and i said bro how let's go assist this guy and we went over and tried to witness to him he said he was saved i'm not sure that he was and he had nowhere to say he was a homeless fellow and i didn't really know what to do it's my first time working benevolent situations so he said he needed some help i put down my credit card or was it yours brother how do you remember i think it was mine and i put i think we took him out to eat too took him out to dinner put him in the hotel room and uh and and and just tried to do what we could to show the love of god to him that night we got a phone call from the hotel they said so and so that you put here in the room he's jumping all around he's having a party there's all kinds of people in the room he's messing the room up you got to come we had to go back the next day and pay the charges for the way the guy messed up the room folks i could tell you story after story but thank god i didn't take this attitude well i got burned once i'll never help anybody else again the ministry sometimes is messy sometimes people aren't as grateful as you thought they'd be sometimes you'll invest in people sometimes you'll invest in their family you'll counsel them as a pastor over and over hundreds of hours sometimes i graciously speak the truth and love i've i've allowed people to keep their kids in the school or stay in ministry somehow and just try to restore them and help them sometimes the ones i've tried to help the most have hurt me the most i don't get up in the pulpit here and tell you about it i've never gotten up and say watch out for this one watch out for that one i just pray that you have enough discernment to figure it out but i'm going to tell you in the ministry sometimes you can get burned sometimes people aren't kind back sometimes they can be cutting can i just remind you don't ever get calloused just keep on loving and keep on loving just keep loving people just keep that generous spirit just keep that spirit that is actively loving someone else love is generous love is active let me say thirdly love is assuring love is assuring next time brother hauck were using your credit card by the way love is assuring now this is a great part of the message so don't miss it right here i want you to see this verse 19. the bible says here and hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him for if our heart condemn us god is greater than our heart and knoweth all things now verse 19 teaches that our actions assure us our actions one of the ways that we know we are in the truth or that we are saved is the assurance that we have through our love for fellow christians it's amazing that before someone is saved they don't really care to be around other christians they might even think they're weird but after someone's saved we kind of like going to church and hanging around with people now i realize we get tired sometimes i realize our schedules are busy but it's a blessing to be with god's people i can think of so many illustrations i love coming to church every sunday i love being with god's people i can think of going down and preaching for brother luis montano in mexico i don't understand very much spanish i really don't but i walk into that auditorium and here are people that have been saved because we sent a missionary and they're saying thank you for sending the missionary and they're saying they're they're they're saying nice things by the way giving you flower tortillas this big now that'll make you love somebody amen i've been in different countries where al all i could understand was when they said yesu or or jesus or said the name of jesus somehow but when they said it it just brought a common love into the room there's something about being with god's people and and when you love god's people it is an assurance to you that you have the faith of the lord jesus christ warren wiersbe made a statement about this verse and i thought it was wonderful he said verse 19 assures us that as we sincerely love the brethren we belong to the truth and are saved unsaved people may like some christians because of their personable qualities but only a born-again christian loves even a total stranger when he or she discovers the stranger is a christian i want to encourage you tonight church love one another love your spouse love your children love one another in the church love god's people you understand that we are a church that has a doctrinal set of beliefs and i try to have people after this pulpit that are aligned with the doctrine of the church that's been my practice for 35 years but there might be some people that are slightly different than the way we would teach a particular passage but they're believers and we're commanded to love them that are believers we're commanded to pray for them and i want i want our church to have a heart that is a church of love i called uh dr john mcarthur this week and congratulated them they won their lawsuit against the county and got all the money back from their legal fees that they fought to keep their church open during covet we should be happy for that and uh i think uh in the next couple weeks we're gonna have the uh the pro-life uh pregnancy uh group the care net group is gonna come and and uh they said could we use your campus we wanna have a special night to uh to raise awareness for pregnancy counseling and and saving the lives of these children and and we said we'd be glad to have you use our walther center to to promote the cause of saving children's lives and we ought to be thankful for people that are doing a good work it's so important that we love god's people and our actions as we have that spirit assure us in fact first john 3 14 says we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren i mean what an amazing verse what a simple thought we know that we have passed unto death from death to life because we love the brethren can i just put it in a modern day summary if someone who says they're a christian doesn't enjoy being with other christians that is a real problem there should be a desire in the heart of a believer to be with other believers and so the bible says we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren so our actions assure us then secondly this is awesome as we close tonight our god assures us our god assures us now look at this verse verse 20 for if our heart condemn us god is greater than our heart and knoweth all things now i really want some of you to get a hold of this because some of you your heart's been condemning you and so let's read this verse together okay verse 20. ready to begin for if our heart condemn us now sometimes people go by their emotions and how they feel i don't feel loved at church i don't feel worthy of going to church i don't feel i match up to those people at church and we call this soulish living or emotional living as opposed to biblical living sometimes our heart condemns us but i want to remind you as your pastor tonight and from the word of god god is greater than your heart and mind the heart many times condemns did you see that that word condemns means to find fault to accuse no christian is perfect in loving others or shortcomings sometimes come into our life and sometimes sin comes into our life and we may feel at that moment like we're maybe not even saved we may feel like god doesn't love us or maybe we haven't loved enough the way that the bible teaches here and we may feel like wow maybe i'm not truly a believer in other words god says when you love one another your heart is going to bring assurance to you that you are saved but when your heart is not assuring you god is greater than your heart what a blessing to know that god is so great in his love that even when we're questioning ourselves he's not questioning his love for us our heart many times will condemn how many of you have ever had your heart condemn you i have you ever had a time like that you just feel kind of unworthy or like you blew it and the devil likes to jump on that and say well yeah that's true and you're you're a loser and you ought to just tattoo an l into your forehead that's it you're a loser don't do that by the way sometimes our heart condemns us but notice again verse 20 for if our heart condemn us god is greater than our heart let's say that together god ladies does your heart ever condemn you let's say that phrase together lady shall we god is greater men let's say it god is greater than our heart if our heart condemns us god is greater than those feelings he knows all things and he knows that we are his remember romans chapter 8 and verse 33 who shall lay anything to god to the charge of god's elect it is god that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is christ that died ye rather that has risen again who is even at the right hand of god who also maketh intercession for us you see the bible says that people may lay something at the feet of god's children of god's elect but it is god that justifieth who is he that can deal with it is christ that died listen what the point simply is this when our heart condemns us or when others condemn us god is greater than our heart god is greater than worldly condemnation god has you in moments when you feel condemned and sometimes it may be that you feel as a failure as a spouse or as a parent sometimes as a teacher you may just feel like you just haven't done well and there is a point to conviction and there may be a need in your heart to feel conviction if wrong was done but don't let the devil push that over into prolonged guilt and depression because we are saved by grace and we live by the grace of god and when we are condemned in heart remember god is greater than our heart and the blood of jesus christ is greater than your sin and so what a wonderful promise tonight love is generous love is active and love is assuring when you're actively loving god's people your family god's people there's an assurance when you turn around tonight and you say you know i'm glad to be a part of god's family and it's good to be with other believers tonight that's an assurance that there's something in you that there's something in them there's someone and that someone is the lord jesus christ and when you have those times and you come to church and you feel well i don't feel that assurance in my heart i feel like because of something that's happened that i don't belong i just want to remind you tonight god is greater than your heart don't live by your feelings live by the promises of the word of god let god assure you tonight everybody that is saved belongs in the family of god

Channel: Lancaster Baptist Church

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Keywords: lancaster baptist church, lancaster baptist, baptist church, paul, chappell, paul chappell, pastor paul chappell, 1 John 3, love, expressed

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Length: 35min 39sec (2139 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021