"Truthing" in Love

But speaking of the Council, I mentioned that we're in the strategic planning phase. And back last August, the Council had a retreat where it was just the twelve Council members that were among them as they began to think about what should be done going forward. What is God's will? What would He have us do? In many cases, we've been doing the same thing, if you will, in preaching the Gospel and the means that we do it by for many years. Is there something else God would have us do? So the Council went on a retreat, and it was just the twelve Council members.

And when they came back, they reported what they had come up with. And it was very interesting what they had come up with. It was a scripture that had motivated them. And as you will see, these strategic plans unfold over the next several months in February, when it's discussed fully, approved, taken to the General Council later on in May. You will see that it's very scripturally based. From here on out, the scriptures will guide what the Church has done, because just as we have been going through the Book of Acts, we see what God's will is in preaching the Gospel, how He works with the Church, and what His will is.

And so those scriptures will guide all of the various functions of the Home Office. And there is a very interesting scripture that caught the Council's attention. That will be the focus of what the strategic plan is. And I've been thinking about that scripture since August. We talked about it more in the week before the Council meetings, as we talked about some strategic planning things last week in the Council meetings. If you read the report, you've seen some of the things that were talked about in there, as it was beginning to be rolled out.

And it's a very good, a very good, always wonderful to let the Word of God direct what we're doing. Certainly from the Home Office standpoint and the overall work. Very, very important from the local end of the work, because this is the work where the work of God is going, is happening. It's not just the Home Office, it is you and I, the local churches, the local people who are doing the work of God.

And as I thought about that scripture, and as I thought about some of the things that we've talked about, I realized it is something that you and I need to talk about. Something that you and I need to do in our local church area, and what we need to do individually.

Yesterday in my letter, I mentioned, we'll be thinking about two words. If you're going to come up with just two words that would define what the church is, as God would say, this is what marks my church. When you're looking at His true church, what are true words you could come up with? And I hope you spent a little bit of time thinking about that, because there are two words in the scripture that will mark where God's true church is.

Who they are, what they're doing, how they're living their lives. So as I begin today, I want to go through a series of scriptures here with you. I'm going to start with a number of scriptures, but in each one of these scriptures, those two words are going to show up, and they're going to give us the direction of what we will talk about today. So let's begin in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4. Of course, the book of Ephesians is a very instructive book. It is a book on how the church should be structured. Ephesians 4. It is where God lays out what the structure, what the organization of his church is, and what he wants it to be doing.

And what your and my responsibilities as members in that church should be, if we indeed are children of God, if indeed we are looking to the kingdom of God. So let's pick it up in verse 12 of chapter 4. I'm going to read down through the next six verses or so, maybe four or five verses. In verse 11, he gives the structure. God is the one who appoints these teachers that he has here, that give his word. In verse 12, the reason what their job is and what they're to be doing is to, in verse 12, equip the saints for the work of ministry, that service, for the edifying.

That's the building up for the edifying of the body of Christ. Until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now, none of us will attain perfection in this life, but it does mean spiritual maturity. Throughout our spiritual life, from the time we're baptized, we continue to grow in the way of God. Until we come to a very spiritually mature man, the goal, of course, being to become a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

We should no longer, verse 14, be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But, speaking the truth, in love, may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ, from home to whole body. That's you and me, right?

That's everyone in this congregation. That's everyone in Jacksonville. That's every member in every congregation around the world, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together, by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working, by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body, for the edifying, building up of itself, in love. That's a very good definition, a very good mission statement, of what we do. A very good vision statement of who we are, what we're doing, what we do in Orlando, what we do in Jacksonville, what we do individually in our lives, as well as for the Church of God around the world.

Okay, without saying any more, let me go forward to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians 2. And the two words I'm going to talk about are in those verses. They also appear in 2 Thessalonians 2, a very familiar verse. 2 Thessalonians 2 talks about the coming of the lawless. 1. When deceit rules the earth, God gives us a warning about how we would offset or be able to counter the deceit that's coming.

And 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 9, says, 3 Thessalonians 2, verse 9, says, So if you're looking for a way to not be deceived, God gave it to Paul there, who gives it to us. Let's go on to Peter's epistle, 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1, verse 22.

2 Peter 1, verse 22. Remember, 1 John 3, if we have this hope in us, we purify ourselves. 3 Peter 1, since you have purified your souls, in obeying the truth through the Spirit, in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.

Let me read that again, because it's a very good verse. It's a lot said in that verse. 4 Since you have purified your souls, in obeying the truth through the Spirit, in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.

1 John 3, verse 18.

We'll be coming back to some of these verses later as well. But in verse 18 of chapter 3, John writes, My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but indeed and in truth.

2 John 1, verse 3.

He says that in his greeting, Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you, from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

And finally, the very first verse of 3 John, the Elder, to the beloved Gaius, whom I love, in truth.

So as we've read those verses, fewer words in each set of verses, there's two words that should have popped out to you.

Truth and love. Truth and love.

If there are two things that mark the Church of God, where the true Church of God is, it's a commitment to truth and to love.

We'll talk about both of those words today, and we're not going to get through both of them today.

But they are very important for us to understand, because you and I, you and I, I hope, know where truth is.

I hope you and I know how to speak truth, or ever learning and growing in truth.

Now, we know something about love, but maybe we need to be refreshed about what the biblical love that God is talking about is.

So truth and love. Let's just rehearse from the Bible what truth is.

Let's look at Christ's own words back as He was about to be arrested and then crucified in John 17.

In John 17, verse 17, He tells us point blank what truth is.

John 17, verse 17, He says that more than just that in verse 17, He says, Sanctify them, the them in that verse is you and me, the ones that are called out of the world, the ones who respond to God's calls, the ones who are following Him.

Sanctify or set them apart by your truth. They're not like the rest of the world. They have your truth set them apart. Your truth will set them apart from the world, even though they're still living in the world.

Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.

We don't have to turn to 2 Timothy 3.16. You know what it says there. It says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for doctrine. It's profitable for reproof. It's profitable for correction. It's profitable for instruction in righteousness.

Jesus Christ said, Live by every word of God. It's truth. That's what we are called to do.

It doesn't happen on day one when we're baptized. It doesn't happen on year one, year five, year ten. It's something that happens throughout our lives as we learn and as we assimilate the word of God.

Understand the word of God, and then apply it into our lives.

That's what we do. That's what we're called to do. To be ever-growing in the truth. Understanding it more.

So that it's reflected in our lives more. So that it's reflected in our speech more.

That's what God wants. Jesus Christ was the perfect example of living truth.

Everything about Him, everything was about Him was true.

A couple chapters back in John 14.

Now that John 17, 17 is in Christ's prayer before He's arrested.

John 14, He's talking to His disciples then, and He's talking to us, His disciples today, before the time that He's resurrected on that Passover evening.

And He's telling them that, yes, He will no longer physically be with them, but, yes, indeed, He will always be with them.

Just like He's with us. He never leaves us, never forsakes us. He knows everything that's going on in our lives.

And they weren't understanding that at that time, but they would soon.

Let's pick it up in verse 16, because truth shows up here again.

Verse 16 says, I will pray the Father, Christ speaking, and He will give you another helper.

That that helper may abide, live with you forever.

The Spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive, because it neither sees the Spirit nor knows it, but you know it, for it dwells with you and will be in you.

The Spirit of truth.

In 1 John 5, and where did I write that down? 1 John 5, verse 6 specifically says, the Spirit is truth.

We know truth because God's Spirit is in us.

If God's Spirit wasn't in us or with us, we wouldn't be sitting here today.

We see the Bible, we begin to understand the Bible, and as we begin to understand the Bible, our lives changed.

They better change.

You can't know the Bible, you can't please God if you know the truth, and then you keep on living the way you were before.

When you see things in your life, you change as you know the truth. That's what life is all about. That's what repentance is all about.

That's what changing or turning from your way to God's way is all about.

Let's go back to Ephesians 4. We were just there a few minutes ago.

And pick it up a little past where we were reading. Let's look at Ephesians 4 and verse 20.

Again, as Paul is talking to the church at Ephesus and the people that would be reading this.

And again, always remember when you're reading the Bible, it's God speaking to us today, too.

This isn't a message just for Ephesus or the people in early New Testament times.

This is the living Word of God that's for you and me. Verse 20, he's just been talking to them about, you know, you used to be Gentiles.

You've come out of that. And, you know, we have...they've changed.

Verse 20 says, But you, you haven't so learned Christ if indeed you've heard Him.

And if indeed you've been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus.

That's where the truth is. The truth is in the Word of God. We know God is truth.

The Holy Spirit leads us into truth. It helps us understand the truth.

It gives us the strength to live the truth. The truth is in Jesus.

The perfect example, the perfect epitome of truth.

So we have all these things about truth, and if there's anyone who doesn't understand or doesn't believe that the Bible is the Word of truth, I would like you to talk to me. We'll sit down and we'll talk about the Bible.

Because it is...this is the only source of pure truth on earth today is the Bible.

And we live in a world where, as you look at everything that's going on, you can hear this side, you can hear that side, you can go to various churches, you might hear part of truth, you might hear...you'll hear some error. Because there's only one church that preaches the whole truth of God. That's His church that has existed down from the time Jesus Christ began it.

Let's go back to verse 15. Verse 15, among those first verses that I read as I began this sermon, in verse 15 of Ephesians 4, it says, But speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, who is the head Christ.

Now, there's nothing we would disagree with in that verse.

But as we so often find, when you look at the verses and you go back to look at what the Greek says, we learn something a little different, not so much in contrast, but a little deeper understanding of what that verse is really saying.

In verse 15, when you see the word truth, it's only one of two places in the New Testament that the word truth in the Greek is not a noun.

In Greek, Koine Greek, there were two words for truth. There was a truth that was a verb and truth that was a noun, much like we have the word love.

Love is a noun. It also can be as a verb. We can be in love, or we can say, I love you. Same word used in different ways.

In Koine Greek, it was the same thing with the word truth. We know what truth is. It's a noun, the truth.

But in verse 15, it's a verb. It's not a noun.

So when you read through some of the word studies there, and when you read through Strongs, and when you read through another one, Dodson's, I think it is, it will say, this is a verb, and this is a place where the translators, when they came across this word, there's no word in the English language.

That's a verb truth. But here it is a verb truth. As the translators saw it, they would have thought, okay, we're having the truth, there's some action with the truth. We'll just say it's speaking the truth in love. But when you look it up in the concordance, you'll see it's speaking the truth, and it's got a little 226 by it. It says the form of a word is verb.

Well, speaking the truth, and speaking the truth in love is good. Speaking the truth is correct, something we should all be doing. But it's not the only thing we should be doing.

Because if we can speak the truth, day in and day out. But just by speaking the truth, we're not pleasing God. It's much more to it than just speaking the truth.

And that's what the verb that Paul uses in Ephesians 4.15 is talking about. Now Dodson's concordance will talk about it and say that it might have been more appropriately translated into English, not speaking the truth, but doing the truth.

Doing the truth. Now that encompasses speaking the truth, but it encompasses a whole lot more than just speaking the truth.

I could speak the truth all day long, but if it's not reflected in my life, what good is it? It's not worth anything, right?

We can speak, we can recite verses, we can memorize Bible from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. What good is it if it doesn't have any effect on our lives?

We could speak it, we could recite it, people could be impressed. What good would it do? It would do no good if it had no effect if we weren't doing the truth.

So indeed, the verb, and you'll see this come out in the Strategic Plan later on when some documents come out, really should be that people, in verse 15, but truthing.

Truthing in love. If we were going to English-ize the word truth and make it into a verb, we would be truthing in love. That encompasses everything, right?

That's what we do. That means our whole life, our entire being, is about living the truth, becoming the truth, letting God's Spirit alter, renew our mind, change our minds, reform our minds to become completely in tune with truth. That's whole body, whole mind, whole soul, exactly what Jesus Christ said to do.

When we look the Bible and we read the Bible, we speak truth, we do truth, we assimilate truth, and our lives reflect it.

It's a complete understanding of what God wants from us.

Now, whether we do that today or not is a matter of God's judgment, right?

But it is something for us to be thinking about, and as we live in times that are far different than they were three years ago, two years ago, even one year ago, times that are different than they will be one year from now, and as we get closer and closer to the return of Jesus Christ, it is something that we need to be aware of and thinking of, because what God expects of us is that we will be truthing in love.

That means constant change, constant looking at the Word of God, constant when we see something that we are not doing according to the Word of God that we make the changes.

We've been going through the book of Acts. The early New Testament church that we talked about in Acts 2 is a pretty good example of a church that was truthing in love.

If you remember when we read about what the church did, Acts 2 is around verse 42. As they were called, as they understood Jesus Christ, and as they left Judaism, many of them came together and they lived in one community. Many of them sold all their belongings because they wanted to be with people of like mind. They no longer were part of the Judasistic society. So they wanted to be together. They had truth. They were sanctified. They were set apart by truth.

God doesn't want that of us today. He doesn't expect that of us today. He says, It's not, Jesus Christ said, that I want to take them out of the world, but be in the world. But you are still separate by truth. But the Acts 2 church was separate. And if you remember in verses 42, 43, 44, 45 in that area, it will talk about that they continued in the Apostles' Doctrine. They continued to learn. It's not a one-time learning thing. When we come into the church and we learn the Ten Commandments are binding, when we learn that the Sabbath day is not the first day of the week, but the seventh day of the week, when we learn the magnitude of what it means and the spiritual effect of the commandments, that we keep them all in spirit as well as in the physical area, in the physical manner, there's a lot to learn. And that doesn't happen all at once. That's a lifetime of learning to do that. But the church was doing that. They continued in the Apostles' Doctrine. They were there committed to truth. They wanted to learn that truth. They were also there in love with the other brethren. They wanted to be around them. We talked about how they broke bread. They were part of the fellowship, fellowship being a noun in that case, not a verb as we often use it. They were there as part of the fellowship, part of the community of God, part of the family of God, part of the body of God as He called them out. Just like you and I are today. Exactly the same. God has called us out. He's put us in a body here in Orlando, there in Jacksonville, and every other location where there's a church, and a whole worldwide church that is committed to living God's way of life, teaching His way of life, and exhorting the members to live that way of life as well. That Acts 2 church was doing the truth. They were truthing. They were truthing in love.

One thing that we need to do. Now, I mentioned about, you know, there's nothing wrong with speaking the truth. Don't get me wrong on that. But we have to be cautious of what we do and how we might pat ourselves on the back. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 8 for just a second. 1 Corinthians 8, as Paul opens up chapter 8, he's talking about things offered to idols. But, you know, as we see these things, we take the principles that are there and apply them today. But in the next sentence after, the first sentence in verse 8 is what I want to get to. He says, We know that we all have knowledge. Everyone in this room has knowledge.

Everyone in this room has Bible knowledge. Some might be able to repeat chapter and verse more quickly than someone else. It might be a matter of pride for them. We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up. But love edifies. Love builds up. We've got to have the truth. We've got to be truthing. It's not enough to just speak it. It's not enough just to know it. If all we do is know it, Paul might say we're the most pitiable of all people because we didn't do anything with it.

So we need knowledge, but we need to be using that knowledge. That's what Paul is talking about. That's what the Bible is talking about. We need to be people who are truthing people. People who truth. People who understand the truth. People who live by the truth. People who do the truth, speak the truth, and breathe the truth. When Jesus Christ said, Live by every word of God, he meant every word of God.

He didn't just use it flippantly like you and I might. Live by every word of God. It's quite a challenge, quite a calling, quite a transformation that he would have us do. So we might look at how the things that we do, and why would he do that among his body?

Well, we just turned out of Ephesians 4, but in the beginning of Ephesians 4, it talks about there's a unity of faith. There's a unity of spirit. There's a unity. There's the oneness that Jesus Christ talks about. Everyone in his family speaks the same thing, believes the same thing, has the faith in the same thing. They bear with one another. They exhort one another.

They encourage one another. All toward the same goal. Become like Jesus Christ, who is the epitome of all of that. Come to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ. That's the goal. Well, let's go back to Ephesians 4. I guess we're not there now, but Ephesians 4. How do we truth? Paul, when he throws out something at us, he tells us what we need to do. How do we truth in love? Well, indeed, he tells us in Ephesians 4. He gives us that command, if you will.

Truth in love. Grow up in all things unto him who is the head Christ. Talks about the whole body is involved. We have to be part of the body. Every joint supplies something. Every single person in this room has a talent or something that God wants to be part of this church.

Everything we need done in this church, in this body, is sitting right here in front of me. It's all here. We have to know what we need to do. We need to be part of the body. We need to understand we're part of the body, and that's what God has called us to do, to learn to work together. If we spend some time thinking about what God has called us to, and when Jesus Christ returns, and we're resurrected, it's going to be a body of people. It's not going to be one sitting off in this area, one sitting off in that area doing what they want.

He is forming a family that has learned how to work together, grow together, accomplish his will together, love one another, learn how to get along with one another. That's what he's building in us today, and people who are committed to living by every word of God. That's what we'll be teaching. That's what he expects us to be doing today.

This is our time to be growing. This is our time to show him we are committed to that calling. And we have to be part of the body in order to do that. But if we go back, if we go further in Ephesians 4, beginning down in verse 22, we were just in verse 21 when we were talking about the truth in Jesus, he tells us what we do when we begin truthing in love. When we know what the truth is, when we understand God's Word, and we see that it's different than the way we've been living, we cast off the old, and we start doing the new.

Verse 22, put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which goes corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man which was created according to God. Therefore, verse 25, put away lying. If part of your past life was, boy, I kind of lie all the time. I exaggerate everything that I say. Might have been the fish was only a foot long, but I always say it's two feet long, right?

I just have to do that, and I realize I've got to be. God is exact. God wants the truth. And that takes time. That takes time. We all, to some extent or another, will do things or whatever. But when we realize what we're doing, asking God and the spirit of truth, help us overcome that. If lying is one of it, put away lying. Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor. Now, that's not the verb truth there. That's the noun, and the speak is speak. When you're talking, tell the truth. Be exact.

Speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin, verse 26. Perhaps many of us have anger. We all can lose our tempers pretty quickly. Be angry. There is a time to be angry. Even Jesus Christ was angry when he went into the temple and saw the money changers there.

He was pretty angry, but it was righteous anger, and he didn't sin. Sometimes, when we get angry, we will say things, do things, make comments, hurt one another deliberately. That's where sin comes in. When anger comes, understand it, learn how to control it. One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is self-control. As you look at the list of the... I won't get there today, but as you look at the fruits of the Spirit, it starts with love, joy, peace, and the very last one is self-control.

It's time to understand that really to develop any of the first ones that are listed of the Spirit there, we need the self-control because so much of developing the fruits of the Spirit is about what we do and what we make ourselves do. We have to choose to live God's way of life. Be angry and don't sin. Verse 27, don't give place to the devil.

Verse 28, let him who stole steal no longer. None of us here are out rotting. We're not the people that are looting in stores in San Francisco and Chicago and other places. None of us are like that, but perhaps as we come to time and we understand the commandment and what we're doing, we say, oh, you know what? Maybe I've been playing games a little too much with my employer, with the IRS, or whoever it may be. Let him who stole steal no longer. When we come to realize that, what do we do?

Do we keep doing it and saying it doesn't matter? The government is already trillions of dollars in debt. They're not going to miss the $100 or $200 that it benefits me? No, we don't keep doing it. That's part of the true thing in love. When we see what's wrong, we stop doing it. We change our way. We go to the way that God wants us to. Let him who stole steal no longer. But rather, let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.

Verse 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. Maybe some of us, you know, maybe we were like some of the things when I turn on TV. Every other word seems to be a word we would never want to repeat and never want to hear in our homes or in our church. Maybe we used God's name in vain. Maybe we used every euphemism that we knew on an ongoing basis to respect any emotion that we ever felt.

Maybe we liked to tell the dirty jokes. Maybe we liked to live on that side of things. God said, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. If that was what we were prone to, it takes some time. It takes some effort to stop from doing that. That's what truthing is. It's stopping what you were doing that doesn't mesh with the Word of God and not allowing yourself to do that anymore.

That's using God's Holy Spirit, using God and asking him to help you. Let me stop doing what the world does and the old me does and start truthing and applying the truth into my life and letting it change me into who you want me to become. Let no corrupt word proceed, but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. We talk recently, I guess with things going on in the world and various things happening, we talk about conscience.

Some of you have probably heard me say, and some of you, if I talk to you individually, I'll say, you don't sin against your conscience. If it's wrong, don't do it. Don't let any media outlet, don't let any friend, don't let any employer, don't let anyone talk you into doing something against your conscience. When your conscience says, don't do it, don't do it.

Do you follow what God said? When we sin against, when we grieve the conscience, that's going against God. It's Him letting us know what is the thing that we should do. He will lead us into truth. He will bring us into the true thing that we need to do. We need to listen. We need to listen, and after the fact, we learn, oh wow, I did that not in the right way.

What do we do? We repent. When we repent and let God know, we made a mistake. And go on, go on from there. Repentance is throughout our lives, correct? Verse 31, let bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. And there he is in verse 5, chapter 5, probably more appropriately part of chapter 4.

He says, as he wraps up, you know what we read in chapter 4, therefore, be imitators of God. Be imitators of God as dear children. Follow Him. Look how Jesus Christ lived His life. Look at the Word of God. We have the truth. Every word in the Bible is the truth. We know exactly what God wants us to do. Be imitators of Him. Be people who are true thing, true thing in love. True thing in the things that we do. Being willing to change and being willing to not do the things that we might do before.

As we go through life, we're going to find things that we didn't understand that we were doing wrong, frankly. We've talked about a couple of them. As you go through some of the commandments and you see how we live, you might think, I didn't realize, but when I was cheating on that IRS reform, that's kind of stealing.

I don't need to do that anymore. I need to change from it. There are other things in life that we could look at that might help us understand what true thing in love is, that help us know when we find out something is wrong, we don't do it. If we've done it, we repent of it and we go on. One that comes to mind is, and we've all had this happen in our lives, we know what unclean, clean and unclean meats are. So we don't eat, none of us here, I'm sure, consciously ever eat pork or shellfish or any of those things that are listed in Leviticus 11.

We're very cognizant of what God says about clean and unclean meats. But we also know that we live in a world and we might go out and we might eat things that look very innocent, and then somewhere down the line we might find out, oh, that restaurant or that person I visit, my next door neighbor, when they bake these things, whatever it might be, they put bacon grease in it, or they put lard in it. And all of us have heard that from time to time. It might be anything that we do, if I just use eating as an example.

So when we hear those things, we might check it out and make sure that it actually is the case, that there's something unclean in it. But what do we do when we find that out? Do we just keep going back and eating the same thing over and over again? Or do we stop and think, I'm not eating that anymore?

Might have been one of my favorite things to eat. Not eating that anymore. That's the true thing. Cut it out. Turn from it. Be away from it. When we find out and when God leads us to what the truth is, we don't do that anymore. That's the true thing in love. That means following God's way. There will always be something that we learn in life that may not be exactly what we want to hear.

Not everything in God's will, or God's word, as we know, is something that's going to play well with us. Remember that our natural selves are carnal. The natural self is enmity against God. Doesn't want to do what he said. When he says, I want you there at Sabbath services every week, but you can be there, he doesn't mean maybe or most of the time. He's pretty clear in his commandments. He's pretty clear in everything he says. There are some gray areas that he tests us to see what the principles of the Bible are, but there are those things that he tells us, and it's a matter of getting into the next section, how much do we love God?

Do we love him enough to do what he prefers, as one commentary puts, or do we do what we want best, and then kind of fool ourselves and justify to ourselves that, oh, we're doing what God wants? Because God is pretty clear about how we love him. So I think we've finished about truth and truthing.

If you want to talk about that, and you'll be hearing more about it as we go on, and we'll probably talk about it more here in sermons as well, because it's something that you and I, we need to be very cognizant of and doing. But the other word that marks God's church is love.

Jesus Christ said, John 13, 34, 35, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

So when the people in Jerusalem, back in when the New Testament church was beginning, and they would look at the church that was living there in Jerusalem, that they were selling their things and living together, continuing the apostles' doctrine, continuing and breaking bread with one another, when they looked at them, they didn't agree with the doctrine. Those Jews didn't want to believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. But when they looked at those people, they knew there was something different about them. Look how they are. The people that that group of people, God's church, had favor in their sight. They're pleasant. They're not troublemakers. They believe what they believe. They love each other, and they are sincere in what they believe and what they're doing.

They were loving. They were they were truthing in love, because when you truth, in love has to be there. That's what Paul was talking about. You have to truth in love. Now, we know the Greek word, and the Greek word in Ephesians 4, 15 is agape. We've all heard the word agape. Of course, there are other words that are translated love, but when you read the word love in the New Testament, more often than not, what you're reading is the Greek word agape.

There's something like 320 or 330 times the word love is used in the New Testament. Of that number, 258 times, it is either the noun or the verb of agape. So when you read the word love, chances are you're going to be talking about the word agape. Agape must mark the Church of God.

It's one of the identifiers of the Church of God. Truth, keeping the commandments, speaking the truth, living the truth. When people look at us, they see the truth and how we're living our lives, but it also is marked by love. Agape. Now, one of the most unfortunate translations in the Bible is that the translators, when they came across this Greek word agape, they translated it love. And just as a bit of a recall, we've talked about this before.

There are four Greek words primarily that are translated love in the New Testament. One of them we find in 1 Peter 1, 22. Let's go back there. We read that. Read that at the beginning of the sermon here. In 1 Peter 1, verse 22, Peter says, "...since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, insincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart." The first love that's in that verse is actually the Greek word philadelphia.

Philadelphia. Brotherly love. What he's talking about there is, you know, you like being with one another. You love one another in that way that we love our friends, our neighbors. Different than our family members, our friends, our neighbors, the people that are in the congregation with us, or the people that we're in some community with. Insincere love of the brethren. Like the word sincere. Again, whenever the Bible uses an adjective or an adverb, we should pay attention to it.

Insincere love of the brethren. Not a fake love, but a sincere love. Really, really the caring for them. Now, there's this brotherly love. You and I have all experienced it. It's the type of love that we meet someone, we become friends with them. Happens at school, happens at work, happens in the neighborhood, whatever it is. There's someone we just have the same common ground with, the same common interests or whatever it is. The personalities match, and we just all of a sudden have this affinity, and we just like the person. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with it. In fact, Jesus Christ did the same thing.

If you turn back to John 11.3, you know you need to turn there. Mark down John 11.3. You'll see that when Lazarus was dying, Mary and Martha being his sisters, they told Jesus, well, if you had just come, the one who you loved would still be alive. And that's the Greek word, Philadelphia, or Philia, and that's the verb of that one.

So Jesus Christ, I mean, he had this brotherly affection for Lazarus. Not a problem. Same thing is said of the Apostle John in John 20 and verse 2, the disciple that Jesus loved. That, in that verse, is the Greek word, Philia. It's that brotherly love. He liked them. He's just not a problem with that. Interestingly, though, most other times when you read about the Apostle that Jesus loved, when he's talking about John, it is the Greek word agape, not Philia.

But in John 20, verse 2, it is. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. The other two Greek words that are used are storge. It's a family love. Parents love their children. Children love their parents. We love our brothers. We love our sisters. It's the blood, the blood, right? Our family. We talked about that a couple weeks ago around Thanksgiving. Good to have that family. There's nothing wrong. God created that love. God created Philia.

He created us to be part of that. And, of course, there's Eros, which is the love between husband and wife. Nothing wrong with that, either. All of those happen naturally. All of those just occur. We don't plan to meet someone and say, that will be my friend. Now, if we do that, that's bordering on agape. But when we meet someone, hey, we just hit it off, and they're our friend, then that's great. That's natural. That's fine. But all of those have to do with self.

They all have to do with emotions. Agape doesn't have anything to do with that. Agape is a totally different word. Let me give you definitions from Strongs. And it's interesting in Strongs. If you go and look up one of the places where the word agape is translated love, they will give you pretty much a kind of vanilla definition of it. But when you look in a verse like 1 Peter 1.22, and their philia is there along with agape, they'll talk a little bit more about what agape means. Here's what they say about agape as they contrast it to Philadelphia.

Agape is a wider—that's W-I-D-E-R—wider, more encompassing type of love, embracing especially the judgment and the deliberate assent of the will. As a matter of principle, duty, and propriety. It is action and deliberate choice. It's not what we do naturally. It's not what we do just because we just feel like doing it. Often it requires a deliberate choice to do something for someone else. From the cognate word studies, here's what they say. They say agape means embracing God's will that is choosing His choices. Like I said, God tells us what He wants us to do.

It's not always what we want to do. But if we're truthing in love, we choose what His will is over our will. We're all very good at justifying. We're all very good at compromising. We're all very good at trying to do God's thinking for us and implying our will against His will. But He tells us what it is. And this is what these word studies say.

Embracing God's will that's choosing His choices and obeying them through His power. Agape means actively doing what God prefers. And I would say, well, prefers is a good word. I would even say commands because much of the Bible is God telling us what to do. But there are other cases where we learn from the principles that are in the Bible what God prefers, and we do that. We do what God prefers because we love Him. We agape Him. Agape means actively doing what God prefers by His power and direction. It is defined as a discriminating affection, which involves choice and selection.

You know, when we do Jesus Christ, as we know, Jesus Christ, as we know, is the perfect example of agape. And I've heard some, and in the years past when I was growing up in the church, you would always say agape is an outgoing concern for others. And indeed, it is that. It is an outgoing concern for others. But I can have an outgoing concern for you or whoever I see along the road or whatever is going on. But that is an agape. Agape is when we do something about it.

The outgoing concern can be there, but we need to do something about it. If we don't do anything about it, it's not agape. Agape is a practice. We practice it throughout our lives. We consciously make ourselves do what we know is best for the other, just like Jesus Christ did. You know, He could have looked down at you and me. He could have looked down at mankind from the time they were created and said, You know, it's just not worth it. Look at what these men, women, children have all done.

They've all turned against me. They don't even try to remember who I am. There is absolutely no gratitude in them at all. Jesus Christ, who could have blamed Him if He said, I'm not going to give my life for these people. They deserve what comes upon them, right?

None of us would have had—you know, none of us could fault Him. But He didn't do that. He knew what was best for us, and what God preferred was He would come to earth, be born as a human being. He would live His life. He would suffer, and He would die.

And that that death would be the venue for forgiveness of our sins, and then with His resurrection we would have the hope of eternal life.

He did what God preferred. He did what the plan preferred. He was willing to sacrifice everything for us, not because it was better for Him, because it was better for us. That's the perfect definition of agape. So we can take it in the same way with us. Now, God isn't asking us today. No one today yet has been asked to lay down their life for Jesus Christ. But in 1 John 4, He talks about that. There have been several that have gone before us. Hebrews 11 is full of men and women who laid down their life because of what they believed, because they loved God. They agape God, and they were willing to sacrifice their life, because that was how they would be able to please Him, and what in their situation or when their incident or their lives He expected of them.

Let's go to 1 John 3. Let's pick it up in verse 14. I'm going to try the rest of the time. Whenever I see or read the word love, I'm going to use the word agape. I wish the translators had just created a new English word and called it agape. So everyone would know what it is that God is, in essence, requiring of His people, if we want to be in His kingdom, if we are going to be part of His family, it's something we need to be working on. We do it individually, but He put us in a body so that we can practice it with each other. Agape isn't something you do on your own. Agape isn't something that just happens overnight. Agape is something that we practice throughout our lives. Verse 14, 1 John 3, we know that we have passed from death to life. Now, that verse, He's talking about the death. Apart from Jesus Christ, apart from repenting, apart from baptism, apart from the Holy Spirit, we know that we're living a life that is only leading to eternal death.

When God calls, when we repent, when we receive His Holy Spirit, then He sees us as His children, and He sees us as having eternal life as long as we continue to live in His way of life. We know that we have passed from death to life because we agape the brethren. Well, we know that we agape God. We're supposed to do that with all our minds, heart, and soul, but here God says, you know, we know that we pass from death to life because we agape the brethren. He who does not agape his brother abides in death. Well, that's something we have to pay attention to.

That's something we have to look at. That's something we have to think about. God is looking at us and saying, you know, I know, I know who you are, and I know when you're pleasing me, and I know that you love me when you, or agape me when you agape the brethren. Brings Matthew 25 into mind, doesn't it? Because we love the, or we agape the brethren. He who does not agape his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother, and that doesn't mean hate as in I hate you, never want to see you again, wish the worst on you, means that, you know, doesn't really hold him in high esteem or whatever.

Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this, verse 16, we know agape, because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. None of us are there now, but as we grow and agape, as we practice, as we develop, as we use the opportunities to practice agape throughout our lives, perhaps at the time of Jesus Christ's return, we would be willing, because we really agape the brethren, we would be more than willing to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Like I said, there are many in the Old Testament who did. The Bible says there will be martyrs ahead who will have that agape, who will lay down their lives, if that's what God requires, because they agape him. They do what he prefers. Verse 17, whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the agape of God abide in him? The Good Samaritan did that, didn't he?

When he walked by and he saw a brother in need, you know, it's like I don't have the other one, the priest, the Levite, and the others, they just walked by him. I don't have time to deal with this. I have this outgoing concern. I hope someone comes along and helps him, but it's not going to be me. I have too many things to do.

It's not what I want to do. But here comes along the Good Samaritan. The Jews all look down on the Samaritans. And he had the agape to stop and do what he could do. He helped that man. And you know the story there. But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, shuts up his heart from him, how does the agape of God abide in him?

My little children, let us not love in word or tongue, or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Let's be people who do it. Not people who just know the truth, not people who just speak the truth, but people who are truthing. Not people who just talk about love and all the things and know what it means, but actually doing it when we see the needs that are there to do it. We do it by working together, being part of the family, being present, working and letting God guide us into what he needs to do, looking out for each other, knowing each other, because we can't know what the needs of any of our brethren are.

We don't even know them. We don't even know their names. I know we need to create some venues here that we can be together more and get to know each other a little better. That's part of it as well. But here in this we see that love, agape, is a verb. Agape is a noun. Truth is a verb. Truth is a noun. We need to know and we need to do. 1 John 4. Notice the number of times that agape is here and what God has inspired the Apostle John to write. 1 John 4, verse 6.

We are of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God doesn't hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Beloved, beloved, verse 7. Let us agape one another. For agape is of God, and everyone who agapes is born of God and knows God. He who does not agape doesn't know God. For God is agape.

Verse 9. In this the agape of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is agape. Not that we love God or not that we agape God, but that he agape'd us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so agape'd us, we also ought to agape one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we agape one another, God abides in us. And his agape has been perfected in us. How do you perfect something? Through practice, through conscious choice, through conscious decision.

This isn't what I want to do, but I'm going to do it anyway because it's the right thing to do. I prefer not to do this today. I don't want to do it. I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to learn to do what God said, and I'm going to apply his truth even when I don't want to, even when it's not convenient, even when it goes against everything I want to do.

If it's a need, I will do it. That's what God expects us to be learning. None of us are perfect or even close to even semi-perfect in any of this. But we have to practice. We have to do what God says. Otherwise, we're kind of wasting our time.

He doesn't set these as suggestions. He says, if you are of God, this is what you will be doing. This is what the church in Orlando will be doing.

This is what the church in Jacksonville will be doing. This is what the church in Cincinnati will be doing. This is what the home office will be teaching and letting God lead in the things that we do.

Verse 12, no one has seen God at any time. If we agape one another, God abides in us, and his agape has been perfected in us.

By this, we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit.

Drop down to verse 16.

We have known and believed the agape that God has for us. God is agape, and he who abides in agape abides in God and God in him.

Agape has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.

And then there comes verse 18. That's quite an interesting verse. It says, There is no fear in agape, but perfect agape casts out fear because fear involves torment.

He who fears has not been made perfect in agape.

Now, in the last couple years, the world has been stoked by fears, hasn't it?

Fear has been a useful tool for the media, for around the world.

We've watched fear grip the world. And so people are told to do this and told to do that. All these things that are due and the world marches in order. They are afraid.

Why does God say that if we have perfect agape, it will cast out that fear?

If we read the Bible and we read ahead, we know that the time between now and the return of Jesus Christ, there is tribulation, there is persecution, there are times coming that will try our souls.

And yes, they can be fearful if that's what we dwell in and that's what we look at. They will be tying times and they will be fearful.

But if we have developed agape, what is agape again? It's doing what God prefers.

Doing what is best for Him. Doing what He asks us to do, even when it goes against our grain.

We develop it. We perfect it. Starting with little things, bigger things. And God develops that in us so that it becomes us.

It involves sacrifice. It involves self-control. It involves what it talks about in Romans 12, 1 and 2, the renewing of our minds and letting God renew our minds.

When it comes to that point, if it's God's will that we were to give up our life for Him, if it's God's will that we were to go through tribulation, if we have perfect agape and we've developed that in our lives, isn't it okay that we do it?

We no longer fear it because fear would drive us in the other direction. It would have us do something other than what God wants.

What God wants us to go through that, that's His will. All things work together for good to those that love Jesus Christ.

If that's what He wants, and we have through our lives purposed to develop agape and doing His will and allowing God to develop that in us, when that time comes, it'll be we do it for God.

Just like the martyrs of the Old Testament, just like Jesus Christ who did it for us, just like we might be called on to do that same thing or whatever it might be.

Perfect agape casts out fear. Fear would no longer motivate us. Fear wouldn't allow us to take the mark of the beast. Fear would no longer cause us to renounce Jesus Christ or renounce our beliefs. Fear would not do that if we have perfected agape in this time that we have.

Agape is so vitally important in our lives. It is so vitally important in what we do.

We have to focus on it, not a little bit, we have to focus on it. We'll talk more about this. I know my time is up here, so I'm going to stop here for today.

I'm going to stop here for today, and we'll pick this up at another time because I think we need to talk more about agape and what God would have us do.

It is vitally important. But I hope you'll spend some time thinking about true thing in love, what God wants of us, what we need to do, how truth is a verb and it needs to be in action in our lives, and the agape that we must as His church be doing, if indeed we agape Him.