Living Out Genuine Love in Christian Life

Let love be without dissimulation. That's number one. To the whole that which is evil cleave to that which is good. What a wonderful were the perfect summary of the whole life of the Christian men. These two things cover everything and if we are only right about these two principles we can't go wrong. [00:16:29]

Love is the fulfilling of the law. It's the whole basis. It's the only thing that makes it possible. It sums up the whole of the law. What is the law of God? Well, of course, the Germans, the Pharisees in particular, completely misunderstood. There they were, you see, with their 613 details. [00:17:42]

Love is something which is totalitarian. It is therefore a call to us to give to God an allegiance in all ways and with the whole of our being. We are to regard ourselves therefore in terms of love and within the terms of this whole relationship of love, love to God, love to the neighbor. [00:21:21]

The Apostle is concerned that it must be without any dissimulation. No play-acting, no pretending, no assuming, not merely playing a part, but it must be genuine and come from the depths of our being. Let me give you some more negatives. When he talks about love, he is not merely talking about politeness. [00:23:29]

Love must never be contrasted with law. As the Apostle says in the next chapter, love is the fulfilling of the law. Or as our Lord puts it, which is the first of the greatest commandment, thou shalt love. To put love and law oppress contrasts is a failure to understand the really basic and elementary teaching of the whole of the New Testament. [00:25:00]

If a man doesn't keep God's commandments, it is idle for him to talk about loving God. You don't love God in words but in deeds and in truth. Take the 23rd verse of the same chapter: Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him. [00:27:05]

The Bible never merely asks for our mechanical obedience. It can be summed up if you like in a phrase like this: son, give me thine heart. It's the heart that God wants. In other words, we are not only to keep God's law, what we are called upon to do, as we're reminded here, is to love it. [00:28:12]

There is only one thing that can ever make a man that which is evil, and that is that he has a positive love to God. Nothing else will ever do this. You will never understand the nature of evil until you understand something of the doctrine of the holiness of God, for evil is the opposite of that. [00:41:47]

The man who loves God must hate evil, and the more we know God and love him, the greater will be our hatred of evil. We won't just refrain from doing things. We won't just be nice little model people who don't do certain things. We will have a positive hatred of evil. [00:44:49]

The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy and to enjoy the glorifying of you forever. Well, God willing, we'll go on with these other injunctions and next Friday evening. Oh Lord, our God, do we do again thank thee fall so great and so glorious so wonderful of salvation. [00:50:24]

Oh, forgive us, we pray thee, not so much for our sinfulness and failure as for our smallness, for the way in which we so constantly produced the glories of thy way to our own small measures and understanding. O God, have mercy upon us, shared thy love abroad in our faults, fill us with thy love. [00:51:57]

Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night throughout the remainder of this our short uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage Nevermore. [00:56:59]