Transformative Love: The Evidence of New Birth

"The Christian is one I say who though he doesn't like a person doesn't allow that to make any difference he goes out of his way to treat that person as if he did like him because he is a brother and because he's Bound by the ties that I'm going to put before you now there is the difference between loving and liking you see you can be commended to love but not to like we can't control our liking but we can control our loving in this respect." [00:15:20]

"Now here is the definition what what does he mean by saying we love the Brethren let me Define it negatively and I feel this again is most important it's a distinction I've often emphasize from this pulpit and it seems to me it's more and more necessary loving and liking are not the same thing we are not told we know that we have passed from Death to life because we like like the Brethren that isn't what we are told we are told that we love the Brethren." [00:13:00]

"Now I say this is foundational that was why this had to be said to a man like Nicodemus he hadn't understood this so many of us have passed through this phase this stage of imagining that we were right in the sight of God and well pleasing to him when in reality we were not here was a man of course as a Jew because he worshiped God after the Jewish religion thought that all was well with him and many you know times and many of us in experience having been brought up in the atmosphere of the Christian church have been liable to think exactly the same thing." [00:01:01]

"Now you notice there are three groups there and one of them very clearly has reference to our relationship to one another as Christian people longsuffering and gentleness and goodness there we're put into relationship with one another and you remember how these things are always put like this in the New Testament teaching take for instance the way Peter puts all this in his Second Epistle and in the first chapter reading from verse 5 besides this he says giving all diligence and to your faith virtue and to Virtue knowledge and to knowledge Temperance and to Temperance patience and to patience godliness and to Godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity love." [00:06:40]

"Now let's define our terms we know that we have passed from Death to life because we love the brethren now here is the definition what what does he mean by saying we love the Brethren let me Define it negatively and I feel this again is most important it's a distinction I've often emphasize from this pulpit and it seems to me it's more and more necessary loving and liking are not the same thing." [00:12:56]

"Now here is a categorical statement we know it's an absolute proof that we have passed from Death To Life we've been born again how because we love the Brethren there it is stated in a doctrinal form if you want it put in a more natural human historical form you'll find it at the end of the second chapter of the book of The Acts of the Apostles the Apostle Peter you remember preached his sermon on the day of Pentecost they were just Christians were just about 120 people until that point Peter preaches in Jerusalem and 3,00 people were added to the church." [00:07:56]

"Now transfer all that to the spiritual realm and the children of God you will find always have these family concerns family desires they all have the great concern for the family name the name of the Father the success of the Kingdom in other words you test yourself like this how do you react to the world and the life of the world as it is at the present time it's one thing to be appalled at the immorality and the vice and the mounting moral problems in this country and in other countries but that isn't the way the Christian looks at it the Christian looks at all this from the standpoint of men and women are souls and the kingdom of God and the glory of God he's grieved about this about the godlessness that's how he reacts to it all because he's a child of God and because he's a member of the family." [00:25:50]

"Now the Apostle Paul again has put this in his usual exceptionally clear manner in the second chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians where he puts it like this uh we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is of god that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God which things also we speak not in The Words which men's wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual in other words I say a man who is Born Again begins to speak in a certain language and it's a spiritual language he uses the same words that he used before but there's a difference in his use of words and in his manner of speech he's got a kind of new language and others who are born of The Same Spirit understand his language." [00:22:00]

"Now if those are the reasons for this how does this show itself in practice I'm concerned to be most practical you see this is the difficulty that the devil will delude us and persuade us that we are when we are not well we must be equally subtle and we are given the means whereby we can be in the teaching of the script how then do I know that I love the Brethren I see that I ought to that it's inevitable that I do if I'm truly born again but do I how do I test myself we'll here are some of the tests I suggest again that the first and it works out from the human analogy is this that one becomes aware of the relationship at once you recognize it immediately in the other this is something intuitive this is something instinctive and it is of course one of the most marvelous and thrilling experiences in the Christian Life." [00:30:28]

"Now transfer all that to the spiritual realm and the children of God you will find always have these family concerns family desires they all have the great concern for the family name the name of the Father the success of the Kingdom in other words you test yourself like this how do you react to the world and the life of the world as it is at the present time it's one thing to be appalled at the immorality and the vice and the mounting moral problems in this country and in other countries but that isn't the way the Christian looks at it the Christian looks at all this from the standpoint of men and women are souls and the kingdom of God and the glory of God he's grieved about this about the godlessness that's how he reacts to it all because he's a child of God and because he's a member of the family." [00:25:50]

"Now you notice there are three groups there and one of them very clearly has reference to our relationship to one another as Christian people longsuffering and gentleness and goodness there we're put into relationship with one another and you remember how these things are always put like this in the New Testament teaching take for instance the way Peter puts all this in his Second Epistle and in the first chapter reading from verse 5 besides this he says giving all diligence and to your faith virtue and to Virtue knowledge and to knowledge Temperance and to Temperance patience and to patience godliness and to Godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity love." [00:06:40]

"Now I say this is foundational that was why this had to be said to a man like Nicodemus he hadn't understood this so many of us have passed through this phase this stage of imagining that we were right in the sight of God and well pleasing to him when in reality we were not here was a man of course as a Jew because he worshiped God after the Jewish religion thought that all was well with him and many you know times and many of us in experience having been brought up in the atmosphere of the Christian church have been liable to think exactly the same thing." [00:01:01]