Love- check audio

[0:00] I'm talking about love, or really three loves, if you like. But the concept of love in the Bible in three aspects here we see in 2 Timothy 3.

[0:11] And I know I've touched on this in passing lately, but more just to focus on this today. So 2 Timothy 3 from verse 1. 2 Timothy 3 from verse 1. Paul's writing to Timothy and he says this, This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come.

[0:28] Perilous times shall come. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word that we can take heart in it today. Help us to love your truth and to love one another.

[0:41] Lord, to love the things of God more than the things of this world. Help us, Lord, to put our attention on things above right now. Take away any distraction that would hinder, Lord, the working of your spirit in hearts today.

[0:55] Do a work in us, Lord. Do a sovereign, sacred salvation work. By your spirit's power, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come.

[1:11] It goes on. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truth breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good.

[1:32] Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away.

[1:48] The last days, it says. Dangerous times, perilous times. Days of danger. Days of decay. A wicked, rotten world.

[2:00] And people out of control. I've seen some videos lately of people out of control. In some lands where they're smashing car windows and rioting in the streets and burning tires and smashing up shops and looting.

[2:16] And chaos reigns in some countries on the planet today. And it's a wicked, rotten world. People out of control. We're in danger. In such a time as this, in the last days, perilous times shall come.

[2:30] I put it to you that we are seeing certainly the beginnings of that. If not, we're right in. A time of peril. A perilous time.

[2:42] Perilous times. Dangerous times. And people are drifting. There's a form of godliness. A form. Not the real, but a form.

[2:53] A formality. A form of godliness. A pretense. A false godliness. And there's this slip sliding away. It's like a slippery slope.

[3:06] We see in Hebrews 2 verse 1. It says, Therefore, ought we to give the more earnest heed. We should give the more earnest heed.

[3:19] To the things which we have heard. Lest at any time we should let them slip. Amen. Amen. Give the more earnest heed.

[3:32] To the things we have heard. Lest at any time we should let them slip. I put to you there's a slip sliding away. It's a slippery slope. A slip sliding away from the truth of God.

[3:45] Where we're seeing this sliding, this falling, this falling away. And we should give thee more earnest heed. In other words, we should really pay attention.

[3:58] Really hearken. Really heed. Really listen to the word of God. And what it is saying to us. 2 Timothy 4.3-4 it says, For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.

[4:18] But after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers. Having itching ears. They shall turn away their ears from the truth.

[4:29] And shall be turned unto fables. They're going to turn their ears away from the truth. They're going to be turned to fables. Now many preachers resort to fables and falsehoods.

[4:41] Many people turn their ears from the truth. And they just go off on this tangent. And you've got some weird and wacko things going on.

[4:52] You know, some of you may have seen some instances of this. Some of these crazy things. In some quarters there's just some...

[5:05] It's like a total mayhem. It reminds me of the word pandemonium. Many demons.

[5:17] Pandemonium. It's like people are acting like they're possessed by a devil. And people are saying that it's God doing this.

[5:31] When they're wriggling on the floor like snakes. Or when they're frantically shaking their heads. And doing all kinds of antithesis. And you've got... I saw one example.

[5:44] In some... It was some African nation. This preacher was walking... He turned up to the church. Some kind of Rolls Royce. And there was people there saluting him.

[5:54] And sort of treating him like he was the president or something. I mean, nobody does that for me. But, you know... You see this crazy stuff going on. As if there's some kind of God. And there's people virtually bowing down to this man.

[6:07] It was really weird. And then I saw this other clip. Where it had another man. Who had all these people lying on the ground.

[6:17] I guess it was the congregation. And he was walking over them. Because he was so holy that his feet shouldn't touch the ground. You know... It's this holy man of God. And, you know...

[6:28] They're using these things that the preacher says. As if it's... As if there's some great Latter-day prophet. I mean...

[6:39] Sure enough, a preacher can preach truth. And God helping him... He will preach the truth. But you don't bow down to him as if he's some... Some elevated... You know...

[6:52] Person to be worshipped. You know... Paul was saying... You know... I'm just a man like you. You know... When the people were trying to venerate him. And that's all we are.

[7:03] Just weak human vessels. And yet we see... We're handing away the ears from the truth to fables. And then we hear these... These... Astounding stories of visits to heaven.

[7:14] And of some great... Miraculous... Revelations... That's extra biblical. In other words... It's outside of the Bible. And they're following this as if... It's some kind of new revelation.

[7:27] I saw another video clip. And there was this preacher walking along. And he was talking in his phone. And he was talking to God on his phone. And people were believing this. They were believing that he was actually...

[7:38] He had a hotline to God on his phone. And he was giving some words to this particular woman. Who was here. And he was having an interchange with her. Saying... Oh God's just told me this. And God's just told me that.

[7:49] And then people believe this stuff. And it's... It's not to deny that God can do that which is miraculous. And God can do that which is beyond. It boggles our imagination.

[8:00] And astonishes us. But... People of God. We should not turn unto fables. Stick with the word of God. This is guaranteed.

[8:10] 100%. What a man says... Question it. And check it out. It's got to line up. And many preachers are resorting to this. And yet many people are turning away their ears.

[8:21] From the truth. It's a crisis. And we're seeing that today. Especially more so in the days of the internet. Where, you know... Tune into millions of preachers all around the world.

[8:33] And hear all kinds of messages from all kinds of churches. All kinds of doctrines. And... It's good and bad. You've got to pick the bones out of it. And... Yet sometimes we don't.

[8:45] We just swallow it all. Just gulp it all down. With the bones. And that's not good for us. We have need of courage in these days. We have need to give thee more earnest heed.

[8:57] Give thee more earnest heed to the word of God. To the word of God. And to declare that with conviction. And with sound doctrine. It was said of Noah that he was a preacher of righteousness.

[9:09] And... He didn't have much to show for many years of preaching. He had a very poor show. From all of his preaching time. He was an earnest preacher.

[9:22] But the people of the day turned unto fables. They did not give the more earnest heed to what he said. And we can either let things slip. Or we can give thee more earnest heed.

[9:33] And we need a spiritual revival. I put to you today. People of God. We need a revival. Don't we? And our world is geared to Godlessness. It's geared to that. It's...

[9:43] As our hearts. In their unsaved state. Deceitful. And desperately wicked. And we are driven by desires and appetites.

[9:54] And affections. That are contrary to God's word. And God's way. We are wired that way. To love those things. Because the enemy has messed up the wiring.

[10:07] It's like the technical stuff. We've got problems. You know, the devil gets in there. And he messes up the wiring. And he's wired us to be driven by desires and affections. And appetites.

[10:18] That are contrary to God. So we must examine ourselves. What is your desire? What is your desire? You know, the psalmist cried. I delight.

[10:30] To do thy will, O God. I delight. That's my delight. That's what I delight in. That's my joy. To do his will. Examine yourselves.

[10:40] Paul says men shall be lovers of their own selves. Lovers of their own selves. Now, first point. We get to the first point, finally. First point. Is lovers of self.

[10:52] We're going to talk about three kind of loves. The first is lovers of self. Paul says that some will be lovers of their own selves.

[11:05] This note also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves. And then it goes on about all the various characteristics of that.

[11:19] We see starkly how very much people can be inclined to be lovers of themselves. You know, woe is me. They have a pity party when things are not how they want them to be.

[11:33] Gimme, gimme, gimme. It's like you see it in kindergarten, don't you? You see it in young parents with young children. They get selfish, don't they? It shows itself pretty young.

[11:45] That people can be selfish. And the Bible says that as a backslider, the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways.

[11:56] You know, selfish, isn't it? Backsliding in heart. Filled with our own ways. At the heart of all sin is this selfish, self-love.

[12:08] Self-love, if you like. Lovers of themselves. And the Word tells us that pride goes before destruction. A haughty spirit before a fall.

[12:19] We can get prideful and think, yeah, I've got it all together. And then we trip up. A prideful, prideful spirit.

[12:32] Abraham was one who thought of others. Abraham showed the opposite of self-love. When God revealed to Abraham that he was going to destroy Sodom, Abraham went to his knees and he interceded for the city.

[12:48] He was pleading with God earnestly on behalf of the righteous. He was praying for a world under judgment. Abraham said that if there were just ten righteous people in that huge population of Sodom and Gomorrah, that God would spare them.

[13:05] And there was only one man, Lot, and his wife and daughters. God saved them. Of course, we know the wife looked back and suffered for that.

[13:18] Abraham was not a lover of himself. He had a heart and a mind and a reaching out to others. But many are lovers of themselves.

[13:29] They live in this self-occupied world, this self-possessed world, these prideful ones. And they declare war on God. We know that the godless, they declare war on God by their selfishness, by their pridefulness, by their vanity, these prideful ones.

[13:47] And pride was the great downfall of Satan, wasn't it? And of his fallen angels. The great downfall of Satan. I will, I will, I will.

[13:57] I will be like God. And God threw him down for his prideful rebellion. We're living in a selfish society, I put to you.

[14:10] Now, of course we know some worldly psychologists actually promote this. And very much praise self-esteem. Now, I suppose there is a healthy self-esteem in that we don't go around and flagellate ourselves all the time.

[14:24] But there's this sense where worldly psychologists seem to think people should love themselves more. And that is somehow the solution for them. If they're feeling out of sorts, that they should elevate their self-esteem.

[14:41] And yet, it's said that recent studies have found that criminals have the greatest self-esteem of any group. So, it doesn't do them any good. You know, self-esteem is not the answer.

[14:55] In these perilous times that Paul speaks of, in these last days, where people are lovers of themselves. lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.

[15:11] Here is another love that can dominate humankind. Lovers of the world. Lovers of the world. This is a love that can dominate you and drive you.

[15:26] This love can make us a lover of the world. Consider the magnetic draw of the world and its ways. The magnetic draw of materialism.

[15:37] Now, when Paul described, and we haven't really gone through this passage as we could, and you might want to later, on 2 Timothy 3, you see these various characteristics.

[15:48] Lovers of their own selves. It's covetous. The word covetous literally means lover of money. Some people are lovers of money. Covetous. They're boasters. Proud.

[16:00] Blasphemers. They curse God. You see some people, it's like, they curse Him. They curse God. It seems like, every few sentences, they curse God, or they say something blasphemous.

[16:16] It's like, it's their lingo. It's their language. It's just, unthinking they do it. Atheists curse Him, while they deny Him. They use His name in blasphemy.

[16:28] Then it goes on, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. We see, this perverse affection. And then we see, truth breakers.

[16:39] They can't be trusted. They don't tell the truth. False accusers. Incontinence. That means that, they can't restrain themselves. They're fierce. They're despisers of those that are good.

[16:50] They're traitors. They're heady. Which, which means that they're willful. And they're high-minded. So, and then it goes on, lovers of pleasure more than, lovers of God.

[17:01] So we see the lovers of themselves. Now we move to number two, lovers of the world. And Paul, says how some people, have been lovers of pleasure. Lovers of pleasures.

[17:13] We know that the pleasures of sin, are for a season. And, often times they'll leave you with a hangover, and with regret. Pleasures of sin, are for a season.

[17:24] They will not last. In contrast, we see, eternal, truth, is everlasting. Now John describes this love of the world. In 1 John 2, he says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

[17:39] If any man love the world, the love of the Father, is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

[17:55] And the world passeth away, and the love of God. But he that doeth the will of God, abideth forever. What a contrast. You can love the world, which is going to pass away, or you can love God, and do His will, and you will live forever.

[18:10] You will abide forever. Sadly, we see many folks who are drawn this way. And Christians too. They can straddle the fence, and just think they can have it, play it both ways, and just have the best of both worlds, and be in the church, and in the world, at the one and the same time.

[18:30] It cannot be done. It cannot truly be in the will of God, and in the way of God, if you're trying to follow the way of the world, and the worldly thinking, you'll falter and fail.

[18:49] It cannot be done. But thank God, there is a way. We can be in the world, but not of the world. We can't, well, some might choose, one of you might choose to go and live in a monastery, or live in some cave, get a little tree house, that someone hauls food up to you every so often.

[19:09] But, you know, really and truly, we have to be in the world. We've got to make a living, we've got to make a life in this planet that we live in, and, yet, our Lord says in his prayer for us, in John 17, as he prayed to the Father, he said, that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

[19:33] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. So, as God's own dear people, we live in this reality that this is the planet, this is the nation, this is the community that we live in.

[19:45] We are in it, but we're not of it. Our citizenship is heaven, isn't it? As much as we might like Australia or whatever other country we've got some loyalty to, we're not of that.

[19:59] We are of heaven. We are of heaven, of his kingdom. And, we are in the world, we see the evils of it, but we don't join in with the devil's crowd with what is evil.

[20:15] And that can take a stand, can't it? We've got to make a stand where we actually say, no, I'm going to stand with what's right, with what my conviction is of what is true and is honest before God.

[20:28] That which I sense is that which is God's will for me. I count that as my priority. And where the world and its ways are contrary to that, I will refuse that.

[20:41] I won't join in such things that hinder my walk with God, or damage my testimony, or make me join, party with something that is not of God and not righteous and good.

[20:55] And so, we don't join in the evils of the world that are constantly around us, but we join in with what is wholesome and good for us as a Christian.

[21:07] And we see James 4, verse 4, it says, ye adulterers and adulteresses. Know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

[21:20] These are very strong words, aren't they? We're called to be separated from the world. So, if the world and the worldly are your friends, you are the enemy of God.

[21:31] And we cannot fraternise with the enemy. Now, we know in times of war, in world war, there was some who would fraternise with the enemy so that they would toy with these loyalties to the other side.

[21:49] We cannot do that. We cannot fraternise with the enemy. We have to make a stand very steadfast. We cannot be on friendly terms with the things and the ways and the thinking of the world.

[22:02] If we do that, we're acting as God's enemy. James says, if you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God. We must make this choice between God and the world.

[22:14] We're called to come out of the world in its web and its way. Rather, be firm and stand sure and pure and right in your thinking, in your living, in your acting, in your talking, in your doctrine.

[22:28] Love not the world. And we know how the world's culture is constantly imbued, doesn't it? Sometimes we can just soak it in unthinking.

[22:39] So we start to use the language of the world and the mindset of the world and this pragmatism of the world of God. How much do you love him?

[22:50] Think of his love for us. It's eternal from everlasting to everlasting. His love is everlasting. God's love for us is enduring. And his great love was such love that he sent our Lord Jesus in his very saving grace to give us his mercy and salvation.

[23:09] And our Lord answered these telling words in Matthew 22. Verse 37. Jesus said unto him when he was questioned, what is the greatest commandment?

[23:26] Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it.

[23:41] Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Lord and the prophets. Our Lord says this is the chief. This is the first and foremost.

[23:52] It captures the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth. The love of God. The love of God. Praise the Lord.

[24:04] Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and under the gospel's hands and with all thy strength.

[24:17] We cannot have divided loyalties. It says all. All your heart. All your soul. All your mind. All your strength. All. All. All. All. He deserves completely all of us.

[24:29] Our total loyalty to love him. To love him. Absolutely. Completely. Heartily. We're called to love God.

[24:41] People here today. That is the first and greatest commandment. This love that we're called to. It should permeate our thinking, our desires, our affections.

[24:53] That we put everything in tune with this great love. That everything else should be subdued in comparison with this great love.

[25:04] We talk about what we love, don't we? Some people, they talk, people talk about their heroes, they talk about their sports teams, their job, their family, whatever it be.

[25:18] People talk about what they love. Do we talk about our Lord? Are we a contagious Christian that that love for him is so evident that we're contagious with our Christianity, with our spiritual passion?

[25:37] I urge you today, make it your passion, make it your business, to fan into flame this love for God. And as we love God, we'll hate what is evil.

[25:48] This love is not some lovey-dovey, you know, flossey, airy, fairy kind of love. It's a strong love that loves God and his truth. That we won't join in what is evil.

[26:01] Here's a very strong word in part in Psalm 97, verse 10. It says, ye that love the Lord hate evil. So we will love God such that we will hate that which is contrary to God, that which is evil.

[26:16] We won't join in it. There's a great dividing line. We won't step over that. We will love what is good. We'll love the Lord. And another scripture, 2 Timothy 1, 7, it says that God's spirit is the spirit of love.

[26:33] 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, Paul says to Timothy, for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. God's spirit helps us to love.

[26:47] He gives us his love and he helps us to love others. So what does it look like when we love God? Of course we can see as our Lord said in Matthew 37, was it?

[27:02] 27. I've missed it. When he said, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, love thy neighbour as thyself.

[27:17] That's one mark, isn't it? That our love for God should make us loving to others too. And then, it tells us elsewhere that we should love the brethren.

[27:30] Love the brethren. It says, 1 John 3, 14, we know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

[27:43] When we love God, we'll love the brethren. So we'll love the fellowship, love our brothers and sisters in Christ. We'll love one another as he has loved us. So, there's that brotherly kindness that we'll have for one another as God's people because you're my brother.

[28:01] You're my sister here. We are brothers and sisters and we should love one another in that brotherly love, that brotherly kindness, that compassion. And we'll show Christ's love in our future too.

[28:13] We'll extend his grace that he's extended to us. So, when you have Christians in your life that you find a bit hard to get on with, you'll manage that.

[28:25] God will give you the grace with them that he's shown to you. Amen. And we'll have that compassion because we should love one another as he has loved us. And we don't always deserve his love, do we?

[28:37] We don't always warrant his love, yet he loves us still. It tells us, Colossians 2 verse 2, it says that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love.

[28:51] How can we love one another such that we're knit together? There's a closeness there. There's a unity. There's a getting together. There's a gathering together. Like something together, we are knit together in love.

[29:04] That our hearts might be knit together in love. And then we see God's love is poured out. It says in Romans 5 verse 5, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

[29:18] God's love is poured out. It overflows. It abounds. You know, you see some Christians, God's love just exudes out of them, doesn't it?

[29:29] Just pours out of them. They're just so giving and glowing and blessing. It's the opposite of lovers of themselves, isn't it? We shouldn't be like that.

[29:42] Or lovers of the world, but lovers of God. If we love God, we'll love God's children, we'll love God's people, we'll love like Jesus loved.

[29:54] And we'll be knit together in love. And His love will be shed abroad in our hearts such that we can't contain it. It pours out and flows out of us.

[30:05] It overflows. It abounds. Here's another aspect of what God's love will mean. I put to you 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 10 and says, impart them that perish, it talks of, they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.

[30:21] One characteristic of those who love God is they will love the truth. They will love the truth. They will love this book, the word of God. They will love the truth and that saving truth of the word of God, the gospel.

[30:35] As the psalmist cried, oh how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day. He loved the word of God. He had to sing about it, write a whole great chapter of song in Psalm 119.

[30:50] He sang about the wonders of the word of God. Oh how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day, all the day long. A love of the word of God.

[31:02] And 1 John 5 verse 3 it says, this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. Hide it in your heart, keep the word of God, hold the word of God, hold it fast, keep it, treasure it, hold it dear, the word of God, his commandments.

[31:25] His commandments are not grievous, they will do us good, not harm, they will bless us. So there's many ways we can love God as we've seen the love of the brethren, the keeping of his word, reaching out and caring for others, the joy of joying in what God delights in, of putting him first and foremost, of giving our life to him, of opening our heart to his love.

[31:56] Now, let's consider this now, how can we put this into practice? we can love in word, or we can love in deed and in truth.

[32:10] Our love should be applied and lived out. Will we follow Christ? We see of some, it's said that they had a form of godliness, a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

[32:27] We can just be churchy, we can be churchy people, we can be nominal Christians, nominal Christians.

[32:39] so our Christianity is kind of time limited. It's when we're sat in the pew, it's when we're attending some church function, but then we take that hat off and we just act completely different in other settings.

[32:57] It's a form of godliness, it's a put on, pretense, it's a fake kind of godliness that denies the power thereof. Or will we ask God to truly empower us and fill us, that we can be communicators and channels of God's love so that he can fill us with his love and we can display and spread his love in our lives.

[33:25] Shouldn't it be that as God's own people, love should mark us, it should identify us. In Philippians 1 verse 9, Paul prays that your love may abound, yet more and more in knowledge of judgment.

[33:42] Paul prays that for these ones in Philippi, that love may abound more and more. And can't that be our prayer too?

[33:54] Can't that be our cry today? That his love would abound more and more and show in our families, in our relationships, God helping us, and sometimes with those that we find hard to love, but his love knows no limits really, does it?

[34:13] His love, his tenderness, his forgiveness, his grace, and sometimes I know someone was telling me lately how something I mentioned provoked them to seek to make peace with someone that they had a grievance with, had a break with, that there was a something wasn't right there and they dealt with it.

[34:40] It may not be reciprocated, they may not return that grace to you, but shouldn't our love abound more and more?

[34:51] We can have grace with one another, so we can have tenderness and forgiveness and show his peace and ask God to give us grace.

[35:05] And it's a reflection of Christ in us, isn't it? When we have that heart that gives and keeps on giving. Ephesians 5, it says, Paul writes verse 2, and walk in love as Christ also have loved us and have sacrificed himself for an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling saviour.

[35:28] Such love can be a sacrifice, can't it? God has loved us. Love, walk in love as Christ also has loved us. When we think of 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 13 is such a treasure of blessing.

[35:48] 1 Corinthians 13, as we see the wonders of God's love, we see that it suffers more, it's kind, it's love, it envies not, it vaunteth not itself, it's not puffed up, it does not behave itself unseemly, and seeketh not her own, it's not easily provoked, it thinketh no evil, it rejoices not in iniquity, but in the truth, it bears all things, endures all things, hopes all things, love, charity, never faileth.

[36:21] love, the love of God is shown to us and we ought to live it and love it out. And sometimes we can make the mistake of being harsh with our loved ones and that's a great shame.

[36:42] You know, sometimes you hear of fathers that are harsh and that wound people, they wound their children by their harshness.

[36:58] We see husbands and wives not showing that kindness, that love, that grace. We see people torn apart because of hate and self-will and lack of grace.

[37:20] 1 Corinthians 13, let that be our guiding principle. Such love, the love of God.

[37:32] You know, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. You know, being a good testimony of God's grace.

[37:44] don't be harsh. Show Christ's kindness to your children, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, people of God, as we interact with those around us.

[38:00] Love thy neighbour. It can be the hardest one to put into practice, can't it? The neighbour that you find a bit hard to get on with, especially when we're living more in close quarters, oft times now, just a stone's throw away, or closer really, but love thy neighbour.

[38:20] Wow, how do I love him or her? The people we rub shoulders with down at the shops, you know, the checkout chicks and guys, you know, what a job.

[38:34] Can we show some kindness to them, instead of complaining or finding some miserable way of acting, we should abound more and more. Our love should abound more and more.

[38:48] That we should be channels of God's love in your workplace, amongst your teammates. How can we show Christ's love? Sometimes it can be hard, can't it?

[38:59] The people you actually deal with, the people you live with, the people you don't get on with, love them still. Love your enemies. Wow. I saw some preacher saying, I can't recollect exactly how he put it now, but it was along the lines of love.

[39:25] This man was having trouble loving his wife. And the preacher, I think, was talking to him along the lines of, it says, love one another.

[39:40] And he was kind of arguing about, oh, that doesn't apply. And then, love your neighbour, she's your neighbour, you're living in the same house.

[39:51] And he still couldn't kind of see it, and then it said, love your enemy, well, that covers it. You know, you think, love, love your enemy, that covers everybody, even the people you really, really find it hard to love.

[40:06] And it says, walk in love, walk in love, as Christ also has loved us. 1 Corinthians 13, oh, that kind of love, that kind of love that endures all things, that kind of love, yes, that kind of love.

[40:22] And so, that's God's love, isn't it? It should motivate us. And 2 Corinthians 5, 14, it says, the love of Christ constraineth us. So it constrains us, it motivates us, it impels us, it compels us, it thrusts us out, it drives us, it motivates us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.

[40:41] The context here is of reaching those who need the word, of those who need the message. You know, we can have that selfish way of being, can't we?

[40:55] Lovers of themselves, that we don't open our mouth and tell someone. You talk about what you love. You spend time around someone and you'll see what they love soon enough, because they'll talk about it.

[41:12] And so let's talk about Jesus, let's show his love, let his love constrain us to reach out. It constrains us, his love in us constrains us to reach those outside of Christ.

[41:28] So let us not be lovers of ourselves, selfish, let's not be lovers of this world as if we're locked into this planet. One day we'll leave this planet as it is now.

[41:41] And rather let us be lovers of God, lovers of God. And I urge you today to trust Christ. Christ, it's his love that took him to the cross.

[41:53] It wasn't the nails, it was his love that held him there. His love held him to the cross. His love led him to breathe his last breath and cry out, it is finished.

[42:09] Because his love paid the penalty that we can know his love and receive his love. let us pray.

[42:25] Lord Jesus, you are the Lord of love, the great one of love, the great message of love is your word, and your love is shed abroad in our hearts.

[42:39] And we thank you, Lord, for the love that held you to the cross, that we can have life today. We pray if there's anyone present that yet to yield their will, their heart, that today is the day.

[42:52] Now is the day. Today is the day of salvation. That they can cry out, Lord, save me. I trust you. I receive your love gift in dying on the cross for my sin.

[43:05] And I trust you now with my life. I give my heart to you. I receive your love. Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul from sin and for your gift of everlasting life.

[43:23] Lord, for everyone here today, that each one might know that love. And Lord, help us to yield to that love in every walk of life, in every relationship of life.

[43:35] give us the grace to show love when it's not returned unto us. Help us, Lord, to love. In Jesus' name. Amen.