Dr Greg Bahnsen - The Fruit of the Spirit: Love Part 2 (Part 3)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. We're continuing our study of the book of Galatians, and in particular, something of a sub series within our exegesis of Galatians on the fruit of the Spirit. So please turn with me to Galatians chapter five, and we'll read for review the fruit of the Spirit. And tonight we'll take up the subject of love, Galatians 5, beginning at verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self control. Against such there is no law, and they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof. If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit, let us also walk. Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another. I've already pointed out to you that love is prominent in the fruit of the Spirit for reasons that we'll see in just a few minutes, because of the importance of love. But in this particular context, where Paul was writing to the Galatian church, you have to remember what we've already seen in verses 13, 14 and 15. Paul says we shouldn't use our freedom to indulge the sinful nature, but through love we should become servants of each other through love, serve one another. And he tells us the whole law is fulfilled in the love command, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and then says that the Galatian congregation is failing to exemplify that love and to show that they're walking in the Spirit. He warns them about biting and devouring one another, and says that they're on the verge of consuming each other. So this is a call to love. He then proceeds to talk about the work of the flesh, the outworking of the flesh, or the sinful nature in people's lives. And of course, many of those works of the flesh parallel this problem in the Galatian congregation of backbiting and envy and faction and so forth. As he ends the paragraph that includes the fruit of the Spirit, he says, let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another. So you see, there's a unity to this whole section. Has to do, apparently, with internal friction within the Galatian congregation and the call to love. Now we can look at the fruit of the Spirit for itself. That is a theological or ethical topic worthy of our examination. But I think it's always important for us to see things in its own living context or historical and textual context as well. Paul says, now, in contrast to the works of the flesh, God by His grace produces a certain outcome and in our lives. And then he gives some examples. Do not take the fruit of the Spirit here to be exhaustive. Paul could have spoken of other things. He could have spoken of humility. That's a fruit of the Spirit as well. But in this particular list, he's just trying to rattle off, as it were, some of the prominent illustrations. So you get the point. Remember that he doesn't say the fruits plural of the Spirit, but the fruit that is. This is the kind of life that the Holy Spirit gives people. And so he's only giving representative examples. But now, as he gives these representative examples, it shouldn't surprise us that he begins with love. I think there's something to be said for the idea that when Paul says the fruit of the Spirit is love, and then he continues the that what he's doing is he's expanding on how love itself works its way out as the Spirit produces love within us. And that is seen in our patience, our gentleness, our joyfulness, our self control, and all the rest. Let's talk about love as the Bible presents it. I almost laugh at myself proposing to take a short Bible study here and go over what the Bible has to say about love. I mean, you're going to wear your fingers out tonight just going to all these passages. But my guess is even though you know that's true, that love is prominent in the Bible, you start looking at how much it has to say, you'll still be overwhelmed. As I was preparing this afternoon and I'm supposed to know all this, right? I've done my theological study and I've written on things like this, and I preach sermons and so forth. But every time I come back, it's just incredible how saturated the Bible is with the theme of love and the call to love and God's example of how to love and so forth. So let's see if we can go through a few of these and appreciate why the fruit of the Spirit is love. Love was prominent in the Shema of Israel. Shema comes from the Hebrew verb meaning to hear. Confession of faith. The most fundamental confession of faith that the Israelites had in the Old Testament is found in Deuteronomy 6. So turn to Deuteronomy 6. If this is their continuing confession, it's interesting to see how prominent love is in it. Deuteronomy 6. 4. Hear, O Israel. That's the Shema. Hear, o Israel, Jehovah, our God is one, and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be upon thy heart. Already we see in the Old Testament that to confess the existence of the one true God Jehovah leads immediately to a life of what? Love. And it's all consuming love toward him. And it's a love which means his commandments are upon our heart. How any theologian could have come up with the idea that in the Bible love is pitted against the Commandments is really beyond me. From a literary standpoint, I understand it psychologically, but you just cannot get the text of Scripture to conform to that kind of antagonism between love and law. Confession of Israel the Lord is one, and the next point is love the Lord with everything that is in you. Indeed, love is the primary motive in Christian ethics. There are other motives. Faith is a motive. Hope is a motive. But in First Corinthians 13:13, what do we read? I mean, you've all got this memorized, but we'll turn to it. Paul says, but now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, and the greatest of these is love. So the primary motive in ethic is love. Look at first Peter 4. 8. It's not fair for people to take notes and let me do all the turning of the pages. First Peter 4. 8. Peter says, above all things, being fervent in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins. Above all things be fervent in your love. He says, so the greatest of these is love. Above all things be fervent in your love. And indeed Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that all other gifts are worthless without love. First Corinthians 13, beginning at verse 1. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nada, nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. I know that you've heard those verses many times, probably read them many times. But I mean, one that's just grand literature. It's very moving, but it's really hard hitting too. There is nothing in the Christian life worthwhile if it's lacking love. I Don't know if you've ever seen this tendency in yourself or maybe you've seen it in others. It's possible for us to really get involved in activities in the church. It's possible for us to learn a lot of theology. And yet when love isn't part of our activity and our learning, it becomes really ugly. People who know a lot can cause a lot of trouble even in Christian circles if they don't have love motivating their learning and their sharing and the things they talk about and activities in the church. I mean, things can become. I mean, you can have the most active church program in the world and it's not going to be Christian if there isn't a sense of love about the things we're doing. So all the other gifts are worthless without love. Love is a mark of being Christ's disciple. Love is a mark of knowing God. Love is a mark of regeneration. That's how crucial love is. According to the teaching of the Bible. John 13:35. It's first of all a mark of being a disciple of Christ. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one to another. I think it'd be interesting if we could get away from the stereotyped King James English of this verse. And we were in a Christian setting and had a fill in the blank kind of quiz. What is it that best points to your being a disciple of Christ? How will men know that you're a disciple of Christ? I'm not sure that unless people knew you were picking up on this verse, would that be the first thing people would think of? I think art would say, well, you know that I defend the faith, or I have the right confession of faith, or I live a clean life or something. It's this that Jesus picked out, though that was the mark of his disciple. If we love one another, love is a mark of knowing God. This is perhaps even more hard hitting than the verse we just looked at first John 4, 7, 8. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loves is begotten of God and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God. For God is love. If we don't love, we don't know God. In verse 12, no man has beheld God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. If we love in First John, love is also a mark of regeneration. Look at chapter three, verse 14. We know that we've passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. How do you know that you're spiritually alive? Biblical answer. First thing you look for is whether you love your brothers. Pretty important. Look at chapter four, verse seven to the same effect. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. A minute ago I talked about knowing God. But to be begotten of God, to be regenerated, is to be someone that loves. If you don't love one another, then the Bible says you don't have the evidence of regeneration in you. Love is emphasized repeatedly in New Testament moral instruction. I'll just give you three examples. First Peter 1, verse 22. First Peter 1:22. Seeing that you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren. Love one another from the heart fervently. Fervently. Love each other from the heart, not hypocritically, but from within. Sincerely or Hebrews 13. 1. Let love of the brethren continue. First Thessalonians 4:9, 11. First Thessalonians 4 9. But concerning love of the brethren, ye have no need that one write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. For indeed ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all macedonia. We exhort you, brethren, that you abound more and more, and that you study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your hands, even with we charged you. It's interesting. Paul says we don't have any need to remind you that you should love one another. You've been taught that by God, you know that. But we do exhort you to abound more and more. Well, I tell you, this almost seems like an obsession of the New Testament. Love, love, love. It's the mark of whether we are Christians, disciples of Christ, whether we know God and are born again. And of course, as you already know, Jesus said that love is the greatest of the commandments. Matthew 22:36, 40. A lawyer has come to him, and now tempts him, saying, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law. And he said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second, like unto it, is, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets. Now the debate among the Jews in Those days was over which commandment in the Old Testament encompassed the greatest scope of our moral duty? There was a command, a very light command, as the Jews saw it, about not killing a mother hen with her chicks. But then there are other commands that seem to encompass a lot more than just this, that or other particular thing. And so when the lawyer comes, he's asking kind of this traditional debate question among the Jews, which is the first and great command of Jesus? Which one do you think is the heaviest of all because it contains so much of our moral duty? And Jesus answer was that we are to love God with everything that is in us. And then he gave us a second command that's really kind of a working out of the first as well, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Compare that to what Paul says in Romans 13, 8, 10. Owe no man anything, save to love one another. It's the only outstanding debt you should have, that of love. For he that loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love works no wrong to its neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. So let's ask, how does love relate to the commandments of God, given what Jesus has taught? And Paul reaffirms, the first thing that we want to observe is that love itself is a commandment. Love is part of the law. Now, I know that will seem very obvious. We just read which is the first and great commandment. Jesus said, love the second, like unto it. Love, love God, love your neighbor as yourself. The reason why I want to stop to pay attention to that is that if love itself is a commandment, it makes no sense to pit love against keeping commandments. But that is the most popular thing in evangelical ethics today. Say, oh no, we don't keep commandments. Rules and regulations are not for us. We follow love. Yeah, but love is a commandment. So if you don't follow rules and regulations, then you don't follow the rule and regulation of love either. But of course, that would be calling for consistency, which is the hobgoblin of little minds and often Christians who kind of have this warm fuzzy idea about love over against commandments. When you point that out to them, it's kind of like, oh, who cares, you know, mental problems. The fact is, we don't want commandments. We do want love. Love is a commandment. It is part of the law. It is the first and great commandment or second one, which is like unto it. And so if you don't need to keep the law today, then you don't need to keep the law about love either. Secondly, the Bible tells us that the love commandment itself requires us to keep the whole law. You notice that what Paul says and what Jesus has said is that if you love, you will keep the whole law. On this hangs all the law and the prophets. Now, if the law and the prophets hang on love, then the law and the prophets cannot be pitted against love. Think of it this way. We have any pictures hanging on the wall. We really need a big picture to illustrate this. Well, but imagine you put a nail into the wall and then you hang this picture. Now, Jesus says the name that holds the picture, the law and the prophets, is love. Now, is he saying, therefore, that the law and the prophets is something other than love? It's like you have to pick which one you're going to follow. And of course, if you're going to be Christian, you follow love. Now, Jesus doesn't put the law and the prophets over here and love over there and say, okay, now follow love. He says, the law and the prophets hang on love. Okay? And so the nail is there for the sake of seeing the whole picture, isn't it? The nail is not there to take the place of the picture. How many people do you know put a nail on the wall and say, okay, there's one. That's our decoration. Well, we've got a nail on our wall kind of like that too, but it is there. So we can hang a reed, you know, or so forth. I don't know anybody that puts a nail on the wall in the place of what's supposed to hang on the nail. Nah, you didn't. You get the point of my illustration. On love hangs all the law and prophets. Let's look at some verses here. John 14, verses 15 and 21. John 14, verses 15 and21. Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. You see how the commandments hang on love? If you love, you keep the commandments. Our modern version is, if you love me, you will repudiate the commandments. Because if you live a life of love, you don't want anything to do with law after all. Jesus says, no, keeping the commandments flows out of your love. And then verse 21, he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father. And I will love him and will manifest myself unto Him. Who's the one who really loves Jesus? The person who says, hey, I just kind of go with the flow and the warm fuzzies and I do the loving thing. I don't worry about rules and regulations. Jesus says, listen, the one who loves me is the one who has my commandments and pays attention to them. I really don't know why this is so hard to understand. If you're a person in authority, let's say you're a father in your home, or you're a boss at work, or a policeman or a referee, whatever it is, who do you think is showing the greatest love and loyalty to you? The one who listens to what you say and does it, or the person who says, hey, we don't need those rules and regulations. Jason says, if you love me, if you're really a follower of me, you're going to pay attention to the commandments. So the love commandment requires us to obey all of the commandments. Another verse, John 15:10, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Are we better than Jesus? Jesus says, here's the pattern. I abide in my Father's love. By doing what? Keeping his commandments. That's how I show that I love my Father. I do what he tells me to. And likewise, if you love me, if you abide in My love, then you will keep My commandments. This is also taught in First John. So let's turn to the Epistle of First John, chapter two, verses three to five. And hereby we know that we know Him. Great test for evangelical antinomians. Do you know God? John says, here's how you know if you know God. Let me see if I can clarify this logically. Knowing that you know, it's one thing to know God. But now if you want to step back and look at yourself and say, now do I know that I know God? John says, here's how you know that you know God. What's the answer if we keep his commandments? He that says, I know him and keeps not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keeps his word in him. Verily has the love of God been perfected. If you know God, you keep his commandments. Jesus said in Matthew 5:19. Therefore, whoever shall break the least of these commandments and teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. When I lecture to audiences where pastors are present, or even more importantly, maybe seminary professors and so forth. That's a verse which not always easy to have the courage to preach, but it needs to be said, if you teach men that they may break the least commandment, you will be least in the kingdom of heaven. God holds you highly accountable to not make a mistake on this point. Most of theologians are so loosey goosey though. It's kind of like, well, you know, we got to talk about this theonomy stuff and look into it more and do more research. Hey, this is very practical. Tomorrow when you go to class or Sunday when you stand in the pulpit, if you preach a theology that leads anybody to think, oh, hey, obedience is not that important. You, you will be least in the kingdom of heaven. Even the least commandment must be your concern. If we say we know him and we don't keep his commandments, what does John say? Verse 4 of the text, 1st John 2:4. He that saith, I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar. I found out something when I lived in the South. Maybe Tim can verify this, or maybe it was just something in small churches in Mississippi. It was very strange. Coming from Southern California, it would be considered a real hard thing to call a person a liar. I wouldn't, you know, minimize that. But for some reason it was considered almost obscene to say that you don't call people liars. And I even know I had a friend who used that term in the pulpit. And a woman never would come back to church. She said nothing. I'll go to a church where a pastor uses the word liar. Now, she may not have been representative, but that strong language is what I want to say. And that's what John says. He says, if you say, you know God, but you don't keep his commandments, you lie. The truth is not in you. First John 5, verse 3. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And I love this next part of the verse. And his commandments are not burdensome. That's what you have to read to people when they start seeing that the Bible might require them to obey all that God says. And then they start looking at, oh, what a drag. I mean, we have to do that. Oh, how strange. Wouldn't that be weird? Or that would be inconvenient or I couldn't possibly do that. People would make fun of me. They start giving all these reasons why they don't want to Follow what God says. John says it's no burden. What God gives us is no burden at all. It's interesting, just in the last month I've come across two situations in different churches. And I'll be using up all my time if I give the details. But suffice it to say both these churches have very, very awkward ethical dilemmas, dilemmas facing them where the congregation is tending to divide over this or that or how do we evaluate something. And people in those situations have said to me, because I happen to be there, you know, at a time like this, you thank God for every bit of theonomy you can get. When it really gets tough, then it's no burden to have these commandments. You want some light, you want some guidance, you want God to help you figure out how to live your life in this situation. John says these commandments are no burden. You got to worry about somebody who squawks about keeping the commandments of God. According to Jeremiah, chapter 31 will be a mark of the new covenant that the law of God is written on the inward parts. When I see people who, not just out of ignorance or misunderstanding. As a pastor you have to give people space for that and try to help them. But when it's not just out of ignorance, but it's a self conscious disdain, really dislike for the law of God, you have to wonder if the law is written on their heart and if the law is not written on their heart. I know this sounds hard, but you have to wonder if they're born again, don't you? How many verses have I read you that have said that you're not regenerated, you're not begotten of God if you don't love. And love means following his commandments. If you say you know him and you don't love, you're a liar. So we may never disobey a commandment of God in the name of love over, over and over again. I mean, I could make this, you know, out there, people out there, but in my own life too. How often do we think we have something higher than the law that we are following? We make an exception because here the more loving thing to do is not to obey. Never can that be the case. God's law is the definition of love. It is what fleshes out and shows us how love behaves. Joseph Fletcher, who is the father of situation ethics. Actually Satan is the father of situation ethics. But Fletcher got his name on the book. And in the 60s that was the real rage in theological and quasi religious Secular circles as well. People who would not say that they are Christians or following Jesus, but if they had some respect for Jesus, they'd say, you know, even Jesus says what the Beatles say. Love, love, love is all we need, you know. And Fletcher taught people that the Christian ethic is not one of rules and regulations. He said the only. The only principle of Christian ethics is love. Well, what we've seen thus far in our study tonight just blows a hole in that. Fletcher doesn't understand the biblical concept of love. He is a prime illustration of somebody that has a preconceived idea, some lifestyle or some philosophy or some ideology. And then you go to the Bible and you say, well, here these words will be real convenient to communicate what I believe. He didn't do an inductive study of love in the Bible and come up with this. Or if he did, then he's just an outright liar. Oops, there's that word. But that's what the Bible says. If you claim to love and to know God and don't keep the commandments, you're a liar. And Joseph Fletcher was a liar. It's interesting. Fletcher's own position rules out having rules. Let me say that again. Fletcher's position rules out having rules. And so he has a rule, doesn't he? The rule that one must not follow rules. And so his position is philosophical nonsense. He can't get away from having rules. Moreover, his notion of love is really contentless because every situation defines what love will be. Then love is just kind of the elastic term that you put over anything that you decide is the right thing to do. And that changes from situation to situation, culture to culture, and from time to time. Moreover, when you don't follow the biblical concept of love, you can end up with some very unloving, or let's put it this way, very un. Uncompassionate applications that you call love. Hitler thought he loved the human race and was saving it from the Jews. That leads to the Holocaust in the name of love. Now, I, for one, don't want love left out there like that. It's too important a concept, too wonderful a notion to be turned over to everybody to fill it with their own meaning in their own content. The Bible offers concrete examples of love in order that it not become an elusive and vague abstraction. When the Bible calls us to love, it says, and here's what love means. Do this, do this, do this, have this attitude, this attitude, this attitude so that you don't just have love becoming whatever you want it to be. You have love having a definite character, a definable content. And the two chapters in the Bible I ask you to read in preparation for tonight's discussion that give many of the concrete examples are Leviticus 19 and First Corinthians 13. And I think we can at least get through those two before we end tonight. I only have about half of my lesson. I'm logged, done. But I'll continue it, Lord willing, when I return from my trip. Let's look at Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19 is important because when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment of the law, he quoted from Deuteronomy 4 and then gave us the second. Like unto it, he said quotation from Leviticus 19 while returning there. Let me just point out in passing, isn't it interesting that when Jesus was asked to choose the most important commandments of the Old Testament, he didn't go to the Ten Commandments. They're very important. I don't want to take away anything from the Ten Commandments, but when people say the ten Commandments are the summary, and that's really the most important. The fact is Jesus went to Leviticus and Deuteronomy when he was asked about the most important moral instruction of the Old Testament. Anyway, Leviticus 19. Let's jump up to verse 18. Just so you see why we're in this chapter. Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am Jehovah. Throughout this chapter, I think five or six times you will find that free standing rationale for the commandments. I am Jehovah. God doesn't bother to explain. Now, when you do this, then the following consequences come about. And that's why I think you should live this way. He just predicates it on his own character. He says, because I'm who I am, this is what you do. I am Jehovah. And that's how he ends this. You shall love thy neighbor as thyself. I am Jehovah. He answers all questions, all why questions, all appeals for proof or explanation or a rationale was simply, I am who I am. I am Jehovah, I am the Lord. So you love your neighbor as yourself. But it turns out that that is, I think, the pinnacle of long ethical section here in Leviticus 19. God has been giving illustrations and then he caps it off with this is loving your neighbor as yourself. And so let's read these and hopefully you can get the same sense as we go through them. Verse 9. And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of thy field. Neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard. Neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am Jehovah, your God. God forbids you to reach down and pick up the fruit that you drop. He says, you leave that for the poor. You shall not steal. Neither shall ye deal falsely, nor lie one to another. We shall not swear by my name falsely and profane the name of thy God. I am Jehovah. Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but thou shalt fear thy God. I am Jehovah. You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment. You shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. But in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale bearer among thy people. Neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor. I am Jehovah. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart. Thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor and not bear sin because of him. Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people. But thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am Jehovah. All of these strike me as illustrations of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. In the same way that you would want to be treated, so you treat your neighbor. And so look at the examples real quickly here. First, he mentions concern for the poor. As a parallel text, you might look at Deuteronomy 24, 1921. God says, if you love your neighbor as yourself, then you're very free about helping him in his need. How free are you when you're plucking the wheat or you're grabbing for the clusters of grapes and things fall on the ground? You let it go. I tell you, that's not the capitalist spirit of our day, is it? I mean, these farm workers go out there, and they better not leave any fruit in the field. That's the whole point of having them out there. But in a culture where, of course, if it were left out there in our day and age, no one would go and pick it up. So I want to balance that with an understanding that we have a different lifestyle and different culture. Culture, that's true, but we should have a culture. We should have a culture where when you're out there harvesting strawberries, there are strawberries that are left for people that are hungry. And then they wouldn't have to go to some government agency and so forth and become slaves of the state. They would, out of love, be taken care of. Another illustration of love, very concrete. Business integrity. You shall not steal, neither shall you deal falsely, nor lie one to another. In Leviticus 6:2 and following, we have some examples of business integrity. We don't have time to read them, but get that in your notes. Leviticus 6, God says, if you go borrow something from your neighbor, and then you lose it or you destroy it and so forth, there are all these different regulations. You're going to show integrity in our day and age. It's amazing to me when things like that happen, you lose your neighbor's property or you're using it and it gets broken. Everybody has these wild ideas about how you respond to that. It's kind of like, well, but this and but that. God has told us how we respond to that kind of thing. He says, and you deal with important integrity with your neighbor. You return the best to him. If you find something your neighbor lost, you all know how kids deal with that. You know, finders keepers, losers weepers. God says, no, you're supposed to take it back to the person if you know who lost this material. Business integrity, that's love. Treating people as you would be treated, sanctifying God's name as well. Leviticus says, you shall not swear by my name, falsely profane the name of thy God. If we had time, I was going to have you look up Matthew 5:33, 37, where Jesus indicts the Jews of his day who come up with all these detailed evasions. The Jews would say, for instance, if you swear by the gold in the temple, then it's not as binding as if you had sworn by the name of God. And Jesus says, knock it off. God owns the gold in the temple, it's his throne and so forth. And so you're always swearing by God. And all your little verbal evasions show that you don't have a good heart. That's why Jesus says, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Whatever is more than that is from the evil one here. Leviticus says, you're not loving your neighbor if you start messing around. You take the name of the Lord in a vow. You live up to what you say you're going to do. Prompt payment of wages. The wages of a hired servant, verse 13 says, shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. James 5, 4 cites that, by the way, indicts the rich of his day because wages are being withheld from the people that work in the fields and so forth. If you love your neighbor, you petty him just like you promised. Some people, middle class, upper middle class, maybe some in this room get far enough ahead financially where if their employer is two or three days late or a week late with your paycheck, you're able to survive. But you know those who are at the lower end of the spectrum financially, they often live from day to day, hand to mouth, as we sometimes say. So you withhold their pay. You are hurting them greatly. It's not like you have some wealthy guy who can fall back on what he has. If you loved your neighbor as yourself, you would pay him promptly care for the less privileged. You're not to curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind. It's a horrible thing to do to ridicule the handicapped or to take their parking place at the store because you don't like the fact that the government allows that regulation. How often have I known people who out of their spite at the government interfering in something, end up not loving the handicap. See, the fact of the matter is Christians should be willing to give up the closer parking places because we love people, not because the government tells us we have to do it. No partiality you shall do. No unrighteousness in judgment. Don't respect the person of the poor or the person of the mighty just. James 2:9 says, it is a sin when we show respect to persons. Leviticus 19 talks about not going up and down as a talebearer among God's people. How often do we engage in loose talk and we're really cutting people down and acting as talebearers even though we wouldn't say we are gossips or liars. Open criticism. Verse 17 don't hate your brother in your heart. You shall rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. Jesus said in Matthew 18, we're to go to our brothers when we have something against them. You're not supposed to continue to carry a grudge against them. And then finally a disposition to bless. Don't take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of black people. In Matthew 5:44 48, Jesus says, the perfection of our heavenly Father is seen and that he has sun and rain come upon the righteous and the unrighteous. So those who are God's enemies are nevertheless blessed by him. And he said, if we would be like our Father in heaven, if we would be perfect, then we too should bless those who persecute us, pray for those who despitefully use us. I've said to this group time and time again, maybe I'm telling you too much about me. I find that the hardest command in the Bible, there are a lot of hard commands, but in our sinfulness, it's so hard to bless those who mistreat you. And yet if we'd be like God, God blesses those who have mistreated him, mistreated his name, have been rebellious against him, him. And so Moses lays out. Of course Jesus is speaking through Moses, but Moses lays out all these illustrations and then he says, love your neighbor as yourself. I just want to praise God that we are not left in the dark, you know, some kind of loosey goosey concept of love. There are a lot of other illustrations that could be used as well that are biblical. But just taking these, can't you see how many ways, how many times you fall short of being a loving person? Well, if this doesn't indict you, First Corinthians 13 will. Of course, I think we all have to be honest and say we don't love our neighbors as ourselves. These examples have brought that to our attention. Here's how Paul characterizes love so that it isn't left just an empty word to be filled with everybody's own personal content. First Corinthians 13:4. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love doesn't envy, it doesn't push itself forward, and is not puffed up, does not behave in an unseemly way, does not seek its own, is not provoked, takes no account of evil, doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. People come to the pastor for counseling, they're having trouble in their marriage and they've come to the decision that they're going to split up. It's not as though I hate him or her. In fact, I really do. I love him, but I just. I don't want to be married to him anymore. I don't want to be married to her anymore. And you open to First Corinthians 13 and you say you do love. Well, love bears everything. What conceivably, apart from fornication, which Jesus takes Account of what could your mate have done that if you say you love him or her, that you would split? Love bears all things. It breaks my heart to tell you how often people, when they have this brought to their attention, will then define love their own way. They'll say, well, I guess I can't bear everything, but I still love him. I still love her. It's just I don't want to be married anymore. That's true of friendships, too. We get to the place where we say, okay, that's it. I can't bear that. Well, if you loved, you would. You would bear all things. You'd believe the best if you could, and you would endure. Endure all things. I really wish we could do the second half of the study. It obviously is too much for one lesson. I should have known better. But believe me, if it seems like the Bible has a very high moral standard of love, we haven't pushed into the center of it all yet. And so when we do come back to study more, I'm going to go beyond the concrete illustrations of Leviticus 19 and these very high and noble principles that Paul talks about as defining love in 1 Corinthians 13. Because you know what the highest expression of love is according to the Bible and that to which Jesus calls his followers. Greater love has no man than this than a man lay down his life for his friends. So we want to talk about the atonement as the model of love, especially for those who are the New Covenant people of God. We will do that, Lord willing, in a couple of weeks. Any questions or comments before we wrap things up tonight? I won't do as long a study on each of the fruit of the Spirit, but you might want to go and do so. Pick up some books and read on it. It's a fascinating short section of Christian morality. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Any and let's pray. Lord Jesus, we do wish to be your followers. And we do wish to have in us the mark of discipleship. We do wish to see in ourselves more and more the evidence that we are born again. We do want to keep the greatest of the commandments. And so we ask you that you would work in us a greater love for you and a greater love for our neighbor as well. We have seen held up before us as in a mirror, an example and a definition of what love really is. And we would just be deceiving ourselves if we pretended that we matched up to everything that we've read. We know that we are an unloving sort of people. We do not find it in us naturally to do the things that you have called us to do. We don't find it easy to emulate your own perfection. And so we don't ask that you would send us away from here with just a greater moral desire to pump up love within ourselves. We ask rather that you would fill our hearts by your grace. We love help us to realize the great love you have shown us and make that love transform us. That we would be able then, in your love and power and grace, to love others as well and in this way demonstrate the fruit of what the Holy Spirit does in the lives of people. We thank you for beginning that work in us. We pray that you would perfect it till the day of Christ, for it's in his name that we pray. Amen. This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonsen Institute. Duplication, sharing and distribution is encouraged. For more information about the life and Ministry of Dr. Greg L. Bonson, visit our website, bonsoninstitute.com where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.