They Will Know You By Your Love
We have been using these pastoral letters over the last two months to examine many of the different “one another” passages in the New Testament. I hope it has been an encouragement to you; it has certainly encouraged me as I have watched you live out these commands from God in the life of our church.
As we conclude this topic with this pastoral letter, I want to return to a quote I shared in the first pastoral letter in this series: “Holiness is not a mystical condition experienced in relation to God but in isolation from human beings. You cannot be good in a vacuum, but only in the real world of people” (John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, 184).
I have reflected on this quote in my own mind with each of these pastoral letters as we have considered how we are to treat one another. This is so incredibly important for us to understand: no matter how theologically orthodox our Christian profession may be, our faith must be evidenced by our love for one another. An unloving Christian is a contradiction in terms.
Nobody spoke of the connection between love for God and love for neighbor as much as the Lord Jesus, and in no passage did He speak more clearly of love for one another than in John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Think of all the other things Jesus could have said. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you pray earnestly, if you prophesy, if you speak in tongues, if you cast out demons, if you heal others. Without love all of those things, and in fact all of the Christian life, are but a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
Our Lord is clear: Our love for one another is the visible evidence that we are His disciples.
That Your Love May Abound More and More
For nearly eleven years, I have had the tremendous privilege of watching you as a congregation grow and mature. There have been so many areas of growth: your theological understanding, your zeal for worship, your knowledge of the Word. But perhaps more than any other, I have been so blessed as you have grown in your love for one another. I recently heard one of our newer members say “I have been brought to tears so many times because this congregation has made me feel so entirely loved.” I second that emotion! Every week, I watch as you heed the words of Romans 12:10, to “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”
Of course, as there always will be on this side of glory, there is still room for growth. In my own prayers for you, I echo Paul’s prayer for the Philippians, “that your love my abound more and more…” (Phil 1:9)! My desire is that this letter might play a small role in urging us forward to love that would absolutely overflow from the congregation in such a way that it would utterly transform our entire community.
What is Love?
Our culture’s definition of love is that it is primarily a feeling. We should “feel” love towards others, and then we can act that way. And if we don’t feel love, then we don’t have to act in love. The problems with such a mindset are obvious: Isn’t the reason so many marriages end today because people claim to have “fallen out of love”?
The New Testament uses various forms of the term translated “love” 228 times, and the vast majority of them are verbs. Biblically speaking, love is not a feeling; it’s an action. It’s something that must manifest itself in visible, tangible ways. John, sometimes known as “The Apostle of Love,” makes this point with great clarity in 1 John 3:18, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
Love must be expressed in how we treat one another, or it cannot be called love. We can say we love our brother, but if we won’t visit him when he’s lonely or help him when he is troubled, there is no love. CS Lewis is on point here: “Don’t waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did.”
And far from being something we do when we “feel” like it, the kind of love Jesus commands is one that is most active when we least feel like it: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:44-46).
Thankfully, what Jesus commands from us, He also enables within us.
What Love Is…Jesus Is
All of us are familiar with the famous love passage in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Naturally speaking, we may have tendencies toward some of these things, but none of us does them even close to perfectly.
But Jesus does. We could insert his name into this passage in place of love, and it would make perfect sense: “Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus does not envy or boast…”. In other words, in Jesus Christ, we have One who loves our souls absolutely perfectly! He does not treat us as we deserve, but rather treats us every bit as well as He deserves (Psalm 103:10-12). He does not love us with a fleeting, fickle love, but with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). He does not love us in order to get something in return, but He gives His love freely and in unimaginable abundance (Romans 8:32). To quote Jonathan Edwards, “God’s love is an ocean without shore or bottom.” There is absolutely no love like His in all the world- a love so undeserved, so immeasurable, so extraordinary, that we cannot truly encounter Him without being impacted by it.
And what we will find is that as we grow closer to Jesus, not only will we grow increasingly amazed at His love for us, but His love will actually begin to live within us, so that we begin to love more like Him.
Love Overflowing
Paul begins his great list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 with love. If we wish to bear such fruit, we must be planted by streams of living water, which yields fruit in its season (Psalm 1:3). Before we can truly love others well, we must walk closely with Him. As we do, not only do we love Him supremely, but we begin to love others powerfully.
Doubtless we do not do it very well. Sometimes love can be hard, and some people are harder to love than others. But aren’t Christians supposed to love one another even when we’re difficult- because our God loved us when we were difficult? Because the Gospel has transformed us, our love doesn’t start with how deserving the other person is; it starts in our own hearts as we are filled to overflowing with the love of God.
Here’s another way of thinking of it: Imagine carrying a cup full of liquid through a crowd and someone bumps into you. Whatever is in that cup will splash out- it will overflow. Dear ones, when difficult people “bump” into us, whatever is inside our hearts will come out. This is why our Lord says in Mark 7:21-23 “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
The only way to have love overflow out from us, is for us to have a constant intake of love poured in. And as we have already demonstrated, the only true and constant source of love in the universe is the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Love, the Great Apologist
Notice our Lord’s words: by this all people will know. People may not affirm our beliefs, but they should not be able to deny our love.
History has proven our Lord’s words to be true. As the second century of Christianity began to unfold, the faith was spreading throughout the Roman Empire—particularly to some of its great cities like Rome and Carthage. Government leaders were on high alert, keeping an eye on these Christians. Fairly soon, Christians became considered enemies of the people because they would not sacrifice to pagan gods. Rumors had begun to circulate in some places about what Christians actually taught and did in their meetings together. Persecution was becoming increasingly prevalent.
One church leader, Tertullian, gave an apology (from a Greek word meaning “defense”) of the Christian faith. In it, he argued that it was an observable fact that the lives of Christians were marked by far greater love and integrity than their pagan neighbors. Here is what Tertullian wrote:
“It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See how they love one another, they say, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, they say, for they themselves will sooner put to death (The Apology, ch. 39).”
And conversely, do we not realize that when we are angry, annoyed, frustrated, compelled to gossip about or slander others, we are undermining our own testimony to the world? How often has the world seen the church’s pettiness and division, and thought “they’re just like everyone else?” This should not be, for “everyone else” does not have the redeeming love of Christ or the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit!
If people outside our church today were to take a careful look at us, would their overall impression be, “Those people sure love each other!”? While they might not agree with what we believe, they ought not be able to deny that there is something supernatural in our love for one another.
But the Greatest of These Is Love
Brothers and sisters, over these two months of looking at the “one another” passages, we have seen many different instructions about how to live within the body of Christ. Love is not just another thing in that list; it is the common thread that unites together all of life in the Church. If we love one another, we will seek to live in harmony with one another, forgive one another, count one another as more important than ourselves, build one another up, and welcome one another. Love ties all of these things together.
You, dear flock, do these things so well, and yet we must always seek to grow in our love for one another. How can we do this?
Only by fixing our eyes upon the One who is love Himself; looking to Christ in the Gospel.
I love you all and am so blessed to have you-
Pastor Alex
