A Call to Holy Love

A CALL TO HOLY LOVE

An Exposition of Leviticus 19:9-18

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: February 2, 2025

Series: Pursuing Relational Health on Communion Sundays

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

Well, good morning. I invite you to turn to Leviticus, chapter 19. And just to remind you, this is a first Sunday of the month sermon. Starting in December, I began devoting the first sermon of the month to the theme of relationships, really trying to hone in on the fact that God designed life to work in such a way that life is really about right relationships – about having a right relationship with the Lord and also having a right relationship with one another – and that these relationships, our relationship with the Lord and our relationship with one another, are interrelated. And so, I'm aiming for simplicity in these sermons. The subject matter that we are addressing is not complicated to understand, but because of the vestiges of sin within us, we often do struggle to live these things out in a faithful and constructive way. So these sermons are designed to encourage us to live these principles out just a little bit better. And, of course, that's something that has to be the result of God's gracious working in our hearts and lives.

At the end of these sermons, on the first Sunday of the month, I give two or three of you an opportunity to briefly respond to the sermon or to the sermon text or to the themes that we are addressing on the first Sunday of the month. So we'll do that again this morning after the sermon. So, I'd like to read Leviticus, chapter 19, verses 9 through 18.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says,

⁹ “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. ¹⁰ And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.

¹¹ “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. ¹² You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

¹³ “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.¹⁴ You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.

¹⁵ “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. ¹⁶ You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD.

¹⁷ “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. ¹⁸ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:9-18)

This is the word of God, and it is for our good. Let's pray:

Father, we pray that you would impress the truth of your word, the wisdom of your character, upon our hearts and minds this morning, to the end that the Holy Spirit would transform us and transform our relationships and produce good fruit in and through our lives. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

THE CALL TO HOLINESS

So before unpacking these 10 verses, I want to call your attention to the beginning of the chapter, because the beginning of the chapter frames the whole chapter. So look at verses one and two. What we need to understand is that the Lord calls His people to holiness. And it is this call to holiness that frames the entire chapter of chapter 19. And of course, I just gave us a 10-verse excerpt (v. 9-18), but it all relates to holiness. So let me read Leviticus 19, verses 1 and 2:

“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”” (Leviticus 19:1-2)

That is the fundamental call upon our lives, that we would be holy, that we would be set apart, that we would be distinct in the way that we live. And this holiness applies to every aspect of life. If you were to read through chapter 19, you'll see a variety of instructions. Obviously, we need to be holy in our worship of God. But holiness also relates very much to the way that we relate to one another. Hence the call to love in the 10 verses that I read earlier.

Now, why are we called to be holy? Well, we are called to be holy because the Lord is holy. The Lord is unique, distinct, and set apart. And we are to reflect his holiness.

Why are we called to reflect his holiness? Because he is our God. Because we are in relationship with Him. Notice that phrase: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (italics added). We're in relationship with Him. And the reason that we are in relationship with him is because he has called us out. He has redeemed us. If you were to look – I'm not gonna turn there – but if you were to look into Deuteronomy, chapter 7, you would hear about the Lord electing His people and setting his affection upon them and then redeeming them from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery (see Deuteronomy 7:6-8). And of course, as Christian believers, we have a greater redemption that we have experienced – not out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of socio-economic slavery, but rather out of the slavery of sin and death through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

And so, you have to understand something very important about this call to pursue holiness in our conduct and in the way that we live. We don't pursue holiness in order to get into a relationship with God. We don't pursue holiness in order to be loved and chosen by God. We don't pursue holiness in order to get God's attention. Rather, we contemplate his grace, that God, out of his own grace and mercy, took the initiative to summon us to Himself, to redeem us through Christ, to make us his people. And now, having received his grace and belonging to him, now we have a calling upon us to pursue holiness, to walk with the One who redeemed us, and to represent him faithfully in the way that we live our lives.

This call to holiness is not limited to the Old Testament, but the call remains upon us as New Testament believers. The Apostle Peter wrote this to Christians – this is from 1 Peter, chapter one. It will probably sound familiar. Peter wrote these words:

¹⁴ As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, ¹⁵ but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,¹⁶ since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” ¹⁷ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, ¹⁸ knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ²⁰ He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you ²¹ who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (1 Peter 1:14-21)

He has called us. He has ransomed us. He has brought us into relationship with Himself. And that is why we must pursue holiness and seek to reflect his character.

Now I want you to notice how this call to holiness and to reflect the Lord's holiness runs like a thread through the 10-verse passage that I read at the beginning. Notice how each 2-verse paragraph concludes. We have some ethical instruction, some moral instruction, and how does it end in verse 10? “I am the LORD your God.” Then another paragraph of moral instruction, and how does it conclude in verse 12? “I am the LORD.” Then another paragraph of moral instruction, and how does it end in verse 14? “I am the LORD.” Then another Paragraph of moral instruction, and how does it end in verse 16? “I am the LORD.” Then another paragraph of moral instruction, and how does it end in verse 18? “I am the LORD.” So, that thread of ‘be holy as I am holy’ runs through this entire passage.

And, to the point with which I opened the sermon and all of these first Sunday of the month sermons, it is evident that our relationship with the Lord and our relationship with other people are interrelated. Just think about the bookends of verse 2 and verse 18. Verse 2 is: “be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” But look at verse 18. Near the end of verse 18, it says: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Our Lord Jesus Christ identified that instruction to “love your neighbor as yourself” as the second most important commandment in the entire Bible (see Matthew 22:34-40). There it is in Leviticus, chapter 19. So at the beginning, be holy. Be holy corresponds to the greatest commandment in the whole Bible, which is to “love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30)  And then verse 18: “love your neighbor as yourself”, which is the second most important commandment in the Bible.

We easily become imbalanced, though. Some people take the call to holiness and become hyper-religious and don't know how to love people. Other people want to focus on the horizontal relationships and – call it whatever you want – they're good with trying to love people, but they leave God out of it. Well, that's not the way God designed life to work. God is at the center. He calls us into fellowship with Himself and He calls us to reflect his character in the way that we treat other image bearers of God. And every human being is an image bearer of God.

A CALL TO HOLY LOVE

So, let's walk through the 10-verse passage that I read at the beginning. Again, I'm aiming for simplicity. I'm going to identify a key concept that captures the instruction (for each 2-verse section), then I'm going to read those two verses and then make a few comments about it. And we'll do that for each of the five 2-verse paragraphs here.

Compassion (v. 9-10)

So for verses nine and ten, the key concept is compassion. Compassion. Let me read it again:

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:9-10)

Compassion. Holy compassion. Because the Lord is compassionate. It is in the nature of God to be compassionate, gracious and merciful, especially to those who are the most vulnerable among us. It says in Exodus chapter 22:

²⁵ “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. ²⁶ If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, ²⁷ for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate. (Exodus 22:25-27)

And then it says in Proverbs 22, verses 22 and 23:

²² Do not rob the poor, because he is poor,
    or crush the afflicted at the gate,
²³ for the Lord will plead their cause
    and rob of life those who rob them. (Prov. 22:22-23)

So the Lord has a special interest in the most vulnerable, the poor, the afflicted, the lowly, the sojourner. And the instruction here –  we're obviously going to have to apply the principle into a less agrarian or non-agrarian society such as ours is – but the principle is that if you think about the totality of your harvest or the totality of your yield, your increase, your income, your profits, if you think about the totality of that: God puts all of that at your disposal, but it's not all for you. It's not all for you. God wants you to have the mindset that a portion – and it's not about trying to identify a particular amount or percentage or whatever – but God wants us to have the understanding that there is to be a meaningful portion of what he entrusts to us that should be reserved for the poor, the afflicted, the lowly, the sojourner.

And there's all kinds of ways of working that out. It has to get worked out practically. But when you take food out of your own food pantry to make dinner for one who is in need, or when you devote resources to the last Saturday Supper, or when you write a check to go into the benevolence fund, among many, many other possibilities, such as lending resources or equipment or whatever, running errands, to use your life and your resources where you expend time, money and effort – that is the idea here.

Let me ask you a couple of diagnostic questions. I want to ask some diagnostic questions for each of these five paragraphs. First, do you understand that the Lord wants you to work hard, in part so that you have something to give to those in need? That's what it says in Ephesians 4:28. In Ephesians 4:28, Paul says stop stealing and start working. Now, the assumption obviously is that you're working to provide for your own needs and the needs of your family. That's assumed. But Paul says, work with your own hands so that you have something to give to someone who has need. Don't be a taker, be a giver. Second, do you actually set aside portions of your increase for the compassionate care of other people? That's what we're called to.

Integrity (v. 11-12)

Moving to the next paragraph, verses 11 and 12, the key concept is integrity. Let me read verses 11 and 12:

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:11-12)

Integrity. Holy integrity. Because the Lord has integrity. It says in Deuteronomy 32:

“The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.” (Deut. 32:4)

And then Psalm 111, verse 7 says,

“The works of his hands are faithful and just;
    all his precepts are trustworthy” (Psalm 111:7)

All his ways are justice. All his precepts are trustworthy. He's without iniquity. He has perfect integrity.

And the instruction that we see here in Leviticus 19:11-12 is that, if I could kind of get to the heart of this, something is fundamentally wrong when we're always trying to negotiate relationships in our favor – if my fundamental concern is that whatever this relationship or this interaction or this transaction or this contract, my fundamental and primary and basically my exclusive concern is that it be favorable to me, and I'm not thinking about it being favorable, fair, just and helpful to the person with whom I'm dealing, then that will easily lead to the cutting of corners, shading the truth, trying to manipulate the other person.

So, we're called here to respect other people's property. We should want other people to be secure in their possessions. We're called to be truthful, to say what we mean and mean what we say, and to be faithful to our commitments. It's very easy in the heat of a transaction or in the heat of a moment to over-promise, to talk a good game, and even to employ God-talk like ‘I swear to God’. It sounds so good. It can be very manipulative, though. Jesus said, you shouldn't even swear (i.e., swear an oath) at all. Be the kind of person who simply tells the truth. Don’t try to make things look better than they are. Just let your yes be yes and your no be no. But if you are ever going to swear an oath in God's name, then you must be absolutely solemn and humble and truthful about it, lest we dishonor our neighbors and dishonor God's name.

So let me ask you a few questions here. And you know, think about transactions, think about contracts, think about agreements, think about the things that you promised to do. Do you want other people to be safe in the enjoyment of their property? Do you make it a point to treat others fairly? Do you tell the truth? Do you say what you mean and mean what you say? Do you keep your commitments? Do you fulfill your contracts? Do you resist the temptation to over-promise and under-deliver? Do you resist the temptation to sweet-talk and God-talk people with your good intentions when frankly you have no intention of making good on your words?

It's very easy to promise people the world when you want to get out of a pickle. But we're called to honesty and integrity.

Respect (v. 13-14)

In the next paragraph, the key concept is respect. It took me a long time to get the right word for this one – not that it’s the right word, but I think it's a good word. Respect, and I mean respecting others. Let me read these two verses:

“You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:13-14)

Holy respect. Very interesting – the Lord respects and regards human beings, not because we're above him, but nevertheless the Holy One pays regard to his image bearers. Let me read you five verses from Psalm 146, where it says:

⁵ Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the LORD his God,
⁶ who made heaven and earth,
    the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
⁷     who executes justice for the oppressed,
    who gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
⁸     the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
    the LORD loves the righteous.
⁹ The LORD watches over the sojourners;
    he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. (Psalm 146:5-9)

The very people that the power brokers of this world, the proud of this world, often look down upon, the Lord pays regard to: the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoners, the blind, the bowed down, the sojourners, the widow and the orphan.

And so here again we're called to reflect the Lord's character in the way that we treat other people. First of all, we should do nothing that would intimidate or threaten or make our neighbor vulnerable.

The initial instruction in verse 13 applies in our relationships to all of our neighbors, to any of our neighbors: “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him.” And the robbing here in verse 13, the word even suggests violence. There's an aggression here, a treating your neighbor harshly, seeking to gain a power and advantage over him. And we're not to do that. We're not to make our neighbor vulnerable and threatened on our account.

Furthermore, when we see a neighbor who is in a vulnerable situation, we need to be very careful to minister to him or her accordingly. So the next section there in verse 13 says, “The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.” Now, our economic, cultural situation is, for most of us anyways, a little bit different than this. And there's nothing wrong if person A agrees to hire person B and person B agrees to be hired by person A with the understanding that person B is going to be paid weekly or bi weekly or bimonthly or whatever, that's fine. You're entering into an agreement and it's supposed to be satisfactory for all parties. But here you have a situation where a hired worker, a day laborer, would in many ways be dependent upon the pay from that day for his daily bread, for his daily bread tomorrow. But the point is to discharge your obligations in a timely manner. Because again, we're not to be thinking in terms of how can I hold on to what is mine for as long as possible? But the mindset should be, how can I get what this brother or sister has earned – how can I get this to him as soon as possible, in a timely manner? Because we're to be thinking about his or her good and well-being and the well-being of his or her family.

So we're not to make people vulnerable on our account. Those who are in a vulnerable situation, we're to attend as best we can to their needs and to fulfill our obligations to them. And verse 14, when we see those who are already in a vulnerable situation, we should not do anything that would add to the burden upon those who are already vulnerable. In fact, the Lord's call upon us to love other people would actually encourage us to alleviate the burdens of the vulnerable. But it says, “You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God”. Having a fear of God and the fact that he's sovereign over those who are vulnerable, over the deaf, and over the blind or any other handicapped or vulnerable situation – we're called to regard God in that equation and the image of God in our neighbor.

The human heart is very sick in its sinfulness. The picture here is shocking, and yet it's not difficult to imagine how these things happen among those who are sold to sin. You have someone who's deaf and they can't hear you, so you decide to take advantage of them or to mock them or make fun of them, and you curse them. You speak out loud, presumably in the presence of others, and the immature get a good laugh as you mock the one who cannot hear and cannot defend and cannot stand up for himself. It would be the same kind of thing to put a stumbling block in the path of the blind – ‘Hey, let's set up an obstacle and let's watch him fall down’. This could be understood literally or metaphorically, to make life difficult for those who are already in a difficult position. Our mindset ought to be just the opposite, that we're going out of our way to serve and help and bless.

So let me ask you a few diagnostic questions. Do you have an ennobling or demeaning influence on the people around you? I love the word ennobling. Ennobling, it means to convey to others a sense of dignity, because every human being in the world is an image bearer of God and has dignity on that account, regardless of any other circumstances or factors in their lives. Do you ennoble others, especially the people that most people tend to forget or not care about? Do you help other people to flourish? Do you pay your obligations in a timely manner – even thinking of perhaps the bills that get sent to your email or your home address? Do you attempt to get as much as you can out of other people for your own benefit? Or do you attempt to give as much as you can to other people for their benefit? Do you exploit the weak or strengthen the weak?

Justice (v. 15-16)

Moving to verses 15 and 16, the next key concept is justice. Let me read it:

“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:15-16)

Justice. Holy justice. Because the Lord is just. Now, justice is a broad concept, but the focus here is on impartiality, not showing favoritism, and being utterly committed to truth and to the well-being of your neighbor's reputation. Again, this reflects the character of God. Scripture says: “For God shows no partiality.” (Romans 2:11) “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.” (Deuteronomy 10:17). “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b). And our Lord Jesus said, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24)

So what we see in verses 15 and 16 is a call to justice and truthfulness and honor in court – actually in two courts, the court of law and the court of public opinion, both two very important courts. But the temptation that sinful human beings have is that we have a temptation to make a judgment on the basis of something other than the truth. It could almost be anything, such as “I like that guy, okay? And it's interesting. God knows how we're wired and that we're wired wrong in our sinfulness, and people can fall off either side of the horse. So he says, “You shall not be partial to the poor”. Some people are disposed to be partial to the poor: well, if the poor, afflicted, vulnerable guy has a case, it must be right. No, it may not be right at all. The fact that the man is poor, the fact that the woman is in a lowly position, doesn't ensure the accuracy of the claim. So we're not to be partial to the poor, but we're also not to “defer to the great”. All kinds of people want to rule in favor of the great, the mighty, the rich, the powerful, the well-connected.

But God calls us to something different. It doesn't matter what your social position is or what your economic position is; it doesn't matter what your ethnicity is. It doesn't matter. The personal relationship that we have shouldn't be part of it either. What matters is the truth, what is true in the case. Have a heart that is disposed to uncover the truth, for only then can you make a righteous judgment.

And in verse 16, now you move from more the court of law to the court of public opinion: “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people”. You can ruin a man or a woman by, you know, you can take them to court, could be criminal proceedings, could be civil lawsuit. You can ruin a person that way, but you can also ruin a person by defaming their character or assassinating their reputation. And Matthew Henry has a great quote here on this verse:

“It is as bad an office as a man can put himself into to be the publisher of every man's faults, divulging what was secret, aggravating crimes, and making the worst of every thing that was amiss, with design to blast and ruin men's reputation, and to sow discord among neighbours.”[1]

Another testimony to the sickness of the human heart is how energized people get to tell you the dirt on other people. We're not even supposed to be telling the dirt about other people even if it's true dirt, right? We're not supposed to be just going around like, hey, let me tell you about so and so. And it's even worse when we're dealing with half-truths or falsehood. Do you get stirred up to run your mouth about what's bad about other people? Or do you get stirred up to talk about how wonderful other people are? When you see evidence of God's grace, when you see good things at work in their lives, when you see good fruit growing on the tree of their life, do you get excited about telling other people about that? Do you see how perverted the human heart is? We love all the wrong things, but God wants us to have due regard for the name, the reputation, and the honor of our neighbors.

Verse 16 concludes: “and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor”. Again, you could stand up against the life of your neighbor in a court of law or in the court of public opinion. Where there is due process in a court of law, if our neighbor truly is guilty of a serious crime, then there will be consequences for that. But we need to be very careful that we are being good stewards of the information that we have.

So let me ask you a few diagnostic questions. Are you loyal to the truth? Do you handle information with care? Do you know how to keep your mouth shut? Do you know how to stay away from people who can't keep their mouth shut?

Love (v. 17-18)

In the last paragraph, verses 17 and 18, the key concept is love. Let me read it:

“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:17-18)

Now, once again, love is a very broad concept, but there's something very specific in mind here, which I'll get to in just a moment. But think again about this concept of holy love, okay? The Lord is loving. The Lord loves his people. And it's worth pointing out that the word that's translated love here is not chesed. Remember, Dane preached a whole sermon on chesed. Chesed involves faithfulness, steadfast love, mercy, and loyalty. But that's not the word here. The word here is aheb, which is another word for love, but it definitely involves the affections and the emotions.[2] And we are to love our neighbors with affection, with emotional investment, and that is in fact how the Lord loves his people.

This word aheb is used in Psalm 146: “The LORD loves the righteous.” (Psalm 146:8) It is used in Jeremiah 31: I have loved [aheb] you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness [chesed] to you.” (Jeremiah 31:3) Loved is aheb, faithfulness is chesed – “I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my chesed to you.” And very much to the point of our passage here in Leviticus, it says in Proverbs 3: “My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” (Proverbs 3:11-12)

Now this is a very remarkable and surprising two verses here in Leviticus 19. Because what is in view here is conflict. You have actual or perceived conflict with a brother or sister, with another member of the community. This could be applied outside of the Christian community, but with the instruction to not “bear a grudge against the sons of your own people” (v. 18), this is especially applicable to the believing community. I long to see more and more people putting verses 17 and 18 into practice, because God is telling us how to love one another in the face of actual or perceived conflict.

He says, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your brother.” You shall reason frankly or argue or reprove or correct.[3] What is in view here is that there is some conflict, there is some misunderstanding, there is some disagreement, there is some offense. Maybe they have sinned against you, or maybe that's the perception, and you can't just let it go. And God here is giving us a recipe for the preservation of love and the preservation of peace within the body of Christ. Don't stuff it away. Because if you stuff it away, number one, you're not loving your brother or sister who needs to hear from you, because you guys gotta sort this out. Maybe you need to rescue them from a sin. Maybe you need to sort out a misunderstanding. Well, if we don't do that and we stuff it away, guess what? Our love for that brother or sister will grow cold, and hate and bitterness and resentment and desire for vengeance and bearing a grudge will rise. And the longer that that goes on, the more those bitter and toxic emotions will grow.

If I can refer to Matthew Henry once more, he said something really interesting. I’m not replicating Matthew Henry’s argument exactly, but drawing upon and applying what he said. The way that people often think is like this: Well, I love my friend, and therefore I don't want to trouble my friend with my concern over his conduct, or I don't want to trouble my friend with this disagreement that we have. So I’ll just let it go. And Matthew Henry would say that we're thinking completely wrongly when we think like that. We should be thinking: He's my friend, he's my brother, my sister. I love them. I want to have a good relationship with them. I want them to be well. Therefore, I gotta deal with the conflict, gotta deal with the offense, gotta deal with the disagreement. That's what love does. And then you work it out together, and you grow in grace and you preserve the peace.[4]

And by the way, this is what God does, right? It says in Isaiah, chapter one, when God is speaking to his sinful people, God isn't holding it in and stuffing it down, but He is speaking openly to his people about their faults:

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:18-20)

Here are a few diagnostic questions related to verses 17-18. Do you pursue love within the church family by having frank conversations with people who have sinned against you or who have offended you, or with whom you have a disagreement or about whom you have a concern? Do you love people enough to correct them? Do you love people enough to seek peace with them when that peace is threatened?

And by the way, it takes some courage to initiate a tough conversation. So I just want to encourage all of us: if somebody within this church family loves you enough to initiate a difficult conversation, maybe they're trying to reprove you or correct you or bring an issue to your attention or sort out a disagreement, let's be in the habit of saying, ‘Thank you.’ ‘Thank you for caring about my soul. Thank you for caring about our relationship. Thank you for caring about peace in this body.” Let's be in the habit of thanking people for initiating hard conversations. I think that will bless the other person too. And then we can sit down and talk about it.

JESUS EMBODIES HOLY LOVE

Now thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ as I conclude this message, I just want you to think about how Jesus embodies all of this instruction.

Jesus embodies compassion: All of the riches and rights and privileges in the universe belong to Jesus. And he leveraged his wealth for the good of us poor souls.

Jesus embodies integrity. Who could accuse him of any sin? He faithfully declared the Father's words. He meant everything that he said and he kept every promise.

What about respect? Jesus embodies respect, particularly by paying regard for the lowly and the outsiders, the people that everybody else wants to forget about. He showed grace to the children, to the lowly, to the lepers, to the outsiders, to the women, to the demon-possessed. He made room for them.

Jesus embodies justice. He didn't care about anybody's position. He had no fear of man. He had no fear of political power. He had no fear of consequences to his own life or reputation or person. He spoke the truth frankly to whomever he was talking to.

And Jesus embodies love. Not only did he love us by speaking frankly to us about our sin. Not only did he not take vengeance and not bear a grudge against us, but – wonder of wonders – he took all of our offenses, all of our trespasses upon himself. And with gladness in his heart for the joy that was set before him, and with love for his people, he paid the price to make it right.

Compassion, integrity, respect, justice, and love are perfectly embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ, and perfectly embodied in the Gospel of our Lord.

Let's pray: 

Father, I pray that you would take these simple concepts and impress upon us that we must grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must grow in the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. We must grow in our practical love and care for one another. And Father, I pray that the transformation and the love that you are producing within us would overflow to the people in our communities and that you would draw more and more people to the Savior. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

ENDNOTES

[1] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Volume 1 – Genesis to Deuteronomy. Reference Library Edition. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company: p. 520.

[2] See the entry “157. aheb” via the Bible Hub. Available online: https://biblehub.com/hebrew/157.htm.

[3] See the entry “3198. yakach” via the Bible Hub. Available online: https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3198.htm.

[4] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Volume 1 – Genesis to Deuteronomy. Reference Library Edition. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company: p. 520.