Love One Another

Fred Coulter - July 7, 2001

Now in my travels this year, and by the way, I’ve been traveling almost every month for right at two years now. And I’m not going to go anywhere in July. But I will toward the end of August, so I’m going to have seven weeks in a row where I’m not having to get on an airplane and go someplace and travel. So even though I like to get out and travel and see the brethren, and the trip in Canada was really great, it is good not to travel once in a while, and so I’m happy to have this time at home and do some things. And by the way, the Harmony Of The Gospels, by the time you get this tape it will be just about finished printing and be ready for mailing.

But anyway, in my travels I’ve seen people come out of all kinds of Churches of God. And I’ve seen people with their difficulties and their problems, and their ups and downs, and trials and things that they go through. And let’s just understand something very important here. You’re going to have troubles in your life… Let’s put it this way, people are going to have troubles in their lives whether they are in the Church or not, ok. Did you have troubles and difficulties before you came into the Church of God? Yes. But you have one great advantage being in the Church of God. You have God with you, and you have the word of God, and God shows you the right and the proper way. Now in the world we like to solve problems, and problem solvers are promoted.

But you see, many times when you solve a problem or you look at a difficulty and you try and correct it, what you’re doing, you’re correcting the effect. And God wants us to learn how to correct the cause, and to replace the cause with the right and the proper things. And of course, God calling us, the most important thing that we need to understand is that God has given us a guaranteed way which will never fail. Do you understand that? Not that you’re going to eliminate difficulties and problems. You’re going to encounter them all the time. That’s just the nature of life. But it’s what you do with it and how you do it. And remember this. In all your troubles and difficulties, with the Spirit of God in you, Christ is in you. Christ is there with you. So as you suffer, He suffers. But He gives a guaranteed way… Let’s come here to 1 Corinthians 13 and let’s see the guaranteed way, because God is eternal, and God is righteous, and God is true and so He gives us the way so that we understand that by using this and building on this foundation we can never fail, and will attain to eternal life.

Now here, let’s pick it up, 1 Corinthians 13:8. We’ll come back here to part of this a little later on. “[Love] Charity never faileth…” That’s what we need to focus on. All the other things are going to fail, be in part, ok. And then he says these three remain, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. So let’s start out with what we need to do first.

Let’s come to Mark 12:29. This is the most important thing. This is where it needs to be. And of course what we’re going to talk about is something that you do not have naturally, so what we’re talking about then is going to be a gift which comes from God through the power of His Holy Spirit. And since we have human nature to overcome we are going to have our ups and downs in learning this. And I’m still learning myself, brethren, see. We’re all learning and every day presents us with an opportunity to learn and to apply this. And of course the Pharisees were always wanted to know which is the great commandment. So they came to Jesus and said, “Which is the first commandment?” “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandment is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…” (Mark 12:29-30). And since this is the greatest, therefore this cannot be preached enough because we are always going to have, as we will see, where the troubles come from and why we need the love of God. And why the love of God keeps us in the right focus and what we need to do. That’s why that is first.

And notice, it is to be absolutely indivisible. It is to be absolutely all. And the reason is, is that God in His plan is going to give you the greatest, greatest things. Mark 12:30, ok. “…All your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, [unto it] namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Now we’re going to see there are four aspects of love. Here are the first two, God and your neighbor. And your neighbor can be anyone. Now we’ll talk about that a little later on here. But let’s continue. “There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto Him, Well, Master, Thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (vs. 30-33). It’s more than all the religious effort that you can make and this man understood it. Now we’ll have to hold in abeyance, did he learn it and become a true follower of Christ as a true Christian? We don’t know, we’re not told.

But notice what Jesus said here, verse 34. “And when Jesus saw that he answered discretely, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” Now what is this telling us. This is also telling us how the Kingdom of God is going to operate, doesn’t it? Now everybody’s so interested in getting practice for the Kingdom of God so they are qualified. We even have some women rising up as preachers because how are they going to be able to teach in the Kingdom of God unless they teach now? Very simple: Learn the love of God and you will know. And when you’re a resurrected spirit being you will have no problem teaching and you will have the authority at that time to teach, ok? Not all men teach either, so it applies the same way.

Now let’s come here to Matthew 9:10 and here is another scripture, you see. You see, God does things differently than people look at things. And that’s why we’re here and the world is not here. God is the One Who does the choosing and calling. And the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t like what He was doing, verse 10. “And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat [to eat] in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.”

Now what I want you to do, I want you to think of a local restaurant/bar, and picture this as kind of like it’s happing in Hollister today. They’ve got all the motorcyclists there. And I imagine many people raise their eyebrows and turn down their nose when they see all these motorcyclists there. Now there’s one little restaurant/bar in Hollister, it’s called Johnny’s Bar. And they make the greatest hamburgers. And Dolores and I go there and we get a hamburger there from time to time. And it’s really good. So just picture Christ and the disciples in Johnny’s Bar with all the motorcycles out front. And a religious leader walks down and says, “Boy, how can this guy be from God? Look, he’s in Johnny’s Bar, and we know that is a dive, don’t we?”

Let’s read on here, verse 11. “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto His disciples…” Here’s the unsaid thing, see. [If your Master is from God, why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners to be contaminated] “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, He said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth…” Now we have to learn what that means too, see. And I think those who have been in other churches in the world, and other Churches of God, you need to go and learn what that means in relationship to each other, and we’ll talk about that a little bit later on. “…I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (vs. 11-13). So that’s what we are. All the people in the Church of God are sinners. Understand that? We’re all sinners. Now we’re trying not to be sinners in overcoming and using the Holy Spirit of God, but how many times do we fall short because we still have the law of sin and death in us? Well, many, many, many times.

Now let’s look at a love that is even more difficult than this. Let’s come to Matthew 5:43. Here’s the third kind of love. This is the hardest one indeed, see. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.” And almost everywhere I go… Go into a store, or as I checked out of the motel this morning the gal there said, “Have a great day.” And I said, “Thanks, I need one.” No one has wished me an awful day. Have you ever gone into a store to get something and the clerk says, “Thank you, have a miserable day. May your life be just filled with just trouble and difficulty.” So occasionally I answer back and say, “Why thank you, I need a good day but perhaps maybe my enemies need a miserable day.” But that’s not true. What is God interested in even with the enemy? Now I’m not talking about ourselves here in this case. God is interested that the enemy repent. And did you know that’s why He called Saul who became Paul? And still some of the brethren weren’t willing to accept it. Now especially if he killed one of your sons or your daughters, or ran your family off to prison, see. Now that’s a hard pill to swallow, in the modern vernacular, isn’t it? Yes.

Notice what Jesus said. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies…” That’s hard. How do you love your enemies? You do no harm to them because even your enemy is still your neighbor. “…Bless them that curse you…” It’s difficult, isn’t it? I mean even from a point of view of total conversion that’s difficult. “…Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you…” (vs. 44). Now that’s a tall order, isn’t it? Now what I want you to do, I want you to think about this in relationship to your past church experiences, whatever they may be. Because just about everyone who comes finally is able to fellowship with us have come from some church, either a church in the world or a Church of God. And a lot have gone through a lot of difficulties and problems and things and they need to be healed. But in being healed, you can’t be healed unless you understand this. Now, doctrinal problem, that’s another thing. Heresy is another thing. One of the ways that you love your enemy is to expose the truth. State what the truth is. That doesn’t mean because you love them that you give into them. Did Jesus state the truth when He was being tried and later crucified? Yes, and what did He say? “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Did Stephen speak the truth? Yes, he did. Did he love them? Yes. Did he warn them? Yes. Did they love him? No. Did they kill him? Yes. Did he say, “Lord, don’t lay this to their charge”? Yes. So you see, that’s how it’s done.

Now notice verse 45, that’s a key. “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven…” In other words, if you’re going around acting carnally, are you really the children of your Father in heaven or… you probably are, no doubt about that, but your carnality is hanging out. Have there been times when my carnality hangs out? Yes. Have their been times when the whole church sat down with me and said, “Fred, now we want you to listen to us.”? Yes. And have I learned from that? Yes. Has it been beneficial to me? Yes. Has it been beneficial to you? Yes, see. So that’s all a part of love. You need to understand that, see.

Now notice this lest we get to thinking, because God has called us and He’s chosen us and we are special to Him, but lest we forget from where we have come and what our nature really is, let’s understand this. “…For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good…” So when you stand out there and enjoy a beautiful sunrise or beautiful sunset, and everything is just fine and lovely and you feel real great, and you say, “God thank you for this.”, remember it still rose and set on the evil. And when it rains, He says He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans [do] the same?” (vs. 45-46). Now we’ll talk about love of brethren here in just a minute, you see. But you see what He’s saying here is this. If you end up having the kind of carnal love that is in the world for their clubs, for their societies, for the acceptance of the people that belong to them, you know, “My team, my club, my town”, and so forth, and we avoid and shun others, then what have we done any better than the world? Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all what so ever, you see.

“And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?…” (vs. 47). Now, what if you don’t even salute your brethren? Now then where are you? You see, and I see that in my travels where I go. There are a lot of people who have been at each others throats for one reason or another, see. And you’re not going to solve it by going after the problem and say, “this is a problem”. You need to go to the solution and ask God for love. That’s what needs to be. Maybe you’ll get a whole different perspective, you see. I know I have. I know I have. Every time I get angry and upset at something, or I think someone has, you know, well… Then I go pray and I ask God to help me to really understand, give me His love and help me to love that person. And then I see where I’ve fallen short. And then I find out that some of the things I have assumed, have been just that. Assumptions, not true. Since this is not natural and it has to come from God, we should ask for it every day. I do. I do.

You see, let’s understand something here. We’ll just jump ahead a little bit here. True humility does not come because you make yourself humble by being a sycophant. Ok? True humility comes from God when you understand the greatness of God and the greatness of His love, then the greatness of His calling. Then you’re humble and that you understand that you have absolutely nothing you didn’t receive. Everything has come from God. All that which is physical and all that which is spiritual. And you can always do a reality check. Now what is a reality check? Well, you either sit up real straight or stand up real straight and you put your hand right down here and you find your belly button. And when you find it you know you came from your Mom and Dad, and you have nothing that you didn’t receive. That way then, you’re not going to be all uppity-uppity and you know. You’re going to have a little more patience an understanding. But you see the thing is because we’re carnal and human, it’ll go for a little while and then pffft {mouth noise}, something will change, so you’ve got to come back to the reality.

Now here is the reason for the whole thing, verse 48. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” And that is the goal. And if Christ is in you, and God the Father imputes the righteousness of Christ to you, and you love God, and you love your neighbor, and you love your enemies, then you are imputed perfect. Now, do you understand that? All the while realizing your imperfections. See, because God works the opposite way. When you realize your imperfections, you realize that you need the love of God, you realize that you need to express the love of God and that that has to come from God, then you are becoming perfected through the operation of God’s Spirit, see because God does things the opposite way that human beings do. We’ll see that as we go along.

Now, let’s come here to Matthew 7:7. “Ask, and it shall be given you…” Now most people think of asking for physical things. That’s not necessarily what you need to ask for, though you should. Give us this day our daily bread, correct? But what do you need more of? The love of God. And the Greek here means, keep on asking and it shall be given you. But it’s something that you have to then exercise, and it’s something that you have to use, see. Now, as I pointed out you go and you look at the trial that Abraham went through. And finally when he offered his son, remember what the angel said the second time? He said, “Now I now that you fear Me, because you have not withheld your son, your only son from Me.” And so everything that we are going through is so that God can give us His character so that we can come to the same point that Abraham was, that God now knows. And that took quite a few years for that to accomplish, didn’t it? Yes. So likewise with us, it will take some years, see.

“…Seek, and ye shall find…” So you have to ask and you have to seek. You have to ask for the love of God, you have to seek the love of God. And you have to apply the love of God. “…And it shall be opened unto you:” That’s whatever circumstances that you may need or want or whatever it may be. God will work it out His way, and it will be best in the long run. But while you’re going through the trial sometimes it’s difficult to see the end because you haven’t arrived at the end yet. When you have finished the trial and there’s some space and time and you have time to think about it, and you look back, you have perfect 20/20 vision that God was right all along, see.

Verse 8, “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil…” Now I want you to understand. He’s saying, if you then having an evil nature…this is what it is talking about, see. Now notice what that applies to because that is followed shortly after what we read in Matthew 5 about loving your enemies, you see, that you may be perfect. He now says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (vs. 11-12).

Now let’s look at the fourth kind of love. Come to John 13:34. And the fourth kind is the most important kind of love for us who are in the Church of God. And this is something that comes with great difficulty. And this is something that comes with great effort, and prayer, and study, and time, and experience. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another…” Now how are we to do this? Love one another. You might entitle the sermon that - to love one another.

Now after we’ve been scattered and beaten up and gone through so many experiences…you know brethren, it’s nice when we love each other, and we can walk into the congregation, and we can realize, “Hey, these people love me. They love God.” But you know, you have to express it too, see. Now sometimes it’s kind of like the cranky old man, if we could put it that way. The cranky old man, most of the time when you get to know him turns out to be more kind than you would ever imagine. But you’ve got to get past the crankiness, see. And I never will forget, and I’ll mention it again. When I was suffering with my hip before I had the operation, I was in such pain, I was walking down the hall… And those of you who have been in our house, we have a long hall downstairs. And I was just grimacing with pain. And Rachelle was coming this way, and I was walking down the hall, and she’d just seen the movie, “Grumpy Old Men”, see. So she came and said, “Hi Dad, how are you.” And I just sort of grunted, you know, because I was in such pain. And she says, “Dad, you are the two grumpy old men.” And so I’ve never forgotten that, as you just noticed.

But you see, I just use that as an example that you can misinterpret people so easily. And being close together we can misinterpret each other very easily. And if we’ve gone through the mill, and if we’ve had our feelings hurt, and if we have had people, what they call in the world “dump on you”. Now what does that mean? That’s like you’re standing here and all of a sudden a dump truck comes up and dumps a whole load of sand right on you. And sometimes people will do that to you. Come and just dump on you. And you say, “I didn’t deserve that.” You know, you are very sensitive, and yes I tell you some of these wounds are hard to heal. Some of the things that we go through are very difficult and some of the things that we do stay with us a long, long time. And some things that people do to us also stay with us a long, long time. So that’s why the daily prayer is forgive us our sins as we forgive others who trespass against us, you see. We’ll talk about that a little later.

So here’s love, “…as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” Now that’s a great challenge with all of the doctrinal wars and Church wars that we have gone through, and religious wars in the world. I just talked to a man the other day, who had to work for a Hindu. And every Friday the Hindu would ask him, he said, “Well, what are you doing tomorrow?” And he said, “Well, you know, it’s my Sabbath.” Of course he knew he was a Christian and so forth. And one day the Hindu said, “Well, I have no respect for Christianity, I have no respect for Christ.” And we have some people in India that we send things to. Hubert is his name, and he just e-mailed us back and said that this is a Godless, anti-Christ society. Now brethren, where we have freedom and things like this, we need to concentrate on loving God and loving each other. I mean think about that? We have freedom of assembly. We have freedom of speech. They don’t have it. God has given it to us so that we may do His will.

Now let’s come here to John 15:7. “If ye abide in Me [and that means to dwell in Christ], and My words [dwell] abide in you…” Now how do you get the words of Christ in you? By studying through the Spirit of God. And if they’re living in you then that’s how you are living by. See this is the thing that motivates you. “…Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples” (John 15:7-8). Now, you can put in there Galatians 5:22-23, which is the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, and so forth.

Now verse 9, “As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love.” And that means on a continuous basis remain in the love of Christ, and remember we are to love each other as Christ has loved us. Question: With Christ in you, has He put up with a lot of your carnality? Yes. Does He still love you? Yes. Has He cast you off? No. Does He bring it to your attention that you are carnal and miserable? Yes. So that you may what? Repent. And that’s what God has called us to, you see. That’s why we have the nick-name The no hassle, recycle, last resort Church of God, because we’re tired of all the hassle and stupidity that comes along with religion and churches and church wars that have gone on. So what we need to do is, each one of us resolve to stop it. We are not going to instill the love of God by being nit-picky. That won’t happen. You instill the love of God by desiring it and seeking for it, and asking for it, and growing in it, and practicing it. And in your practicing of the love of God, then you have failures that come along so you’re going to learn a lesson.

See, now if you’ve been fighting with your husband or your wife, and you’re mad and you’re angry, and you’re carnal, well stop it and ask God to help you to have the love of God, and ask God to help you love your husband or love your wife in the same way that Christ loves you, and you will see that that will work. I have never, never, never yet seen an argument that has been won by debate. You may get your point across but have you generated love? Now sometimes there’s correction that comes. That’s another story. We’ll talk about that.

“…Continue ye in My love. If ye keep My commandment, ye shall [dwell] abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and [dwell] in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” And how great was this? Well, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (vs. 10-13). Now that’s what it’s all about brethren, and we need to get right to that. We need to understand that.

Now let’s look and see where the trouble comes from, because we’re going to be beset with a lot of troubles and difficulties. Let’s come to Matthew 24:10. And we live in this age. This age is offensive. “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:10-12). So we’ve got the offences of the world, don’t we? Do you think people are not easily offended? Try cutting in close to someone on the freeway. You better have a very fast car because of the road rage that people have today. Are people offended because you speak the truth? Yes. Living in a society that’s easily offended, do we become easily offended? Well, if we’re not concentrating on the love of God it’s very easy to become easily offended. Do you still have temper and anger? Yes, you do. I do. Do you get mad and make caustic remarks when you’re driving along? “Did you see what that person did?” Now we’re just talking about driving. We’re not talking about anything else. Try husband/wife relationship, try child rearing, see. Easily offended.

Now, so there are trouble which come from the world. You have to learn how to handle that. Now there are also troubles which arise in the Church which need to be taken care of. Let’s come to Acts 6:1. And this became a whole Church problem. And here, they hadn’t grown very much in the love of God at this particular point because it takes time, and they were still very nationalistic Jews and Gentiles, Jews and Greeks. And so they were looking for equal time, equal opportunity, as they would say today.

“And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring [complaining]…” Ahhh, we never have that among ourselves, do we? But of course we do, see. It can be individuals or it can a thing that takes place. “…A murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews…” (Acts 6:1). “Oh, yea, we know you Jews always think that you just got to be on top of everything. Now here, Christ has called us and we are sitting here, and our widows are not receiving the ministration that you have been receiving. And you Jewish widows always get fed first before us Greek widows. Now what’s going on?” Ok, that’s what was happening.

“And the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy [Spirit] Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word” (vs. 2-4). So what they did, they selected seven men, all Greeks, to wait on the Greek widows. See, and so this thing was a problem in the Church all the way down, just like circumcision wars.

Ok, now there are going to be doctrinal problems too. So we have problems from the world, we have problems within the Church. Why do we have problems in the Church? Cause we still have our carnal nature that we’re carrying around with us, right? Why do we have problems in the Church? Because we carry them from where we came before. Either from the world, because we’re in the process of overcoming since we’ve been baptized, or from another church because you have come out of that church. And as Mavis said years ago, “You can get the people out of Worldwide, but you can’t get Worldwide out of the people.” Or whatever Church of God, or whatever denomination you have come from, you see. So we’ll have those problems.

Now let’s look at some doctrinal problems which will come here.