Genuine Worship Series: Love the Brethren

Genuine Worship Series: Love the Brethren

Let's take our Bibles together for our scripture reading this morning. Please turn with me to John, chapter 13. John, chapter 13, and we want to begin the reading there in verse number 13. In this example at the Last Supper where the Lord will wash his disciples' feet, he says, Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say, Well, for so I am. if I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither is he or neither he that is sent greater than He that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.

Let's mark our Bibles to this portion of scripture this morning in John 13 and ask the Lord's blessing on what we've read. Gracious Father, thank you for your word once again. Thank you that you have given us in Christ. You've given us a wonderful example, but given us more than an example. You've given us the grace to do what you tell us you want us to do. Help us to humbly draw upon that grace even today. Thank you for those who are gathered here. We pray for those not able to be here for whatever the various reasons are for each one, Lord, we pray that you would continue to meet with us in this service in Jesus' name, Amen.

Last week we took both messages looking at genuine worship, genuine worship of the Lord, and we noticed in the morning hour, we noticed the need to be in God's Word and have God's Word. It's God's Word in us. And we saw in the evening the need of a personal prayer life, really talking to the Lord in prayer. And this morning, I want us to see that loving the brethren is part of genuine worship to God. I want us to see that And that is a genuine part of our genuine worship to the Lord.

Whoever or whatever a person worships or bows down to, that's the idea of the word worship that we saw last week, is that which they serve. Jesus said that in so many words. I didn't say that. Jesus himself said it what you serve is what you worship what he says you say I'm your master you say that you're my servants if I am your master and you're my servants then you need to do what I tell you to do if you love me keep my commandments and see this is the thing is it's not this service to the Lord is not out of compulsion but out of conviction this service to the Lord is from the heart that he wants he doesn't want robots he wants willing worship, glad and free worship to him.

Sometimes we say a thing controls someone. That person is controlled by television or they controlled by, you know, they're controlled by some substance or they're controlled by something they serve that that's what that's what they live for or who they live for they bow down to that thing we might say and and we certainly know that idolatry is the worship and the service of anything other than the one who rightfully deserves our worship and that is the Lord so anything else taking the place of the Lord, taking first place, taking that place of master in our lives is idolatry.

And so what our Lord is saying here in this text is that I am your master but if you would serve me and in so many words, if you would properly worship me, then you ought to serve one another." There are many, many, many passages throughout the Bible, but we think of the New Testament as it concerns the church, that show us that we ought to serve one another in various different wordings. The wording is different in different places, but in so many places, to serve one another by love, to serve one another by love. Let's turn over to Romans chapter 16.

In verse number 18 we read, well, let's go back to verse 17, now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine or the teaching which you have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ those that teach things and cause divisions contrary to the teaching of Scripture are actually not serving the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. They're serving their own belly. We could say they're worshipping their own pleasures. They live for their own advantage and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

They're living for themselves. They don't really even care about the people that they're ministering to, but they care about themselves. They care about their own comforts. They care about their own prosperity, but not truly about, well, they don't care about those to whom they minister because in its reflection the fact that they're not genuinely worshiping the Lord. They're not genuinely, they have a lot of good words, but they proved by the fact they don't love the brethren that they're not actually loving God and they're not actually worshiping him there at that when it comes down to it you know you're at a dealership and you say what is the bottom line I don't want to hear all the extra stuff I want to know what is the final price we don't do that much anymore probably because of the internet right but I remember you know the haggling in the price and everything what's the what's the bottom line well the bottom line is this is very blunt is what Paul is saying here, but they serve their own belly. That's the bottom line. That's the end of it.

Well, Peter says to the Lord in Mark 10 28, lo, we have left all and followed thee. We're your servants. We're your disciples, but we're your servants. You're our master. We've left all and followed Thee. Well, we saw the call of the disciples recently there where James and John, Peter and Andrew are with our Lord in Capernaum and they left their nets, they forsook their nets and they followed the Lord. They obediently followed Him because they believed He was indeed the Christ, the Messiah. Jesus required for discipleship, he required that a person would deny himself, didn't he? And take up your cross and follow me. Deny oneself, take up his cross and follow me.

Let's look at that passage in Matthew 24. Turn over there with me, Matthew 24. Now Matthew 6, verse 24, and it says there in verse number Matthew 6, verse number 24. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and mammon. Stop for just a moment there. We're going to read further, but what is mammon? Mammon is, in so many words, your accrued possessions. It's your assets. It's your net worth. It's what you have in material possessions. This could include dollar bills, but it could… it's the things you possess, this earthly possessions. No man can serve that as well as the Lord. Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life. What ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for the body, what ye shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" Your thinking must be… if you're a disciple of mine, your thinking, our Lord is essentially saying here, must be… your thinking must be different than it used to be or different than the Gentiles that know not Christ. It must be different. There's nothing

But Job was daily conscious, in the fear of the Lord, that God could take all of us away from me. We read passages like that riches make themselves wings and fly away, setting out your heart upon them, setting out your eyes on them. Don't put your hope in mammon. Don't serve mammon. Don't live for mammon. Don't worship mammon. Worship the Lord. If the Lord blesses you, receive it as from his hand, but don't live for it. And don't say, well, I'll only minister if the Lord gives me this. I'll only serve him if he does this for me. No. That prosperity gospel is demonic. It's against God. But instead, whereas we used to think. think about it now, the image people want to present is, I have these things. I have all this prosperity, and that's who I am, and I want to present a good image before society that I'm well to do. That's not the way the Christian thinks. The Christian should not, shouldn't, should be one who couldn't care less what the world thinks about or others think about. What I have I don't have. The identity of the Christian and that which brings value is tied up in Christ. That's what matters. I am who I am because of Christ, not because of the boat I have or a house I have or the things I possessed. That is who I am. I am a Christian. And maybe the Lord's blessed or maybe the Lord with with an abundance or maybe the Lord is peasant. That doesn't matter. What matters is that I I know the Lord as my personal Savior.

And in 1st Peter 1 14, let's turn over there, 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 14, we're told something very important here in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 14. We are to be as obedient children not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. We're not to be, our lives are not to be shaped by the same kind of thinking that we used to have, which was our lusts and our ignorance. We lusted after things that could never satisfy and could never bring any sense of completion or fulfillment or meaning to our lives. In fact, we're now, as he which hath called you is holy, we are to be, so be ye, holy in all manner of living, all manner of conversation. Our lives do not consist in the abundance of things we possess. That's not our identity, because that's changeable. It's up and down. Instead of thinking the way we used to think, we're to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says to the Romans, that you that you that you make not provision for the flesh to fulfill it in the lust thereof don't don't lusts after the things of this world don't serve those things don't worship those things don't go for those things your whole trajectory of life has changed your one desire should be to follow the Lord and be holy as he is holy we just this morning in the Sunday school hour the prayer was the very God of peace sanctify you holy spirit soul body to be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

our Lord didn't just command us to serve him though he showed us how to serve. He modeled what it looked like to serve and to worship. Well, what was he doing when he was here on this earth? He was serving the Father, doing the will of his master, yes, his Father in heaven. He took on the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, just like you and I. And in so doing, he humbled himself, emptied himself, taking on the form of that servant. I want to be careful that in what I'm about to say that I don't say anything that's blasphemous at all. I don't want to, I don't want to go too far with this, but I think there's a certain aspect which I believe is the Scriptures bear out that Jesus demonstrated what it looked like to worship God. But he demonstrated that before us.

He would even include in the pronoun we when he was speaking to the Samaritan woman He said, we know what we worship. Salvation is of the Jews. We know what we worship. He was made of a woman, made under the law, and he fulfilled the law perfectly. But we even see Jesus, we see Jesus worshiping, serving his Father in heaven, and yet we see him receiving worship, don't we? It's a very interesting situation. What word am I looking for? The hypostatic union. We have the God-man. We have the God-man. He's God becoming flesh, and he's truly man. He's not just faking it and kind of looking like a man. He's actually man, but the God-man. I cannot fully explain… I cannot explain that. I cannot fully grasp that. But I do know what I read when I look over in Hebrews chapter 5. If you turn there with me, Hebrews chapter 5.

What do we see our Lord doing there? This God-man in Hebrews chapter 5. We read in Hebrews 5 verse 7 that it says, wherefore…" I'm sorry, in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 7 it says, "…who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was things which he suffered. He prayed. He prayed to his father in heaven. He gave thanks to the father. He said in Matthew 11 25, he spoke there that I thank thee that so many words you've hidden these things from the wise and revealed them unto babes. We see him thanking the Lord. We see him submitting to his Father's will as a servant, as a son, but yes, as a servant. In Matthew 26, look over there with me.

In Matthew 26, we read in verse number 39. Matthew 26, verse number 39. What does it say? And he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, saying, Oh my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I wilt, but as thou wilt. He prayed. He submitted himself to the Father's will. There are many passages we can look at. He didn't even speak his own words. He spoke the words. What did he say? The word which he hears is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. He said, for I have not spoken of myself in John 12 49. But the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment that what I should say and what I should speak and I know that his commandment is life everlasting. Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak."

I'm taking extra time with this because I want us to see that Jesus did not only command worship, but he demonstrated what it was to worship the Father. He demonstrated it for us. He didn't even have to come to this earth. He was under no obligation. He was not offering for sins of his own. He came, the Lamb of God, the great high priest, and offered himself willingly. Not out of compulsion, but willingly. because we, we were lost and helpless and He loved us. He loves us. He demonstrated what it was to love by even in this occasion here in our text, washing the feet.

What is washing, what is that about? What is, what's the significance of that? It's a menial task. We don't do that anymore. We just get a shower you know or a bath or whatever at the end of the day. But when we get home we don't take our shoes off and wash our feet down. No, because we, well, maybe we should go back to doing that. We could be more connected to the earth without all this insulation in our shoes but that's not a message I'm going to preach. But the point is we don't do that. We, there's other things we do. I think about my wife. You know, I can do all kinds of things. I can go to the store and get flowers and chocolate and all kinds of wonderful things and she would like that and she enjoys it. But you know, she'd really like me to wash the dishes.

She would really like me to, you know, take the trash out. You know, do something that's very basic. Washing dishes and, you know, if a baby, you know, a mother that has a baby. If the father would step in and just change the baby's diaper, I mean that means a lot. There's things with, and my wife loves to do it, but there's things with Lydia's diabetes that are just have to be done. They have to be done. It's just a regular routine. All of us have things like that, don't we? Those things just have to be maintained, they have to be done, and sometimes they have to be redone because you know, they messed up for whatever the reason. Those are the types of things where we can serve the Lord and worship him by serving one another as the Lord has given us an example that we ought to do.

When we were going through that series and going through the book of 1st John, we saw what an epistle of Love. Love for the Brethren. Love for the Brethren. That is a very crucial truth that, as a thread, runs throughout that book. Loving the Brethren. That loving the Brethren is, it is agape love in a tangible, horizontal kind of that we can we can serve the Lord in doing that. Most of our week as we said last Sunday is not in the house of worship. I think it's only about six percent of our week is in the house of worship if we're in all the you know all the services but we're to worship the Lord day by day in the things we think, how we think about ourselves, how we think about our brethren, how we serve one another. You know, maybe mopping the floor would be another thing, but one thing we learned very clearly, one thing we learned very clearly in 1st John when we were going through that epistle was that love goes beyond words. Love goes beyond words and it shows itself in some form of sacrifice.

Isn't that true of Jesus? He did not merely love us in words. He demonstrated that love. He demonstrated that love certainly ultimately by dying on a cross for our sins. We could not even do that for ourselves even if we wanted to. But it is not our place to do that. The Lord has perfectly done it. We could never do it, save ourselves by no matter how willing we might be perhaps to do that. But there's this truth we read in 1 John chapter 3. If you turn over there with me. 1 John chapter 3 verse 16. What does it say there? 1 John chapter 3 verse number 16 in verse number 16 we read, hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren but whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him my little children let us not love in words neither in tongue but indeed and in truth

you know the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was so egregious to our Lord in the early church because not because there was a certain dollar amount that they needed to contribute. It was the heart that led them to lie to the Holy Ghost in what they were doing. What was this money? Why were they selling houses and things like that and giving as those that had were giving? Was it to see who could give the most money? No. But it was part of loving the brethren in that context there. there were some people probably because of persecution and you know various things before their faith they were they were without they didn't have and others did have and so those that had God waited upon their hearts to give to help the ones that didn't have and yet when they did that the thought as as people were doing that, a thought crossed Ananias and Sapphira's mind, saying, you know, we could give and help and make it look like we're really doing a certain amount when actually we're only doing this amount, but we can get the best of both worlds, right?

No, the Lord wanted them to genuinely do this for the love of the brethren, not in any way to serve themselves. and that's what they were doing. They were serving themselves while appearing to love the brethren and to love the Lord in what they were doing and yet they were being hypocritical in it. They were not genuinely worshiping the Lord. They couldn't. If you're deceiving and you're lying, you cannot be worshiping the Lord and you certainly can't be truly serving, you know, or washing the brethren's feet if it's, so to speak, for a photo op.

No, that's why once again, and I repeat myself, but pure religion and undefiled before the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. In their affliction. That means there's no cameras, there's no recognition, you're not seeking the recognition, it's just God has laid this upon my heart. I want to serve the Lord by serving this need right here that this brother or this sister or this individual has, truly loving my neighbor, truly loving my neighbor. Well, we're told many things we ought to do. We ought to be hospitable one to another. Peter says that in 1 Peter chapter 4, verse number 9, he says, use hospitality one to another. What did he say? Without grudging. Without grudging. Well, we're doing it, but we're not really doing it, that's unto the Lord. We're not really worshiping the Lord in our hospitality.

I think we probably have heard the little story. I don't even know if it's true, but it's probably an example of something that's happened. The family had another family over from church and they called on the little girl to pray. And the little girl said, well, I don't know what to pray. And she said, well, just say something you've heard mommy say. She said, Lord, we thank you for this food, but why do these people have to come over today? or something like that, you know, and it was just she just said something that she heard her mother say and of course I'm sure she was mortified and yada yada yada and so on and so forth, but that was an example of just being genuine about what the true thoughts were rather than putting on a face. No, love the brethren without grudging, right? Being hospitable without grudging.

There are so many things that we might say, but our… in one sense, our service to God and our worship of the Lord is tested in the menial things of life, isn't it? It's tested in the menial tasks that we do. You know, children, obey your parents is one of the things that we're told in Scripture. for this is well pleasing to the Lord, especially if you obey your parents gladly, right? Not, well, I guess I've got to do this, you know. No, I'm obeying my parents. I'm doing what they tell me to do. I am doing it as unto the Lord, not merely unto men. We're not to seek our own things in serving others were to seek the Lord's glory in loving the brethren, in serving one another by love. That is to be the motive behind the service. We've seen it with Ananias and Sapphira.

When that's not the case, the Lord is definitely not pleased with that because it's a deception, isn't it? It's a lie. It's not true. You know, what did Delilah say to Samson, how can you say you love me when your heart is not with me? How can you say you love me if you will not tell me the truth, you know, in so many words? And and our love for one another ought to be in that service. We don't, we shouldn't say what can somebody else do for me? I'm going to sit around and wait until somebody else comes and helps me. No, that's not the spirit of, thank God, God, but that's not the spirit Jesus Christ had. Even when we were unlovely, even when we were lost, we were enemies, we were alienated from the life of God, he came and he laid down his life for us. True worship to God, true service to God should follow that example.

Should follow that example in the way that we serve one another. may God purify my, our motives in worship to him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you see everything, everything about us, Lord, you know us better than we know ourselves, Lord, and You require of us a genuine sacrifice, obedient sacrifice of love. It is not that the love originates with us or that we in and of ourselves are genuine. But Lord, considering all your mercies to us, considering you're a great example before us, considering the fact that you first loved us, we ought also to love one another. We ought to love you with all of our heart and to love one another. Help us not simply to say that we love one another. Help us to show it, Lord. And each one of us have a variety of different ways that we are gifted to show that, Lord, by grace.

It's not that everyone is going to show it in exactly the same way, but it ought to come out of us and in in some format in some way that is very practical as we as we interact with one another. Our first ministry, our first responsibility is even to our own family or those that we live in the same home with. May we not try to present an image to those outside the home that's not consistent with the one that we're living in our home. May we not, may we not try to to do that more for that would be hypocritical and that would not be true truly worshipful to thee and serving thee. So help us, help us to treat our own wives, our own husbands, our own children, our own parents well. Help us to love and serve one another in the practical mundane things of life every day. We pray now and ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.