TO REINSTATE LOVE IN THE LOCAL CONGREGATION WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD? Last week we discussed what can be responsible for lack of love in the local congregation.

Presented by

Bro Chris Afekolu (Bishop)March 30, 2014

TO REINSTATE LOVE IN THE LOCAL

CONGREGATION WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD?

TO REINSTATE LOVE IN THE LOCAL CONGREGATION WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD?

Last week we discussed what can be responsible for lack of love in the local congregation. Today we shall look at the way forward in reinstating love in the local congregation. We will be looking at this topic in an expanded way; love for the mission work (love for the lost soul) and love for one another.


The greatest of these (of all things) is love {1 Cor. 13:13}. We owe it to ourselves to not only be conversant with the behaviour of love but to be conscientious in practicing it! Love should be seen in our lives as revealed in the New Testament. The Christian must be patient, kind, generous, humble, courteous, unselfish, good tempered, guileless In thought, word and deed, and sincere. All of these are simple, practical, everyday virtues that we all can (and must) practice daily! Surely we agree that the practice of them will make the world a better and happier place in which to live, both for ourselves and for those around us. Love is the more excellent way to spiritual maturity.


We will now look at love for the mission work. Seeking for the lost souls! In order to clearly see the connection here we must remember what this love is. Our love must be of the same quality as God’s and must follow the pattern set by His love. God’s love (agape) is a deep, abiding and constant interest exercised for their highest good toward an unworthy race. All who respond to this love become “partakers of the divine nature” which is love. A real response to God’s love will produce in us a reverential love toward the Great Giver and also a practical love toward all made in His image and likeness.


The natural, the inevitable result of this love is to induce in us a desire to help other to find the Giver also! Out of this desire to help others will come the answer to the mission problem. Jesus came “to seek and save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). If we are not actively, earnestly, loving involved in seeking the lost we have no right to pose as His disciples or to call ourselves Christians!


The mission work is to” preach the gospel to every creature” (Mk. 16:15). Our obligation is not to convert the world or even convert one person. Our charge, our obligation is simply to preach the simple gospel to every creature! It is our duty, contract, responsibility, to preach the word to every creature. It is a divine obligation laid upon His Church by the great I AM!

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. (2 Timothy 4:1-2 KJV)


The gospel call is to all and not to some. Christ is counting on each and every one of us to carry on His mission here on earth. Can Christ count on you? Love assists us in having the desire to help others find the Great Lover. We loved because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). We cannot sit at home and watch many die without Christ! When love prevails in our hearts and our lives, a real building up of the church is inevitable!


In the first century when the church was scattered abroad they “went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Persecution scattered the early church. The church today scatters, not from persecution, but from economic displacement, academics, transfers, relocations etc. All many modern Christians, when scattered abroad, forget God and the church. Some affiliate with denomination and some just quit! In either case, they are lost to God and the church. Instead of being “good soldiers of Jesus Christ” they have gone away without Love! In reaching every creature with the gospel the church of our Lord is losing ground. We rather have much less preaching of the gospel to every creature! What will God say to us in the judgment?


He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:16 KJV). We are good in shouting this, fine, No doubt he “shall”! But by what sort of reasoning have we arrived at the conclusion that the unbelieving, unbaptized shall be damned, while the (un) believing Christian who fails to follow his Saviour in “seeking and saving the lost will not be damned? In our failure to seek and save the lost through the preaching of the word, we have violated the two great commandments, namely


Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (Matthew 22:37-39 KJV)

Our lord also said, “Go”, but we are not going! He said “Teach”, but we are not teaching! A few are going! A few are teaching, but Christians by and large, are not doing much of either! Yet we expect to make Heaven!


One time the Master asked, “What do ye more than others? (Matt. 5:47). I challenge you (in love) to look honestly at the answer to that question. The statistics cited from several sources, indicates that those we say preached the adulterated gospel have the giant hand in reaching out with the Gospel to every creature whereas we are idling away! Difficult to believe this unpleasant truth that the “unscriptural” are doing more than the “scriptural”!. Like Nelson smith put it in his book what is this thing called LOVE, he expressed his fear this way – “I tremble, brethren, in fear that we may be guilty of having a form of godliness but are lacking the power thereof” {2 Tim. 3:5)


Extract from same book read thus – ‘in twenty –five years the Jehovah’s Witnesses (as they call themselves) have grown from practically nothing to fourteen thousand congregations in one hundred and fifty countries. They are the only religious group known to me (if our statistic may be relied upon) that is ‘preaching in every nation under heaven’. They have ten thousand foreign missionaries plus those at home who are preaching on street corner (publicly) and house to house. They are supporting one foreign missionary for every two hundred of their members! No, they are not preaching the gospel of Christ preached by the Apostles of Christ and the church of the first century! We are preaching (?) that! But before God, my brethren, they are doing what we are not doing; preaching in every nation under heaven; publicly and from house to house! Indeed, what do ye more than others?” is it your cry of neglect or complain of brethren not showing love to you? Where is the love you have for million dying daily without Christ?


Review from the same report on the church of Christ is a far contrast from the denominations statistics! Summary is two to three hundred missionaries in a “few nations under heaven’? i.e. one missionary abroad for every nine thousand members of the church of Christ! Where is our love for the lost souls? The report also shows that, on the average, it takes seventeen members of the church of Christ one year to convert one person? To put it another way, it takes seventeen years for one church member to convert one person. In grey Congregation, the work of the church is done by about three to four percent of the membership {10/300 *100 = 3.33333} . Same applies to many churches of Christ ( 4 to 7 percent), hence millions are dying without the true Gospel.


An infidel is reputed to have once said, “If I firmly believed, as million say they do, that the knowledge and practice of Christianity in this life influenced the destiny in another world, Christianity, to me would be everything! I would labour in its cause alone! I would take no thought for tomorrow but for eternity alone! Earthly consequences should never stay my hand nor seal my lips. I would esteem one soul gained for heaven worth a lifetime of effort. I would go forth to the world and preach Christ in season and out of season! ….. Notice that this infidel did not believe; therefore he did not go and he did not preach. We say that we believe YET WE ARE NOT GOING AND WE ARE NOT PREACHING! I would leave you to draw the conclusion; how, then are we any better than the infidel?


May God forgive us of our past blindness and present slothfulness, our lack of love shown by our lack of concern for the lost!

Brethren, we have sinned and are sinning! Sinned, not merely against law, but against love! We are not only breaking the law of God, we are breaking the heart of God! {By our deliberate refusal to evangelise the world}


Another way forward in reinstating love in the local congregation is to note the importance of love in making and keeping the church the “close-knit unity” God intended it to be. Eph. 4:1-6 voices Paul’s plea to those early Christians to “endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”. The Holy Spirit of God implores that there be “no divisions among us, but that we be perfectly joined together in the same mind and judgment (1 Cor. 1:10). That perfect joining together is not in doctrine only but also in the areas where human personality and ego can so easily cause disruptive friction. The apostle would establish and maintain that oneness of spirit by forbearing one another in love i.e. making allowances for one another because you love one another.


We should dismantle the various walls of demarcation and factions and camps we have built for ourselves in the local congregation. We should have same mind and judgment; that’s the only way to grow and only way to heaven. Souls involved in divisions or factions in the house of God are marked for destruction. We are all branches in the true vine, and when certain branches tends to take after their own way the true vine will severed them to avoid corruption to others.


The church is the body of Christ. [Eph. 1:22,23, Col. 1:18,24]. It is composed of many members with these members sustaining mutual obligations each to the other [1 Cor. 12:12-27]. Going forward to reinstate love, we should;

Use hospitality one to another without grudging [1 Peter 4:9]. Avoid class distinctions for we are all equal before God and it is God that made you who you are!

We should love one another [John 15:17, 1Peter 1:22-23] We should “pray for one another [Jas 5:16] it is a sin not

to pray for one another [1 Cor. 8:12]. Avoid selfishness in our prayers [Lk. 18:10-14]

Confess your faults one to another [Jas 5:16, 1 Jn. 1:8-10]


‘And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works [Heb. 10:24]. We should consider one another’s feelings. We should avoid being offensive. [Phil. 2:4]

We should serve one another [Gal. 5:13]. Service is a mark of true greatness [Matt. 20:26-28]. In serving others we are serving the lord. [Matt. 25:31-46, Acts 9:14]

Exhort one another daily [Heb. 3:13]


Comfort one another …[1 Thess. 4:18] since love is what love does, that is, it is practical and not theory, let me give example of comfort one another during times of bereavement. This can be done in the following ways; 1) Providing food and other necessities, 2) visiting, 3) attending the memorial service, 4)sending messages of consolation, 5) expressing words of sympathy ,6) sending floral and other remembrances etc. By so doing we are weeping with those who weep. {Rom. 12:15}


CONCLUSION

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8 KJV)

Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. (1 Peter 3:8-9

KJV)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS


TO REINSTATE LOVE IN THE LOCAL CONGREGATION WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD? Last week we discussed what can be responsible for lack of love in the local congregation.

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