Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
The second position we have with God depends upon his sustaining grace and our faithfulness in receiving his engrafting word. According to James 1:21, it is said his impregnating (engrafting) word in our souls is able to preserve our soul and our testimony for the Lord. This is necessary for our ambassadorial function and responsibilities. This position requires knowledge of God’s word and grace for helping others, both the lost and the saved.
II Cor.5:17-20. Within this responsibility of reconciling others to Christ, comes the requirement for much virtue love to be exercised on your part toward others. If we do not have this agape, virtue love we will have a hard time getting along with believers and non-believers.
I think it is important at this point to review the doctrine of impersonal love, sometimes called agape love. The measure to which we manifest our virtue love is the true measurement used to validate our spiritual growth. It demonstrates our private, unseen priesthood relationship with God, I John 3:11; 4:7-8, 11.
As we noted in our last lesson from I Jn.2:5-6; our love (agape) for God grows in proportion to our obedience to his word, and if this growth is taking place then we should be conducting our lives, both private and public in a Christ like manner. When using the statement: I love you. [I, being the subject], [agape type love, being the transitive verb,] and [you, being the object]; I am saying I love you based on the character and content of who I am, not who you are. When emphasizing personal love the Bible uses the word, phileo. In this case if I say; I love (phileo) you, then I am emphasizing some or all the things I like about you as the object. The difference here is obvious. Agape type love puts the emphasis on me as the subject doing the loving, rather the object being loved.
When God says we are to (agape) love one another as Christ loves us, God is referring to the agape type love coming from Christ in us. He is not talking about us loving others based on who or what we see in them. When Jn.3:16 says “God so loved the world...” it does not mean God was attracted to what he saw in the world, so he decided to send Christ to die for the world. What God saw was despicable and repulsive, so in his grace he sent Christ Jesus to die for our sins so we could be acceptable to him. We are only acceptable to God because we are in Christ. There is nothing personally attractive about any person that God would send his Son to die for them. God sent his Son to die for our sins as an act of grace and mercy; to provide a sacrifice wholly acceptable to his divine righteousness and justice. It is true God still loves the world, but this is because loving is one of God’s wonderful traits.
This agape, virtue type love, will only grow in the heart of the believer who commits his or her life to the conforming word of God. As you grow into the image of Jesus Christ, you are being transformed in your mind through God’s truth. It is the Christ like character God sees in his children that He monitors for either blessing or judging that believer and his nation. When the percentage of positive believers sinks to where there is only a small percentage interested in conformity to Jesus Christ, then God judges that nation.
Jesus Christ said in Mt.5:13 when the salt has lost its savor it is good for nothing but to be used to scatter on the road for people to trample over. When we loose our taste for the preserving, healing salt of God’s word then we loose our testimony.
Pastors must work at getting the salt of God’s word into their souls and the souls of their people. When this happens, virtue love will overwhelm the church and people will live such lives that others may be drawn to God.
Nit picking and in fighting and jealousy is constant where virtue love is missing. You see, personal love too often emphasizes the flaws in people.
Personal love can be unforgiving. It can be demanding and it can be volatile. Personal love depends on pleasant circumstances. It seeks others to make it happy and satisfied. Personal love is up or down based on conditions. But virtue love is the opposite of these things. Virtue love throws a covering over the imperfections of others, I Pet.4:8, “And above all things have fervent love (agape) among yourselves; for love (agape) shall cover the multitude of sins.” Virtue love is forgiving in that you are objective enough to realize no one is perfect including yourself. Virtue love never depends on others to make you happy. Virtue love is the basis for all healthy relationships.
When you possess and acquire the word of God, so much so that it saturates your viewpoint toward people, things and circumstances, then you have learned to lean on Bible doctrine for your stability. The result is that the fellowship you have with God is all you need to sustain your inner happiness. When you can do this you are a mature believer. Now you are ready to be an ambassador for Christ. Now you are ready to represent the character of Jesus Christ toward both believer and non-believer. Your motivations for helping them or talking to them are not tainted with what you can get out of the deal or the relationship. You leave the results of your Christian works up to God. You do not give up or throw in the towel because you do not get the results you wanted from your Christian service. You let God keep the score and it doesn’t eat at you when people reject your offers of God’s grace. This keeps competition out of the local church and it keeps competition out of your relationships. It also means you are not spiritually and emotionally unhinged when people do not want to hear your doctrinal viewpoints. You are confident of what you know about what God thinks because you’re faithful in getting the word of God; so you know what God thinks about many things and along with your desire to know the truth God has given to you a pastor who teaches you and you are faithful to receiving that teaching.
Because you are faithful in acquiring as much divine viewpoint as possible you spend time during the week studying the Bible for yourself. You are motivated as a maturing believer to learn the word of God. You study during the week. You do not see your Bible as a Sunday morning religious prop; as part of the Church package for Sundays.
If you will let your pastor do what he is called and commissioned to do he should communicate Bible doctrine to you, and the Holy Spirit will give you understanding as per I Jn.2:27. The result is that you will develop a strong Christ like character.
Jesus Christ sends pastors to instruct a living church, not preside over a morgue. If we are going to be effective as ambassadors for Christ we must be taught the principles and precepts of heavens policies. Phil.3:20 “For our citizenship (politeuma) is in heaven, from which also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,” You see, not only is our home in heaven, but this word, politeuma (conversation / citizenship) relates more to the policies of the heavenly Ruler. This means our viewpoint and our outward ambassadorial lives for Christ must be rooted in God’s viewpoint, not this present world.
We know why some Christians are so comfortable with the world around them and why some pastors are so comfortable with the world in their churches; because they still think like the world.
These policies, otherwise known as (thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven) are found only in Bible doctrine. They are not found in the traditions of men. They are not found in activity or entertainment.