By Pastor Kevin Harris, Illawarra Community Baptist Church in Dapto, NSW, Australia
But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more.
1 Thessalonians 4:9-10
The words ‘brotherly love’ is one word in the original: philadelphia. I spent a couple of years of my childhood in that city, and like all cities on this planet, I’m sorry to report that ‘brotherly love’ does not characterise that place today.
But Christian people are called to have this fondness for the brethren of which philadelphia speaks. 1 John 4:20-21 says, ‘If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.’
The Spirit of God leads the Apostle Paul to express three thoughts to the Thessalonian church:
- You already know about your responsibility to love your Christian brothers (ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.)
- You’re doing a good job already, both in your immediate church as well as to surrounding sister churches (indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia)
- Rather than pat yourselves on the back, become better at it (we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more.)
This third thought is actually a thought repeated from the previous chapter: ‘And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you’ (1 Thessalonians 3:12).
How similar this is to the first of four prayer requests that the Apostle Paul constantly made for the Philippian church. He put it this way: ‘And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment’ (Philippians 1:9).
New Testament churches are known as loving people. I certainly see that at the Illawarra Community Baptist Church here in Wollongong. I thank the Lord that there is a friendliness and genuine care that pleases our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. One-upmanship, bitter rivalry, jostling for prominence, sarcastic put-downs, and self-centred ‘I’m-too-busy-for-you’ attitudes are foreign here. Praise the Lord!
But as we have seen, God wants us to develop even more affection and lovingkindness toward each other.
Father, I thank You that You send your sunshine and rain on both the just and the unjust, setting an example for me to follow. Thank You for sending Your Son to die for the sins of each person on this planet, past, present and future. I marvel at Your love. Assist me to grow in my love for the brethren, both personally, to my family, and to my church family. Show me how You want me to demonstrate greater love to my fellow Christians. You know it is easy to love the lovely, and be kind to those who reciprocate it. But show me how to better love those who are selfish or who lack social graces, yet still would blossom under rays of sunny kindness and sprinkles of Christian affection. I ask in the Name of Jesus my Lord and Saviour, Amen.
Kevin Harris is pastor of the Illawarra Community Baptist Church located in Dapto, NSW, Australia. If he can be of help spiritually, please get in touch.