Let Brotherly Love Continue

1. Read: Hebrews 13:1 – Let Brotherly Love Continue

2. About the Text:

1) What do we focus on from day to day?

2) Worldly things tend to distract us from our most important relationships.

a. Employment

b. Maintenance

c. Paperwork

d. But see Matthew 6:25 – “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”

3) When do we think about loving our brother or sister in Christ?

3. Ref. to S, T, P, O, and A.

1. Greek word “Philadelphia.”

1) Word is found six times in Greek New Testament: Romans 12:10, 1 Thessalonians 4:9, Hebrews 13:1, 1 Peter 1:22, and twice in 2 Peter 1:7

2) Means to have tender affections for one another – “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;” (Romans 12:10).

3) Emotions are involved here.

4) This is something that we develop – “to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:7).

2. Relationship to “agape” love.

1) It is a subset of agape love – “But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another” (1 Thess.4:9).

2) We can grow in brotherly love (2 Peter 1:7).

3. Brotherly love must be adopted after obedience to the gospel – “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22).

1. God’s love is the greatest motivating factor.

1) “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

2) “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love…” (Ephesians 5:1-2) – imitate God.

3) “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5).

4) “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us” (Ephesians 2:4).

5) “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).

6) “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can[fn] he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21).

2. Without love our actions have no significance.

1) “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

2) Without love, our brethren become mere tools for us to use.

3) John 11:48 and the Pharisees’ attitude.

4) They were more concerned for what was “theirs.” – “If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”

3. Love brings the lost back to Christ.

1) The goodness of God leads folks to repentance (Romans 2:4).

2) “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.” (Romans 15:7).

1. We should want to be around one another

1) The early church loved being with one another.

2) “Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common” (Acts 2:44).

3) “many were gathered together praying” (Acts 12:12).

2. We should look forward to being together.

1) These are the people we are going to be in heaven with.

2) If we do not want to be with them now, what makes us think we will want to be with them there?

3) “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the LORD.'” (Psalm 122:1).

4) “For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (Psalm 84:10).

3. Participation in the activities of the church.

1) Certainly the weekly assemblies – “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).

2) What about other church activities?

a. Potlucks

b. Game Nights

c. VBS/Devotionals

3) Someone says, “I am not obligated to attend.”

a. Jesus Christ was not obligated to give His life for ours.

b. If Jesus only did what he was obligated to do, we would not be saved.

c. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

1. “Let brotherly love continue” (Hebrews 13:1).

1) Brotherly love is being tenderly affectionate one toward another.

2) We should love our brother because God loves us; we don’t want to be Pharisees; and love brings the lost back to Christ.

2. Invitation