Dive into a profound discussion with Pastor Skip Heitzig as we explore the differences between sincere and insincere love, drawing from historical anecdotes and biblical teachings. Discover the impact of spiritual family unity and the pivotal role of real, heartfelt affection in healing and restoring relationships. Through this episode, learn why true love isn’t just an emotion but an intentional act of the will, reflecting the divine love God has for us.
This is Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Thanks for joining us today. Here at Connect with Skip, our mission is to help you know God’s Word and apply it to your life through clear, practical Bible teaching and real encouragement every day. And if you’d like to keep growing in your walk with Jesus, sign up for Pastor Skip’s free weekly devotional. You’ll receive biblical insight, teaching highlights, and exclusive resource offers straight to your inbox. Plus, when you sign up today, we’ll send you a free digital download of a chapter of Skip’s book, Biography of God. Go to connectwithskip.com and join the list today. Now let’s dive into today’s teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig.
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Porcelain dealers, statue makers, would use wax to fill in their mistakes. Can you imagine making a statue, spending hours and hours upon a work of art, only to have the ear or nose of the statue you were making fall off with a chisel? You have two options. You start all over again, or you get some marble dust and wax and you fashion a fake appendage, put it on. Or if you were a porcelain maker and you got a chip and a cup or a plate, you could put some wax and porcelain and hide that little scuff quite easily. So that when statue makers and porcelain dealers wanted to say that their product was the best and it was real, they would say, it is sine sera. It’s without wax. And the way to tell is hold it up to the light, hold it up to the sunlight. You can imagine how embarrassing it would be on a hot summer day if a woman decided to honor her uncle Fred at his birthday party by putting a statue of Fred in the backyard. And about 12 noon, when you unveil a statue and the hot sun comes out, Fred’s nose just drips down to his mouth. It’s with wax. It’s not sincere. Insincere love is when you fill in your love with cheap substitutes. Example, you pay somebody a compliment. You don’t really mean it. You’re not really trying to encourage them. You’re trying to manipulate them and get something from them and to butter them up is the best way. Or you give somebody a hug, not because you care, but you want to get close to that person physically. That is insincere love. Matthew Henry put it this way. Hypocrisy is to do the devil’s work in God’s uniform. Who among the 12 apostles was the one who had insincere love? Easy answer, Judas Iscariot. He was the guy who, when the woman poured oil on Jesus to anoint him for burial in that house, he spoke up and he said, this could have been sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor. Sounds like he loves the poor. He doesn’t. It’s insincere love. It’s got wax in it. It’s dripping with wax because John says, PS, this guy didn’t care for the poor. He was a thief and he wanted to take that money for himself. On another occasion, Judas Iscariot sees Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. He has Roman soldiers in tow. He walks up to Jesus and kisses him. That’s a sign of love, affection. That’s insincere love. That love has wax in it. He was simply trying to identify Jesus to the soldiers who would take him away. Let love be without hypocrisy. Sincere love, real love, not fake love, not phony, turn on a click, smile, fake Christian love, the real deal. Because the real deal will heal people’s hearts. Dr. Paul Tournier, a physician, a Swiss doctor said, I’m convinced nine out of every 10 people seeing a psychiatrist don’t need one. They need somebody who will love them with God’s love. and they will get well. Demonstrate your personal liberty. Second aspect, second directive. Celebrate your spiritual family. Look at the word in verse 22. See it with your own eyes as you look down at the word brethren. Brethren, brother, sister. It’s a family word. We’re in a spiritual family. And then in verse 23, having been born again, These are family words. You’re in a spiritual family because you’ve had a spiritual birth. The basis of our unity, the real basis of our love and unity is our birth. Not our first birth, our second birth. We’re in the same family. We call him the same heavenly father. We trust in the same savior. We all have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us. We all come to salvation exactly the same way by trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us. There’s an old saying in families, blood is thicker than what? Water. Simply put, you can mess up, you can fall down, you can fail, but if we’re related by blood, we’re gonna get you through this, man, because we’re family. Blood is thicker than water. Well, Peter has already said that we have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, a lamb without blemish and without spot. Moody said, you can be a good doctor without loving your patients. You can be a great lawyer without loving your clients, but you cannot be a good Christian without love because we’re part of a family and we recognize that. We’re part of a family. The woman sitting next to you right now is your sister in Christ. It might be your wife, but it’s your sister. The man sitting next to you is your brother in Christ. Some of us have really messed up, but we’re family and we love each other in spite of the mess. That’s real family love. There was a psychiatrist who came home after a busy day. He was tired, bone tired, dragged himself into the front door and saw his wife and he just put his head in his hands. He said, sweetheart, I have heard of one problem after another problem after another problem all day long. I do not want to hear any more problems. So whatever you have to say to me, give me good news. Don’t tell me about another problem we’re having in our family. She thought a moment and she said, well, the good news is two of our three children didn’t break an arm today. It’s one way to put it, right? One did, but I won’t tell you that. Two out of three did not. It could be that two out of three people sitting around you right now is okay. But please be sensitive to that one who is not. And your family. So let’s get through that. So, demonstrate personal liberty. Celebrate spiritual family. Third, we’re to radiate a mutual love. loyalty. And that brings us to verse 22, the command that is written in the text, that which everything revolves around. In verse 22, love one another fervently with a pure heart. Now, here’s what I want you to notice. This is important. This is put, listen carefully, in the imperative mood, which makes it a what? A A command, an imperative is a command. Peter is writing, I’m commanding you to love each other fervently. Now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Can you do that? Can you imagine me going up to my girlfriend who would become my wife, Lenny, at one time and saying, I command you, love me. You think that’ll go over well? You think it would work? She would say, give me one good reason why I should. How do you command somebody to love? How do you do that? Now listen again. Here’s why. Because there is a kind of love that does not depend on emotion, but it’s an act of the will. Something you choose to do, you don’t necessarily feel to do it. I’m going to clear up this whole mess by simply saying this. There’s two times the word love is used here. Same word, love, love. but there’s two different words in the Greek language. So you’ll notice in verse 22, since you purified your souls and obeying the truth through the spirit in sincere love, that word is Philadelphia, which means brotherly love, family love. In sincere love of the brethren, here’s the second time, love one another, different word. It’s the word agape love. This is divine love. This is sacrificial love. Since you already love each other as brothers, now I’m commanding you love like God loves. Love with a sacrificial divine love. Love fervently and with a pure heart. So we share the first kind of love, Philadelphia, because we’re brothers and sisters. We share the second kind of love because he commands us to show it as an act of our will, even though we don’t feel like it. The key word here is love fervently, fervently, deeply. Some of you will be surprised to know this is an athletic term, which means to stretch out a muscle to its limit, to its capacity. Got any weight lifters here? You don’t have to raise your hands up. Raise your hand up to show us how big your muscle is. But, If you go to the gym and you put weights on the barbell, you put as many weights as you can handle up to your capacity to lift. And typically a person will do reps, repetitions, until that final repetition is just like a struggle. That’s the idea. He’s stretching the muscle out to its capacity. So what he means here is go all out in your love. Stretch out your love so far that it graciously forgives and blesses and heals.
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You’re listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Every day, the generosity of friends like you helps reach more people with clear, practical Bible teaching, changing lives as they discover who God really is. And this month, we want to thank you with a powerful resource bundle designed to help you know God more deeply and walk in the freedom He offers. It features Skip’s book, Biography of God, a thoughtful, approachable look at God’s character, His attributes, and the hope we gain when we understand who He truly is. You’ll also receive Skip’s six-message CD series, Expound, Galatians, a verse-by-verse journey through Paul’s call to spiritual freedom. We’ll send you both resources as our thanks when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskiff.com slash offer. Now let’s return to today’s teaching.
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You see, love is something we got to work on. So no, it’s not. It’s just a warm feeling. No, it’s not. You got to work on it just like you work on your golf swing. I don’t know if it improves you much or not, but isn’t it a great feeling to have a good drive and just see that baby just go down the fairway. Yeah, payoff, man, all that muscle memory training. Or to have a great serve in tennis or to work hard at playing an instrument and getting it down pat. So too, we have to work on our love, work on treating people like God would treat them. That takes an act of our will. We decide to show love to people even when we have been hurt by that person. Now, follow me here. Doesn’t God love that way? Isn’t the best reflection of God’s love is to demonstrate love to somebody fervently who has hurt us? Wouldn’t that most reflect God’s love? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God gave his son to a world and they killed him. And that hurt God. But that’s how God loves. One of the greatest sentences I ever heard was spoken to me in Baghdad, Iraq. I was there on a special mission, not for the military, but for my Lord, taking some of your shoe boxes a few years ago, several years ago when Saddam Hussein was still reigning there. We brought 27,000 shoe boxes and big 18-wheelers all the way from Amman, Jordan into Baghdad. When we got there, we were sort of quarantined by Saddam Hussein’s cabinet, and I’ll never forget, we were interrogated by two ministers of his, the Minister of Religious Affairs and Foreign Affairs, who asked us why we’re there. And we said, we’re not here in the name of America or Canada or Lebanon. We had several countries represented. We’re here in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to tell you that God loves you and loves your children. And we wanted to give tokens of that love from people around the world in his name. Well, it was an interesting conversation to say the least. And it was televised on Iraqi television. But what was most interesting is that off camera, the minister said to us, until now, we in this country have believed that it is the Christians of the world that hate us. Isn’t that a revealing statement? But now I realize it’s the Christians of this world that love us. When I heard that sentence, it was like, that’s the money shot right there. Just to hear him say, I now know it’s the Christians of the world who love us was worth the trip. I might not have felt like being there or wanted to extend my love to someone who is called the enemy of America. But it spoke volumes. See, we must never say, well, I think I love people enough just the way I am. Really. Because so often the Bible says, I know that you love, but keep doing it. For instance, Philippians 1, verse 9, I pray that your love may abound still more and more in all knowledge and all discernment. Same idea in 1 Thessalonians 3, verse 13. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else just as ours does for you. Take a test right now in your mind just for you. How fervent is your love just in the relationships, the close relationships in your life? How fervent is it? In your marriage, how do you stretch out your love to bless your spouse? At home, what acts of your will do you show your children or your parents? At work, with your friends, in your home group, in your church? Malcolm Muggeridge once said, the biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis or any other disease like that. Rather, it’s the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love, he writes. The terrible indifference toward one’s neighbor who lives at the roadside, assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease. Let me ask you a question. What is your limit? What’s your limit to love? Let me put it another way. How much capacity do you have as a Christian to love people? I’m gonna answer it for you. You knew that. How much capacity do you have? Romans chapter 5 says, For the love of God has been poured out, or shed abroad, poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The language there refers to filling up a bucket or a pot so full that it just keeps on overflowing to the brim and over and over. So when you feel like, I’ve done, this is enough, I can’t go anymore, it keeps filling it up. been shed abroad in our hearts, which means you and I have an infinite capacity by God’s grace to love people, which means no one in your life should ever be love starved. Because when you run out, he’s got more to pour in. And that’s the evidence that you belong to him and that you’re in the same family because you have a new capacity, which brings us to our fourth and final aspect. Cultivate scriptural dependency. Now watch this. Verse 24 begins with what word? Because. He’s giving you the reason for it, and he’s going to quote Scripture. Because, he writes all this, all flesh is as grass, quoting Isaiah 40, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower fades or falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Good growth? requires good food. If you’re going to grow in love, you need to be nourished in your love. This book, this Bible, this is love food. This feeds love. This nourishes love. This book, the Reveals a God who loves, for God so loved the world. It tells us not only to love, but how to love in our marriages, in our friendships, with children, in respecting parents. It even talks about physical love. In the book of the Song of Solomon for you couples, check it out, report back. It’s there. How to love. So here’s Peter’s point. God’s word was preached to us and it gave us life because he says it’s an incorruptible seed. It’s an eternal seed. It’s an unperishable seed. So the seed was planted in the heart. It germinated and brought forth what? Fruit. Fruit proves the seed is there. Without the fruit, there’s no seed, you would surmise. There’s no seed because there’s no fruit. If there’s fruit in your life, it’s because the seed has been planted in your heart. And the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5.22, is love. So here’s the deal. Anytime the Bible gives you a command, it doesn’t give you a command unless it gives you the capacity to follow that command. God will give you the ability to do it, which means if you don’t feel like loving that unlovely person in your life, do it anyway. If you don’t feel like forgiving that nasty person in your life, do it anyway. If you don’t feel like caring for that belligerent jerk, do it anyway. If you don’t feel like humbling yourself before that prideful person, do it anyway. Now, if you’re an astute reader of the text, you’re gonna go, timeout, timeout, timeout, wait a minute, wait a minute. It says that you’re supposed to do it from the heart, right? It says with a pure heart, not just mechanically, not just obediently, but from a pure heart. This is how it works. Your decision is the engine. Your feeling is the caboose. When you make a decision to show love, the feelings will follow. The feelings follow the act of love. Love one another. That’s a command fervently from a pure heart. Those feelings will follow. Yes, society is becoming less personal now. and more and more virtual and technological, which means you and I, we have to be more intentional about the real deal. I mean, how much love can you get on Facebook, really? Well, I’ve got all these likes. Yeah, good friends. Not all. Christian love is the love of the will that forgives and heals and proves that we love him. When the apostle John was getting up in years, it was said that he could stand no longer. He had to be carried from congregation to congregation. And so men would carry him and people were so excited to see the apostle John. After all, he was Jesus’ best friend on earth, still alive. He’s the closest people got to Jesus. So this old apostle would be brought into the congregations and he would lift up his hand of blessing upon them. but they wanted to hear a sermon from him. In his last days, the traditions say that John only gave a five-word sermon. Some of you are wishing for that, I know. Little children love one another. That’s all he said. Little children love one another. Well, that got tedious. People were expecting a sermon. That’s it? That’s it? That’s like kid stuff. Can we get any more than that? And the people actually complained. And one said to him, says the tradition, Brother John, might you not be able to offer something a bit, well, a bit deeper? John replied, the Lord’s command is that we love one another. It doesn’t get any deeper than that. Love one another. Jesus’ command to love one another is still the most basic and the most difficult for us to do. But we can do it. We’ve been set free. We have personal liberty. And we’re part of a whole new family. And we have a brand new capacity so we can love fervently. You’re stretched out to the limit, you’ll keep pouring. And if you live that way, It is a force. God’s love is a force no unbeliever can withstand.
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Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember, your generosity helps share God’s Word around the world, bringing truth and hope to people who need Jesus. And this month, we’d love to thank you for your support by sending you a special resource bundle, Skip’s book, Biography of God, along with his six-message CD series, Expound Galatians. Give today at connectwithskip.com slash offer or or call 800-922-1888. We’ll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God’s Word here on Connect the Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition.
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Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast your burdens on His Word. Make a connection.
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