LOVE: Ephesians 4:25-32
"Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer.... Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth.... Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption... Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Interestingly, the word "love" is not found in that passage. And yet all the actions Paul commands of the Ephesians comprise the very definition of love. In the Scriptures, we recall, love is never an emotion but always an action.

Love is something we do.

So, what does love in a congregation do? Love tells the truth, controls its anger, works instead of steals, speaks kindly, is kind, sweet-spirited, and forgiving.

Turn it around, then, and ask, "When love is missing, what do we find?" The answer is here, to Lies, rage, stealing, harshness, ugliness, mean-spiritedness, and lack of forgiveness. All of these grieve the Holy Spirit and bring our effectiveness to a grinding halt.

In his commentary on Ephesians, Kent Hughes tells of a rancorous church fight which drove both sides to lawsuits in a public court. The judge threw out the suits and urged them to take the matter to a church court of their denomination. There, the panel decided in favor of one side and ordered the other group out of the facilities altogether. That group went across town and started a church of their own.

Hughes reports that the church court was able to go back and find the very beginnings of the dispute: at a church dinner, one of the elders was upset because a child sitting next to him received a larger slice of ham.

Just so are churches split, the cause of Christ slandered, the mission fields neglected, and God's people diverted from service.

If a key element in unity is maturity, we suggest a key ingredient in love is humility. To love is to put people at least on an equal level with ourselves, if not above.

Actually, love is the glue that bonds the church in unity. Love for Christ and love for each other. There's a tiny line in Colossians 2:2 that reads: "their hearts having been knit together in love." It's the same verb Paul uses in Ephesians 4:16 and means "joined together" the way the ligaments and tendons hold the joints of the body together.

That's what love does, knit us together and hold us there. There will be a lot of movement in this body, so the ties have to be strong.

PRAYER: Ephesians 6:18-20
"With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak."

We note in the context for this passage that it follows the full layout of the armor Christians wear for the spiritual warfare they conduct in this world. After being adequately alerted and suitably armored, we are ready to pray.

You know the old jokes about the old maid English teachers. Well, I used to be an English teacher and I can tell you, any such instructor would have handed verse 18 back to Paul and said, "Simplify this. It's too complicated. I'm not sure what you're saying." But, we have it the way he said it, and will have to try to negotiate our way through it.

John Bunyan called this "all prayer," meaning that prayer is the first, the best, the most, the greatest, and we do well to infuse everything we do with this spiritual discipline.

"Pray at all times in the Spirit." Spiritual warfare demands that the believer stay close to the Lord and abide in Him for strength and direction.

"For all the saints." Be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, Paul says. That instruction reminds us we're not praying just for the members of our group or our congregation. You drive past a church, pray for its members. You read something about a congregation, pray for its people. You meet a pastor of another church or hear one on the radio, pray for him and his people.

"And pray for me." And what shall we pray for you, Paul? Bear in mind that most likely, he is in prison in Rome (he calls himself "a prisoner in chains"). So, he wants out, right? Wants better treatment? A good lawyer? Leniency from the judge? Decent food. Protection from some bully? Nope. None of those things.

"Pray that I'll be able to preach the Word boldly with effectiveness." That's all he wanted.

The new pastor of our church could produce quite a list of prayer needs, no doubt, including the Lord's protection as he relocates his family to our city, provision in selling his old house and purchasing one here, and wisdom in the many decisions he will make as he begins his ministry. But pre-eminently, I believe he would say with Paul that his first prayer request is for his preaching, that every time he stands he will have God's message and declare it faithfully and forcefully.