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0:42You get this burst of energy. You're excited about the idea of a garden. I get out there. I till the soil. I plant the plants. And my garden is clean. It's well watered. In the first few weeks, it looks great. Lots of potential. But then, you know, what happens is, as time goes on, busyness and our weeks flip by, and my garden becomes one of those things that needs my attention. And you know how the Texas sun works? Before too long, it's looking sad. It's in the hot Texas sun, and these weeds are just springing up from nowhere.

1:32Before we moved to our current place, every time we came up to church, we would pass by one of my neighbors who had this incredible garden. And my wife would find me just almost swerving off the road because every time I'd like to go by it and I liked to look at it because it was so well kept. Every time I went by, I thought, that's the kind of garden I want to have. But it was clear that the neighbor invested a lot of time into his garden. He nurtured the little plants, and he created these ideal conditions for these plants to sprout and to grow to maturity. And, you know, when harvest time comes around, if you compare the produce between the two gardens, my garden and his, there was certainly no comparison. I mean, certainly I could find a few edible things among the weeds, but he had an overflowing abundance. And I love talking about gardens, as you know, and I love when people share the produce from their garden with me. I get to celebrate and talk about it. But I want to talk to you about relationships, because a relationship is very much like a garden that needs to be tended each day, or else the weeds are going to grow up and ultimately choke the fruitfulness away.

2:58This is true of Pretty much any kind of relationship, married life, home life, business life, friendships, and of course, church life. You see, some of our greatest sins are sins of omission. What I mean by that are sins where we fail to do what we ought to be doing. Many times, the breakdown of relationships comes about because we are failing to do what we ought to be doing and taking care and tending to the relationship, and it leads to gradual breaking down.

3:42What is the right thing to be doing? The title of tonight's message is Cherishing One Another, Cherishing One Another. And I want to talk about that in the context of a local church. Although I'll be using texts that certainly relate to a whole other kind of relationships: husband, wife, parents to children, and so forth, friend to friend. Well, what is it that we should be doing in the church? Well, Jesus has made that very clear. In John 13:34, he says, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

4:30Love one another. That's the new commandment. Love, the command to love isn't so much new. That goes back, to love one another. But to love one another as Christ loves us. Now that takes it to another level, a new commandment, that we love one another as Christ loved us. You see, and he gives us that commandment because our fundamental problem is that we love ourselves and we're far more inclined to use people than we are to serve them. And we're far more inclined to use people than we realize. It's part of our chronic condition and commitment to ourselves. But what a true disciple learns, a true disciple learns how to love people by following Jesus. That's what that's, we don't love, and so we've got to enter into his school. To love like him, we have to be tutored by him and be brought along by him to be able to love like him.

5:41And Jesus goes on in the very next verse in John 13, 35 to say this, By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. The kind of love that Jesus displayed. By this, other people are going to be able to know who. You follow. So, how do we grow in loving one another like Jesus wants? It's a very simple message tonight. I want you to learn what it means to cherish one another.

6:16I think we get to a large degree this command. We understand that we need to love one another, and all kinds of things go in our minds about loving one another, and then commitment, sacrifice. I think to a large degree we get that. But I think we fail to really understand the nuance of cherishing one another. And so, tonight, in loving like Jesus loves, I think a good place for us to start being able to love like He does is to learn how to cherish someone. You see, the kind of love that Jesus has for us to have for one another up here is a cherishing kind of love.

7:01There's a kind of love that cherishes, and that's what I want to talk to you about. And simply, I just want to talk about two things: what cherishing means and what cherishing one another in the church looks like. What cherishing means and what cherishing one another in the church looks like. So, that's where we're going tonight. So, first, I want to look at what cherishing means. We need to be a people who cherish each other. In fact, we make this vow to each other in many of our wedding ceremonies. The vow, and many of you who are married probably said something to this effect, if not verbatim. And you commit to love and to cherish one another. That's part of your wedding vow. It's the kind of love that's devoted, faithful, and all that, but a cherishing. What does it mean to cherish? Well, let me take you to Ephesians 5 and look at 28, 5, 28. Let me just back up and just say in verse 25, husbands, this is in a section of Scripture where Paul is telling the husbands what their responsibility is to their wives. Husbands, love your wives, verse 25, just as Christ also loved the church. And he gave himself up for her. So love your wives like Christ loved the church. That's a tall order, of course. But it's the same that he's already given everybody. The new commandment, he's given everybody in the church to love everyone the same way. Especially that is going to need to be true in the husband-wife relationship. And then he goes on to explain. That's a little more in detail in verse 28. So, husbands ought to also love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church. See that word, there's three words in here. And the reason I chose this text is because there's three words that nuance this idea of love. So you can see, husbands ought to love, verse 28. There it is, to love. You are to love. There's a word there, agape, maybe familiar with that, to love your own wives.

9:45But then there's two other words that amend that, take it a little deeper, a nuance. Nourishing and cherishing. Love nourishes and cherishes. All those words. So you can think about love, and you can think about subcategory, nourishing, you can think about subcategory, even of that, of cherishing. And so I've selected this text because all three are there, and all three are being distinctively used, even though they're all related to the same concept of loving one another. So to cherish is to is a category, a subcategory of loving. And it's, we've already seen that. Just as Christ loved the church. Verse 29.

10:36Just as Christ also does the church. You see, Jesus loves the church with the cherishing kind of love. And when he commands us to love one another, he is telling us to love each other with this cherishing kind of love. Boy, wouldn't that be great if we could really learn this lesson here? If we could grow in our love, the God of Scripture, love for one another by loving with this cherishing kind of love. That's what he wants.

11:12So let's look at the meaning of these words. The meaning of the word love, this agape word, it involves a high regard. You've probably heard that, to have a high affection for, a high esteem, a sincere appreciation for. You see, we are to have affection for, we are to have a high esteem for one another. Why? Because Christ died for that person sitting next to you. God gave His Son, Heavenly Father, has affection for that person, has a high enough esteem to send His Son into the world. And so we should recognize that and dignify that. Wow. Think about the person sitting next to him. Next to you, that God has redeemed, and think about the high value, high worth.

12:06So we are to love one another, we are to have a high regard for those whom Christ gave his life. Start there, and that applies to everybody who's in Christ. You see, one cannot cherish someone without loving that person. To have a high regard, before you start cherishing and get into the cherishing kind of love, you must have a high regard, an affection for, a devotion to, a high esteem. And that high esteem comes from something that God has placed in that person, the image of God, and then that redeemed image of God. There's plenty right there for you to. We should fearfully love one another because of the price paid for one another.

13:00Then there's a second word in these verses, in verse 29, the word nourishes. It's closely related. You can't cherish something that you don't nourish. The word nourishes talks about providing for something so it can live. If you love something, you will also nourish that something. If you nourish, If you love someone, you will also nourish that somebody. You see, you're not loving something if you're watching it die. If you're just letting it die. I mean, if you saw my beagle out in my backyard and I didn't feed it and I didn't water it, and day after day, I just, I said, Oh, I love my beagle, I love my beagle. Boy, he can't get up this day. You know, I just watched him die. That is certainly not loving. You'd say, You don't love it. I don't know what's going on in your mind, but you don't love it. You don't love something you don't nourish. You can't let something die. And so, an important aspect of relationships and church relationships and any kind of relationship, and husband-wife relationship, any kind of relationship is nourishing it. Now, what does it mean to nourish? Well, the word nourish comes from two words: one, out of, and a second word, necessary provisions. So, out of the necessary provisions, and it speaks of bringing up to maturity. Sometimes it's out of this, out of the necessary supplies, you nourish, you bring this thing to maturity, bringing it up, rearing it. The word is to cause to live, cause to thrive. You nourish something out of whatever those necessary provisions are, and think about in a garden standpoint. A good gardener does what's necessary to provide everything that these plants need to thrive.

15:18That's what it means to love your garden. Love the plants in your garden. This is what it means to love relationships. This word is used in Genesis 45 and verse 7. You remember when Joseph was in Egypt? And then he reveals himself to his brothers and he tells them, he says, Look, God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive. There's that word, by a great deliverance.

15:54See, God sent me down into Egypt. He has made me second to Pharaoh. And he did all this to keep you alive so that I could provide for our family the necessary provisions for our people to thrive. And so he tells his brothers, Go, go back to my father. Go back to Jacob and tell him, Joseph says this, Joseph is alive. God has made me Lord over all of Egypt. Come down to me. Do not delay. You shall live in the land of Goshen. Your children and your children's children and your flocks and herds, you will be supplied. And he says, There I will provide for you. That's the word nourish. I will nourish you. I will give you what is necessary so that you can thrive.

16:55And so, as an expression of his love for his family, what is Joseph doing? He promised to provide for them that which was necessary for them to be alive and to thrive. So you think about when you're in relationships with the church, out of whatever is necessary, out of those necessary provisions to cause thriving, not only the relationship, but the individual, to thrive, to grow, favor. The same word is also used in Ezekiel 31, speaking of a great cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, a huge, very high tree. And Ezekiel describes this tree, a beautiful, incredible tree, height, loftier than all the trees. The birds and animals, all fine shade. And he says this in verse 4: the waters made it grow.

18:00It was the waters that nourished, that provide the nourishment so that this tree could grow and thrive and become beautiful. And that's what this word nourish means. To grow up, to cause to grow up out of the necessary provisions, to make great, to become important. That's what to nourish somebody, to make them great. Make them grow. Help them grow. Grow up in favor with God and with man. That's the best thing you can do. Listen, the very best thing you could ever do for anybody is to help them grow in their God-given tasks. If God has called me to do something, the best thing you can help me do or do is help me do what God has called me to do. And so it is with any other relationship. Help people grow, become great in the eyes of the Lord. And this is what Paul's instruction, just in Ephesians 6, verse 4, you've heard this expression: Fathers, do not provoke your children, but bring them up. There's the word. Bring them up in the discipline. And instruction of the Lord. Bring them up. Fathers, don't provoke your children. Don't exasperate your children.

19:39Nourish them out of whatever's necessary to bring them up. You provide those provisions, whether it's physical needs, spiritual needs, and emotional needs. You provide whatever's necessary so that your children can grow and thrive and grow in favor with God and with man. That's the idea of nourishing, and that's how we are to be loving one another, nourishing them. A good father doesn't exasperate his children, but provides the necessary conditions for them so that they can grow up in the ways of the Lord.

20:29And it isn't just to the fathers. I mean, exasperating parents make it difficult for children's exasperating anyone. You're an exasperating, taxing person. You make it difficult for people to flourish around you. I think that's the problem with many husbands today: they fail to keep their wives alive by nourishing them out of those necessary supplies that she needs to grow. In her God-given tasks to grow in favor with God and with man. Look, husbands, if she needs strength, you give strength. If she needs encouragement, you give encouragement. That's the idea of what it means to nourish. And it's not just talking about husbands and wives, but any relationship.

21:23Nourish them. Which takes us to the third word. We've looked at love, we looked at nourishing. You really aren't loving anyone if you're not nourishing them. It's the practical aspect of it. But then that we come to this word cherishing. Cherishing. And that is a very interesting word, and it's a very beautiful word. The word cherish is a subcategory of loving. It's even a subcategory of nourishing. But the basic idea is to impart warmth. To cherish somebody is to impart warmth to them. You ever had cold relationships? Warmth, warm relationships? The idea is imparting warmth to a person. And that involves ideas of comfort, ideas of encouragement, warmth, affection, presence, and a lot of things. The biblical metaphor that.

22:30There's several biblical metaphors that use this word. In Deuteronomy 22, 6, it's a mother bird caring for her young by keeping them warm, imparting warmth. And you think about the young there, that mama bird is there to impart warmth, protection, comfort, and all that. Another biblical metaphor we come across in 1 Thessalonians 2.7, the word isn't used a whole lot, but it's a nursing mother caring for her child. 1 Thessalonians 2.7, Paul says, We prove to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. That's the word, tenderly caring. Cherishing is to tenderly care for, to cherish, to comfort, to impart warmth. So, based on all these considerations, I've come up with a little bit of a definition for cherishing of my own.

23:41To cherish someone is to bring about the conditions whereby someone can thrive, especially in their God-given tasks. To bring about, to cherish someone is to bring about the conditions whereby a person can. Thrive, especially in their God-given tasks. That's the kind of cherishing love. That's the kind of love that is cherishing, a love that seeks to bring about the conditions where someone can thrive in their God-given tasks. There's no greater love than you impart your life and lay down your life to encourage others to bring about those conditions where somebody else can thrive before the Lord. That's what it means to cherish somebody. And it's something we really fall short in a lot.

24:41I'll raise my hand first. I see, we get the big picture of loving, we get the picture of that and sacrifice and devotion, but there is this kind of cherishing love that I think sometimes we lose sight of. It's like a garden. We've got so many other things going on, we're not dialed in. But that's what it means to cherish, to bring about the conditions where somebody you love can thrive in what God has called them to do. And there's application: husbands to wives, parents to children, brothers to sisters, sisters to brothers, and every kind of relationship you can imagine, but especially in the church. This is what it means to love one another as Christ loves us.

25:38You see, one of the areas that many Christian relationships and marriages fail is in this cherishing one another. That is, often husbands fail to create and nurture the conditions that would cause their wives to flourish in what God has called them to do, and vice versa. Same is true with children, same is true with others, and same is true in the church. But this cherishing kind of love is how Christ loves his church. To going back to the husband-wife analogy, to cherish, for a husband to cherish his wife is to tenderly love her, to give her warmth, to comfort, protect, secure. That's imparting warmth. And when husbands fail to do that, relationship is stressed.

26:45But this is the way Christ relates to his church. He imparts that comfort. Boy, we need comfort. Boy, we need reassurance. Boy, we need protection. We need his warmth imparted to us. So we've looked at what cherishing means. It's to bring about those conditions whereby the person you love can flourish in his or her God-given tasks. And it's all your relation. That's the way you were told to relate to people in your life, but especially one another in this room and in this church. Now, what does cherishing one another in the church look like? I want to spend a little time about that. And I'll look at 1 Thessalonians 2 for just a moment. 1 Thessalonians 2. You can look at verse 7.

27:52So we've looked at what cherishing one another means, and now I want to look at what it looks like in a church setting. And there's seven characteristics that I've pulled out of these verses here in chapter 2 of 1 Thessalonians. Look at verse 7. But we proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. So there's the word: we cherished you. That is what Paul is saying. That is his example, the ministry team that. Came to Thessalonica, we proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares, cherishing that image of that. And that's the main image of this whole passage here. And so, what I want to do is, I want to look at three characteristics that happened before this image, and then I want to look at four images that happen right after it. So, first, a love that cherishes. Look at verse 5.

29:04It's sincere. Verse 5 says, For we never came with flattering speech. 1 Thessalonians 2:5, Paul says, When we came to you, we never came with flattering speech. So, a love that cherishes one another in the body is the kind that's sincere. There's no flattery, there's no, it is sincere. Second, also in verse 5, for we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with the pretext for greed. In other words, a love that cherishes is not out for personal gain.

29:47Paul is saying, We didn't want your money, we cherished you, we wanted to impart something to you, we didn't want your money. Money. Third characteristic, verse 6, nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ, we might have asserted our authority. A love that cherishes, number one, is sincere. Number two, it's not out for personal gain, and number three, it does not seek glory. It does not seek glory.

30:30Paul says, We didn't want your praise either. We didn't want your worship. We didn't want your admiration. We loved you. We didn't want your money, and we didn't want your worship. We didn't want your glory. A fourth aspect, and this happens in verse eight. Having so fond, affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. You see, a love that cherishes also gives. It imparts. It imparts. It gives. It builds. It imparts good things for a person's well-being. That's what cherishing somebody. Think of that, that imparting warmth. It's all about imparting something. Not taking your money, not taking your praise, not taking your worship, thoroughly sincere, but to impart good things for another person's well-being. That's what it means to cherish. Think about that in your husband-wife relationships. Think about that in your relationships. Think about that in all of your relationships up here.

31:56Number five, fifth characteristic: a love that cherishes, labors, and endures for the well-being of others. Look at 1 Thessalonians 2:9. For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaim to you the gospel of God. Notice they labored, they endured hardship because they didn't want to be a burdened, a burden. So a love that cherishes labors and endures for the well-being of others.

32:37Number six, a love that cherishes is holy. It is above reproach. It is above reproach. Look at 1 Thessalonians 2:10. You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you, believer. It's above reproach. It's holy. It's about being devout. It's not about, it's sincere. It doesn't want gain. It doesn't want glory. It's about imparting. This is what cherishing is about. It's about imparting something to somebody else. And it endures and labors and endures for that well-being of somebody else. And it does so in a God-honoring way, upright, holy.

33:31And then, number seven, it has each other's relationship with God as a top priority. A love that cherishes has each other's relationship with God as the top priority. And all of my, let me just look at verse 11. Just as you know, how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

34:07You see, a cherishing kind of love helps others honor God. It doesn't tempt them to sin against God. That's what a love that cherishes. This is how Christ loved the church and how he commands us to love one another. So, a love that cherishes, number one, it's sincere. Number two, it is not out for personal gain. Number three, it does not seek glory. A love that cherishes, number four, it imparts good things for a person's well-being. Number five, it labors and endures for the well-being of others. Six, it is holy and it is above reproach. And number seven, it has each other's relationship with God as a top priority. This is what loving one another in the church looks like, at least from this text.

35:15Well, as you know, my garden isn't as fruitful as it could be because of my neglect. To take care of my garden involves time, attention, and sacrifice. And so do relationships. And any relationship must be tended each day, or the fruitfulness of it is going to be lost, wasted away. And this is true of every kind of relationship that you have, and especially those in the church. But loving one another like this does involve sacrifice. That's why Jesus will say it again to his disciples in John 15:12, This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

36:19And he goes on to say, Greater love has no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friends. And Jesus saw on his way to the cross and said, This is what love is about. It's about laying down your life to provide that nourishment, that supply, those provisions, to impart that warmth, tenderly care for, so that a person can have a good and clean relationship with God. And it's going to cost you your life. So get in the habit of dying.

37:01Get in the habit of loving. I'm done. Anybody want to say anything or had to? Observation. All right. Well, let's, if we can put this in practice, you know, I would like to call all of you to do what I'm trying to do. To just, if I can honestly obey just one of my sermons, I feel like I will arrive. I can just, just one of them. If I could just really obey one of them, and especially this one tonight, how important it is to love one another with this kind of cherishing love. Let's pray, Lord. We thank you that you've called us to love one another the way that you have loved us, and that that involves this cherishing, imparting warmth, and life, and comfort, and security, and attention, and sacrifice, all this, Father.

38:08You gave us in Christ, and we thank you for that. And help us, Father. We're not going to learn this on our own. We're going to only be able to learn this in your school, your school of discipleship. So, Father, thank you that we are loved like this, and because you love us like this, we can now proceed putting that love on display every time we relate to somebody and be reminded of your love for us. And so, we thank you. Go with us tonight in your name and for your glory. In Christ's name, Amen.