The Power Supply - Pastor Eric Skelton

What if the most powerful thing you can do is actually invisible?

The world isn’t tuning out the gospel because it’s hard to understand. It’s tuning out the noise.

Gifts can grab attention. Love changes hearts.

So ask yourself:
Are you using your abilities to win arguments… or win people to Jesus?

At The Neighborhood Church, we believe faith is lived out in everyday rhythms of love, grace, and purpose. Learn more and connect with us at https://theneighborhoodchurch.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, it's good to be back with you. There really is no place like home. If you didn't know, uh I think I share with you. Last week we uh Angela and I were away. Um we drove a uh just a short little hop, skip, and a jump to like Chicago and back um in about four days. Uh so yeah, we totaled right around 3,000 miles, just just shy of 3,000 miles. Um easy cake drive, no stress. It was you know, the back felt great when we were done. But no, thanks for allowing us to have time. And and I'm so grateful for Pastor Simone as as she was here bringing the word and and did just an awesome, awesome job. And and so we're just grateful for for a team that can work together like that. Um our kids are home, we're excited about that. We're glad to have them back, except for the messes they leave. Things are good. Things are good. Uh also um a couple other things going on. Um, today, this is kind of a special day. Yes, it's Mother's Day, and I don't want to take away from that. Mother's Day, it's special day, right? Yes, special. Um, but also this marks two years for Angela and I here with you uh at the neighborhood church in Pompano Beach. This we started on Mother's Day two years ago, and so we're uh we're we're blessed to be here. And and honestly, I can say we we love you. We really do. Um all your quirks, everything else. We do love you. No, I'm I'm teasing. Uh it's it's an honor to be here. And so in the coming uh coming weeks, maybe months, we'll see how it gets scheduled. Um what's required in the Church of the Nazarene is the district superintendent will come and I believe he'll, I don't know his exact process, but if he meets with the board or the church, I don't know. But there will be a two-year pastoral review. So um I'll be talking to some of you to not come that Sunday. No, no, I'm teasing. Um he'll come and and we'll have a two-year pastoral review, and uh, and then you're gonna have to decide if you want to keep me around. Got it? Okay, all right, all right, just just checking. Just making you aware. Um I have some friends outside that if you say no, we're gonna no, I'm I'm teasing. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. No, it's it's been an honor and a privilege to be here with you. I'm excited to see what the Lord's gonna continue to do as we partner together in this journey. Because it is a journey, amen. So, yeah, we're excited to see what God has in store. Uh, also, one more note before we start digging in, um, we're missing another member of our staff. They were away uh because Pastor Thad, your executive and next generations pastor, uh, yesterday walked the platform at Olivet Nazareth University and received his master's degree. Uh and so that's exciting. So uh just so you know, later on in the summer, we're gonna have a celebration time for them, okay? Uh and we'll announce that when it gets coming, but we want to have a little celebration for them. That's a big accomplishment, wouldn't you agree? So that's exciting. So lots of stuff going on, lots of things happening. Um and so it, I guess it would be important that I preach a little bit, a little bit. Um if you have your Bibles, would you open up to the book of First Corinthians chapter 13? Now, if I just say 1 Corinthians 13, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Love. It's the love chapter, right? Everybody loves 1 Corinthians 13. It's all about love. But I think sometimes we get it mixed up with our earthly, our worldly, our cultural definition of what love is. Today, this is going to kind of flow into this series that we've been talking about, this uncommon or this, sorry, this common grace, but uncommon power. We all receive a common grace from God. God continues to pour out more grace even when we don't deserve it. So we have a common grace, but what's bestowed upon all of us is this uncommon power if we stay plugged in. And that's what we're going to look at today. Today we're going to kind of talk about this specific kind of power that usually goes unnoticed. And in this series, we've been looking at how God equips us with different tools, right? He equips us with different tools and and he designed us sort of like gears. Do you remember the gear analogy? I know that was like two weeks ago. That's a long time to remember. Uh, but the way how gears and cogs function together and make machines work. Do you remember that little story? This is this is because we're all part, we're all pieces of this bigger kingdom engine that really does have an uncommon power to transform lives because we're sharing Jesus with those who desperately need him. And so today, being Mother's Day, I want to talk about uh the invisible engine. The invisible engine. If you think about a mother's influence, uh maybe if you ask a child, what does your mom do? They might give you a bunch of tasks, right? I thought for a second about bringing Owen up here and giving a microphone, and then I decided that was a bad idea. But some of the things, some of the list of tasks that they might give you would be uh she cooks, she drives, she does, helps with homework, she finds the socks that no one else can find, um, all of those things, right? That's those if you were to ask a kid, that's often maybe what we might hear from her, but but if you ask an adult, maybe that is a loose term too. If you ask an adult, what did your mother provide? I believe that answer changes. Wouldn't you agree? It's no longer about the tasks, but it really transitions to more about the atmosphere. It's not so much about the things, it's more about the temperature of the room. It's about the sense of maybe safety or or the persistence, the ongoingness of her presence, and this sheer uncommon power of a love that a mother has. Now, I'm learning, I'm still learning, but a mother's power isn't found in a title or a loud voice, though some of you have a loud voice. It's found in the fact that I believe she is the power supply for the heart of the home. You know the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer reads the temperature around it, a thermostat sets the temperature. I look at mom as the thermostat. She sets the tone. And I think that brings us to really the most famous and perhaps misunderstood, I believe, chapter in the Bible. I already asked you, what when you when you hear a 1 Corinthians 13, what do you think? Oh, it's a love. It's the love chapter. And it tells us all about what love is. Excuse me. But I think today, Paul is gonna hit the pause button for what we normally think. And he essentially is gonna say this. He's gonna say, so here's the whole sermon into a nutshell. So after I say this phrase, you can be done and leave. I'm teasing. No. He essentially says this: I don't care how many tools you have in your tool belt or in your shed, or how fast your gears are running or turning together, because if you're not plugged into the right power supply, you're just gonna make noise. You're just gonna make noise. See, the world isn't deaf to the gospel because it's hard to understand. The gospel is not hard to understand. It's really a simple, beautiful story. The problem is the church has made it difficult. The world isn't deaf to the gospel because it's hard to understand. The world is deaf to the gospel because the church has been making too much noise with its gifts and too little music with its love. We've become part of the problem. Let that sink in. If you have your Bibles, look at verses 1 through 3 of 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Verses 1 to 3. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clinging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

unknown 9:48

Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Paul starts this this passage with this this kind of the series of what ifs. And these what ifs should make every active serving Christian in this room take a deep breath. They really should. If I speak in tongues of angels, if I if I have prophetic powers and understand everything, all of these things. Listen, let's look at the first one. This idea of a clinging symbol, a noisy gong or see, in the first century, that phrase, that clinging symbol, that was a specific reference. Because now we have symbols all the time. In fact, we we just had some, right, Andy? You were cranking out those. That was good. But in that first century, that clinging symbol was a reference. See, in the pagan temples of Corinth, where Paul was writing this letter to the church in Corinth, people would use loud gongs and cymbals to try to wake up their mute or dead idols. Guess what? They're dead. They're not gonna wake up, no matter how much noise you make. It was this chaotic, jarring, teeth rattling sound. It was irritating, it was frustrating. Can you imagine walking by in one of these pagan temples and just hearing this awful, awful noise? Paul's saying that, listen to what Paul says. With that picture in mind, Paul says, hey, if you use your spiritual gifts without the power supply of love, you don't sound like Jesus, you sound like a pagan riot. Ooh. That's kind of painful, isn't it? Remember, he's writing to the church saying, hey guys, wake up. Paul lists the most superstar gifts imaginable. He talks about tongues, you can speak with supernatural eloquence. He talks about prophecy, if you have the inside track on what God is doing. Talk about knowledge, you can explain every mystery that this book has. Or faith. If you have enough faith to literally move a mountain, talks about sacrifice. If you give every penny that you have to the poor and even your even offer your body up to the flames, we look at a person who is like that and say, that is like that's a spiritual giant. They are like, wow. I mean, that's that's you know, MVP of the kingdom right there. Like that's just that's it. They're they're the one. Paul looks at that person, he looks at that person and he says, Without love, that person is a zero. Nothing. Nothing. Now, in our Nazarene holiness tradition, who we are as a church and what we believe, our theology, we talk a lot about this idea of heart holiness. This is important to understand because this is the core of it. Holiness is not about the size of your gift. Holiness is not about the visibility of your gift. It's about the source of your gift. It's about where it comes from. Power without love is not a ministry, it's a weapon. We can have all the power in the world, but without love, it's nothing. We've been we aren't helping people. We're just smacking them around with our holiness. And folks, I'll be honest, that gives a really bad taste. We've all met that uh that clanging symbol Christian, haven't we? Don't look around the room. Don't. They're the ones who have all the right theology, who have the right Bible verses, who have everything memorized, they have all the right tools, they know how to win the argument, they know what's best about everything when it comes to Christianies, whatever. But they use all that stuff to win arguments rather than win hearts. See, if you're if your uncommon power that God has blessed you with, if that makes you more arrogant instead of more accessible, then I believe we're unplugged from the power supply. Paul then moves from what love isn't to what love is. And I think this is where we see some of these beautiful qualities that we celebrate on Mother's Day. And there's a connection I think we can put more clearly together. If we look at verses 4 to 7 in chapter 13, it reads this way: it reads that this love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant, it's not rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Now, if we look at these verses again, we look at them maybe in the Greek text, which we're not going to do today. I'm not going to take you through the Greek. But if we were to look through it in the Greek, the language, you will not find a single feeling there. These are not feelings about love. Remember, we've talked about feelings before. Our feelings can betray us, right? Our feelings will say, I want four tacos instead of three. Your feelings will betray you. Because a couple hours later, well, we won't go into that. But see, every one of these descriptions in the Greek language, every one of these descriptions of what we call the word love is a verb. It is an action word. Love isn't something that we feel, it's something that you do when you really don't feel like doing it. Yeah? Anybody in here just have a fondness, like love to express. I there I used the word, I was trying not to use that word. Uh, but really, really enjoy being patient all the time. I didn't think so. Because at some point, all of us have to drive on I-95 once in a while. See, that was a beautiful part of our trip. Our trip ran so smoothly until we got to I-95. We drove the Turnpike, we drove I-75, we went through Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville all in the same day with no issues. I tapped the brake like three times until we got to 95 on the way home. What in the world? What is wrong?

unknown 17:47

No.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Love is patient, love is patient, love is patient, love is patient. In fact, the Greek word here actually means love is long tempered. Oh, we've had some conversations about short tempers, haven't we? Conversations like this way, not me this way, but it's I want to clarify. Love is long-tempered. It's the ability to be wronged and not immediately retaliate. Mothers, you you you know this uncommon power. You know this uncommon power. It's the power that allows you to stay calm when the milk has been spilled for the third time within five minutes. Love is kind. Love is kind. It's not kindness is not just not being mean. Does that make sense? It's actually looking for ways to be useful. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it's not proud. In fact, if we go back to the analogy with the gears and the engine, love is is is the oil in the gears. If the church is an engine, these verbs, these action things that we do, this is what keeps us from overheating. It's what keeps the engine running smoothly and functioning the way it should. Before the kids, uh so we didn't drive home with the kids, they drove home on their own. But before we did that, I made sure to check out the car that would run smoothly on the way home, right? That's what we want to make sure it's they're not going to get stranded somewhere. And one of the things we always check is you check the oil, right? You pull that dipstick out, you wipe it, you check it. I pulled it out, wiped it, put it back in, pull it back out. Huh. Car needs oil. We'll talk about that later. So we added oil. Because oil is essential. Otherwise it overheats, otherwise the gears grind, other things don't function correctly, right? A ten-dollar bottle of oil will help a $5,000 engine from blowing up. Imagine if if our go-and be mantra, if that idea of going and being, were calibrated by these verses that we just read. See, if we have the gift of leadership, but you aren't patient with the people who you're who are trying to help or who are struggling to follow you, then you're kind of grinding the gears. If you have the gift of maybe the gift of administration, but you're but you use your organization to boast about how good you are together compared to those other people, then really you're unplugged from the power source. See, love is that oil, it's the insulation on those electrical wires. Without it, the power of God becomes this live wire that shocks everybody who touches it, and not in a good way. So thinking about those mothers, those women who who have played that role and impacted your life, most times they weren't doing big, grand, spectacular things. They were doing the patient things. They were doing the kind things. They were not being easily angered. They were protecting. They were trusting. They were hoping and they were persevering. See, mothers, I believe they show us that the power supply isn't about that big lightning bolt. It's about that steady current. That's the uncommon power of a sanctified heart. It's a heart that's been emptied of self and then filled with a love that doesn't need to be in the spotlight to keep shining. That's the picture we're called to be. Paul ends this chapter in verse 13 with a with really a perspective shift. He tells us that one day the tools, all the stuff, all these things are going to be put back into the tool shed. Listen to what he says. In verse 8, it reads, Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. Kind of a humbling thought for those of us who love our jobs in the church. Who love the ministries that we have or that we've started or what we've done. There's going to come a day when, Willie, we don't need the sound system anymore. There's going to be a day where, Miss Trish, we don't need the nursery team and the kids' men anymore. There's going to be a day when the finance committee is retired. Some of you are going to jump for joy on that one. There's going to be a day when I'm going to be out of a job because we're going to see them face to face. You don't need to hear a guy run his mouth and preach every Sunday because we're going to be with Jesus. See, the tools are temporary, but the power supply is eternal. Right? The power supply is eternal. It never ends. Paul says that when we were children, we we talked and we thought like children, but then as we grow, we put childish things behind us. See, he's telling the Corinthian church, he's talking to the church, and he's telling us that focusing on the big flashy gifts while ignoring perfect love. While ignoring this beautiful picture of love, this power supply, he's telling us that's spiritual immaturity. Without it, you're you're nothing. It's like a child playing with a toy hammer trying to build a house. It doesn't work. The only part of your life, the only part of your ministry that will survive this transition into eternity is the part that was motivated by love. The part that's motivated by love. Everything else is just wood and concrete and paint and metal, and it's all gonna pass away. So this week, as we practice, and in a minute we're gonna we're gonna be challenged a little bit, but this week, when we go and be, because that's who we're called to be, right? Not come and see the church, go and be the church. This week, when we go and be, I want you to remember that that you are building something that lasts forever. You're building something that lasts forever. And every time you choose love over being right or service over being recognized, you are going and being the church and showing them the love of Jesus. So, what do we do with all this? What do we do with all this? How do we go and be with that power supply? Staying plugged in to that power supply. I think it's important to differentiate a couple of things. Number one, the world defines power as status. Would you agree with that? The world defines power as status. How many people report to you, how much money's in the account, how many tools do we have? That's how the world defines power. I think it's important to differentiate that the kingdom, the kingdom defines power as service. As service. How much of your life are you willing to give away for the sake of another? How much of your life are you willing to give away for the sake of someone else? See, the go and be challenge, I believe we need to grab on to is pretty simple. It's simple to understand, to comprehend, but let me tell you, it's extremely difficult. So if you're up for the challenge, hang with me for a second. What if, what if we were a church that would go and be and use the tools that God has blessed us with, the tools that we have right here, and use it for someone else who can do absolutely nothing in return for you? What if we became a people like that? That we loved and we served and did not look for anything at all in return. In fact, did it for somebody who had nothing to give in return? What would that look like? So maybe, maybe if your gift is encouragement, maybe that's your spiritual gift, you find the person who's the most difficult to be around and you speak life into them. That's a fun one, isn't it? I love to be around people who are difficult. What if we did that though? Maybe your gift is service. Find a need that no one will ever know that you filled and fill it. With zero accolades, zero commendation, just do it. If you're a mother, you fill that role, continue to be that sour power supply in your own home. Continue to be that power supply, not a sour supply, a power supply. Knowing that your common grace is producing an uncommon harvest. It often is quiet, it's often subtle, it often goes unnoticed. But those of you who are filling that role, you're doing something that will produce an uncommon harvest in the lives of your children and those that you serve. See, when we use our gifts that God has blessed us with for someone who cannot pay us back, I believe we prove that we're plugged into the right power supply. Not just looking for accolades or promotion or bada boy. Paul concludes this passage by saying this. Now we see only a reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. See, today we we see kind of dimly. Not because the lights are low, that's what I'm talking about. But we see kind of dimly. We struggle to use our gifts correctly. Whether because we're unsure of how to do it, we're maybe not even sure what we're gifted to do. Sometimes we get our wires crossed. We make noise and we should be making music. But folks, I believe even in the dim light, God is calling us to a more excellent way. To the moms, to those in that, those roles and serving and doing all that, I want you to thank you. I want to thank you personally for being a reflection of that love to us. You've shown us what that power supply looks like and what that means. To the rest of us, let's let's stop trying to be powerful and instead let's start trying to be plugged in. Funny little thing on our trip is we were, I don't remember if it was on the way up or the way back, but um we our our van is a 2008 model, so it doesn't have all the big fancy gadgets. So we have those those circle things in the dash, remember the cigarette lighters? And we have a little outlet plugged in there, and there's two little notches, two little USB-C connectors that would charge a phone or whatever, and so Angela was trying to charge something. So why why is it plugged in? Why isn't it working? Huh, that's interesting. It should be. It was working just fine. But we didn't really what we didn't realize is that each little outlet had a different power supply. One one gave more power than the other. Some were maybe lower voltage than the other. We didn't know. So we swapped them and boom, it started working. What if maybe we were plugged into the wrong outlet? What if maybe our focus has been on something else? What if our eyes maybe haven't been fixed and focused on the author and the perfector of our faith? In a moment, I want to pray for you and I want you to maybe just do some soul searching. Maybe you just, right where you are, you just ask the Lord, God, am I plugged into the right power supply? Am I plugged into the right thing? Because I believe a church that's filled and plugged into that power supply of love is a church that the world cannot ignore. And it is a church that will do amazing, wonderful, and marvelous things just based on what the Lord has provided with us right here in our hands. God is going to do awesome things through us if we just say, okay, Lord, here I am. This is what I have. Let's go. So what if what if we stopped being clinging symbols and instead started being the body that's plugged in to that power supply of love that never ends? Will you stand with me this morning? I want to pray for you. And I'm gonna ask, if you would, just that simple question. You ask it to God. I don't need to ask it for you. You can ask, you can ask him. God, am I plugged into the right power supply? Or are maybe maybe my wires are crossed? Maybe the plug has come corroded and we need to do some cleaning. Maybe we need to ask for some forgiveness for things and say, okay, God, can you help me be plugged into that power supply? The beautiful thing is that when we ask, he does. When we cry out, he he listens and he responds. And it's not based on who we are or what we've done, it's based on who he is and how much love he has for His people.