SPEAKER_00: If you got your Bibles, turn with us to 1 Corinthians also gonna be up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 1, also known as known as the love chapter.
SPEAKER_00: It's a chapter that you hear a lot around Valentine's and weddings and all that good stuff, and nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00: But I know that we just came out of the discipleship uh six week about talking about walking in love.
SPEAKER_00: It is not easy to walk in love, is it?
SPEAKER_00: Especially when those that you're walking in love toward aren't showing love backwards to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
SPEAKER_00: So, amen.
SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna get into it here.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I just ask you to anoint me because God, apart from your anointing, I cannot accomplish anything.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, your word is anointed, and I pray, God, that you would take that anointed word and you would anoint me to speak your word in the way and the in the path that you have for us tonight, and that God, it would be us receiving from you, not them hearing from me.
SPEAKER_00: Because God, we need to hear from you tonight.
SPEAKER_00: We ask you, Lord, in the mighty name of Jesus, to do this for your glory and for your honor, and your glory and honor alone.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody say, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: First Corinthians chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to begin reading in verse number one.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the first word.
SPEAKER_00: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
SPEAKER_00: And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
SPEAKER_00: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love I gain nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Love is patient and kind.
SPEAKER_00: Love does not envy or boast.
SPEAKER_00: It is not arrogant or rude.
SPEAKER_00: It does not insist on its own way.
SPEAKER_00: It is not irritable or resentful.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't got convicted yet, praise God for you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse six, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
SPEAKER_00: Love never ends.
SPEAKER_00: As for prophecies, they will pass away.
SPEAKER_00: As for tongues, they will cease.
SPEAKER_00: As for knowledge, it will pass away.
SPEAKER_00: For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
SPEAKER_00: When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
SPEAKER_00: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
SPEAKER_00: So now faith, hope, and love abide.
SPEAKER_00: These three.
SPEAKER_00: But the greatest of these is love.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you again for your word.
SPEAKER_00: We ask you, God, that your word would sink deep into our heart and that we would be changed through the word.
SPEAKER_00: That God, we would not resist the word, but if the word is speaking to us and it is, Lord, let us listen and let us be doers of the word as you have called us to be.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of ifs as we read this chapter, or not all of it, but yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_00: We read all of it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of ifs in this chapter, if I speak in the tongues of men, if I don't have love, and if I have prophetic powers, and if I have all faith, right?
SPEAKER_00: And if I give away all that I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned and don't have love, I gain nothing.
SPEAKER_00: It if I do a lot of things that from the outward seems good and righteous and holy, but the backing of the motivation is not one of love, they accomplish nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it is easy to have a presentation of righteousness, but not really be rooted in a foundation of God's righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be clear when I say God's righteousness, I mean obviously, you know, he's God, Christ's righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And what why does that matter when I'm talking about love?
SPEAKER_00: Because I love because he first loved me.
SPEAKER_00: That has got to be the premise of us loving others.
SPEAKER_00: So many times we'll say, but Pastor, you don't understand it is hard to love them, and it is.
SPEAKER_00: And they're hateful and they're mean and they're cantankerous, they're backbiting, they they talk about me behind my back, they say things that sometimes is true but still hurtful and ways that is hurtful, and you just you just don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: And look, we all get it, we've all been there at some point in time.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been in any type of ministry, you get it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And you say type of ministry, it could be street ministry, it could be, you know, lemonade ministry, it could be anything.
SPEAKER_00: And if they because it let's say Michael started doing a lemonade ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that'd be some people complain that it ain't strong enough, it ain't sweet enough, it's too high, it's too cheap.
SPEAKER_00: It's he don't come around enough, he needs to do it on this day, that day.
SPEAKER_00: I I mean they would be complaining, and look, and he's giving it away, basically.
SPEAKER_00: There'd be somebody complaining about it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: That's life.
SPEAKER_00: But when we think about how love is that Christ is calling us to, amen, we have to be reminded that he loved me first, amen.
SPEAKER_00: And it's because he loved me that I should love others, and how he loved me is how I'm supposed to love others.
SPEAKER_00: Because if I do all the presentation, but without the foundation, then I'm on sinking sand and it will go nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: It will fall apart.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we think about loving others that is difficult, that is hard, we first got to realize, and I think this is hard for most of us, maybe, maybe not, but to be genuinely, because we live in a society today that tells us that, you know, we tell our kids, and I'm not meaning this toward any of the kids here, but the world as a whole will say to their kids, you know, uh, you're a puppy's breath, you're Skittles, you're, you know, you're you're just wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: You're, and what I mean by that is you're just per, you know, you're just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: You you just you're just awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And we do need to encourage our kids, don't misunderstand me, but they also need to understand that they're rank, dead, when they get to the point they can understand, going to hell without Jesus sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And not pull any punches.
SPEAKER_00: They need to understand that, yes, they're a blessing, and we love you, and we're here to support you, but unless you get saved, you're not going to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so many times, we was me and me and brother uh Nelson was talking about this earlier today, a lot of parents, not him, but a lot of parents, they're more concerned about what college their kids are going to get into instead of worrying more about it, they're getting into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times that's because we don't think we're that bad.
SPEAKER_00: We are bad.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know we're bad?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because Jesus had to suffer a grueling, terrible death because of all of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: So if we ever forget, you say, but what's this got to do with that about love?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because if we judge our the how we love others based on how we think we should be treated, amen, and maybe they've done all kinds of the wrong things, we first got to not forget that we are not just the offended, but we are first the offender.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't do it to them.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you did it to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You did it to him.
SPEAKER_00: It is because of me and you that he had to suffer and die and was beaten and was ridiculed and was rejected.
SPEAKER_00: It is terrible.
SPEAKER_00: If we can ever get how terrible sin is, we wouldn't live in it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We need a revelation of how terrible it is.
SPEAKER_00: I do, you do.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be reminded every day.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we're still in it, but that we need to stay away from it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of important guy.
SPEAKER_00: For the wages of sin is what?
SPEAKER_00: Death.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know we love the second part of it, and we're gonna quote it, but the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: Sin kills.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he told Adam and Eve in the garden that the day you eat it, you will what?
SPEAKER_00: Die.
SPEAKER_00: When you eat what I told you not to eat, when you break my command, when you when you uh do what I've commanded you not to do, you're gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: And the and the smart person will say, Well, but they didn't die.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but they did.
SPEAKER_00: They died spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: They died.
SPEAKER_00: And the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: But, he said, the gift of God is eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: But notice what the wording there is.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm getting back into the scripture, I promise you.
SPEAKER_00: Look, notice the wording there.
SPEAKER_00: But the what, the gift.
SPEAKER_00: Do you buy the gift for yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Some people do, but typically no, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When somebody gives you a gift, when I one day am able to give Brother Michael a 2085, because that'll probably be when it is, but a 2085, uh, 3500 HD, brand new, give him the keys.
SPEAKER_00: Brother, I just love you.
SPEAKER_00: Here you go.
SPEAKER_00: Just want to give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: When we are able to do that, I mean, so many times we we want to do things, but then we forget, amen, that it is God, amen, that has done so much for us, and we forget that we're the ones that had first offended him.
SPEAKER_00: We're the ones that have first are the ones that it's because of us that he first loved us, that he died for us.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we think about the way of love, when we think about a man showing love to others, we got to be reminded of just how bad it was that we were, so that we're not just thinking of being offended, but that we're the offender.
SPEAKER_00: And if we remind ourselves that we're the offender, then we will be more apt to forgive the offender who's offended us.
SPEAKER_00: You say, what's that got to do with anything?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because he tells us in verse 4, love is patient and kind.
SPEAKER_00: Love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or 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.
SPEAKER_00: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
SPEAKER_00: Love never ends.
SPEAKER_00: So if I want to have that kind of love, I got to be reminded that somebody first loved me that way.
SPEAKER_00: That while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me.
SPEAKER_00: That he said, I didn't choose him, he chose me.
SPEAKER_00: That on his final breaths on the cross, he was saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of love that we have been loved with by Christ, and that's the kind of love he is calling us to love others, not because they haven't offended or hurt or whatever, filling the blank.
SPEAKER_00: We're not making light of that at all.
SPEAKER_00: But we leave judgment to God.
SPEAKER_00: We say, God, you see what they did, you understand how it hurt, and Lord, I put it in your hands.
SPEAKER_00: There may be a time where they need to go to them, let them know, because the Bible tells us to go to them and let them know that they offended you or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Do that according to Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, it's in his hands, not in mine and yours.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we think about love and we think about how so many times we hear this and we think about, well, you know, we've got to be patient, all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be with those that it's difficult because we think we're better than them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but what do you do that you don't realize you do that other people could tell you that you do?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't do what they do, but you do other things.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Because you ain't perfect.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're still here.
SPEAKER_00: If you were perfect, then you'd be in heaven right now.
SPEAKER_00: But you're not.
SPEAKER_00: So there's still some work to be done.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So when we stop and we think about the way that God loves us and that he expects us to love others, the first thing, amen, that we've got to understand is that if I'm gonna love others the way he's loved me, and look, it's a process, and we gotta need, we have to have the help of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We can't do it in ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're gonna do that, my the first most critical thing is to understand the mindset that I have must be in the understanding that I am a sinner apart from the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're not anymore because he's forgiven us, but apart from the grace and the forgiveness of God, I would be lost.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of us would be.
SPEAKER_00: And if I remind myself of that, then it's way easier for me to forgive somebody else when they offend me.
SPEAKER_00: It's way easier to forgive someone else when they wrong me.
SPEAKER_00: Because how much more have I wronged and offended Christ and God Almighty?
SPEAKER_00: Tremendously.
SPEAKER_00: Starting in verse eight, that as for prophecies, they will pass away.
SPEAKER_00: As for tongues, they will cease.
SPEAKER_00: As for knowledge, it will pass away.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because when the perfect comes.
SPEAKER_00: When the perfect comes, when does the perfect come?
SPEAKER_00: When we get into heaven, when we get to be with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When the perfect comes, we won't need those because we're going to have him.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We won't, he's going to answer us.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to know what we're going to say.
SPEAKER_00: He already does, but he's going to answer us before we can finish speaking.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that he is going to be the light of the city.
SPEAKER_00: We ain't going to need the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So when we think about, well, why is this, you know, the prophecies and all that stuff to end?
SPEAKER_00: Because the perfect has come.
SPEAKER_00: But look what he says: love never ends.
SPEAKER_00: And we say, well, God's love, so he doesn't end.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of his attributes.
SPEAKER_00: And he never ends.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But I am convinced that when we love like God, that love never ends.
SPEAKER_00: When we love like God, that love never ends, because God is love and he never ends.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we love like God, that love never ends.
SPEAKER_00: There's a world today that is looking for love.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking for that acknowledgement in their life.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking for other people to acknowledge them and to see them when really they're just looking for the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: When really they're looking for the divine love of God that comes only from God that you can't get from anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: Look how many people write songs about love.
SPEAKER_00: Lost it, need it, can't find it, hurt from it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if we was to count up, I'm telling you, the old saying is if you back up certain country songs, you know, you get your dog back, your house back, your car back, your wife back, or whatever, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Because you lose all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what is it that they're looking for?
SPEAKER_00: They're looking for love.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking for someone to accept them, to love them, to want them in their life.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: God wants you in his life.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus stretched his arms and died on a cross for you.
SPEAKER_00: So that you can.
SPEAKER_00: God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because he says greater love has no man than this, that he lays his life down for his friends.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has died.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, I don't always feel that love.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if there's anybody in your life that you love, you don't always feel it.
SPEAKER_00: But you know it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't have to wonder if my wife loves me or my daughter loves me or my mom loves me or whatever my boys love me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't.
SPEAKER_00: I know they do.
SPEAKER_00: They don't always like what I do, but they love me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what really love is.
SPEAKER_00: Is they love me anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's this got to do with anything?
SPEAKER_00: Well, understand this: that the way that God wants us to love is like Him, and we can't have a presentation.
SPEAKER_00: We need that without the, we've got to have a foundation, which is the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Is that we're believing that God is going to do great things in people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: I am praying and I am believing that we're going to see marriages restored, friendships restored, souls saved, bodies healed, people filled, amazing things happen.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, but all of that is nothing if we don't love them.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't love people when they come in, and sometimes some of them's gonna come in and they ain't nowhere close to being saved.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like we're trying to put them on the board.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Now maybe one day, praise God.
SPEAKER_00: But no, and they may come in and they may not look like you, act like you, talk like you.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Thank God it ain't about me and you.
SPEAKER_00: It's about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus got fishermen, Jesus got tax collector, Jesus got people that was insignificant and hated.
SPEAKER_00: You know, people hated tax collectors.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't just disliked, they hated them because they had to collect for the Roman government, and then the Roman government didn't care.
SPEAKER_00: As long as they got their amount, they could get as much more as they could from anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: And they always chose people from among their neighbors and family and friends because they know where they hid their money at.
SPEAKER_00: They was despised.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the ones Jesus chose.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus chose somebody that was religiously very zealot, loved being, loved the law, loved uh being zeus for the law.
SPEAKER_00: His name was uh Saul, but was changed to Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He was very religious, but he didn't have no Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We may have somebody come in that's got full of knowledge, but they don't have Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, we gotta love them anyway.
SPEAKER_00: You ever been around that person that you can't tell them nothing?
SPEAKER_00: They're like a glass of water full, and they you need trying to pour something in them and it just pours out because they can't if they know everything.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you just gotta love them anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Pray that God put some holes in their glass so it comes out, and they realize they don't know everything.
SPEAKER_00: How many ever learned that your parents got smarter the older you got?
SPEAKER_00: It just got it's just amazing how they got smarter and smarter and smarter the older you got.
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, it's like I heard someone say they didn't get smarter, you just quit being so dumb.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean it hateful, I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_00: When you're young, you don't know what you don't know.
SPEAKER_00: You think you're smart, but you ain't.
SPEAKER_00: And as you get older, you realize, hey, mom and daddy understood more than I realized they understood.
SPEAKER_00: He said, What's that got to do with everything?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because, amen, he says faith, hope, and love abide.
SPEAKER_00: We talk about faith a lot, which we should.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we should.
SPEAKER_00: If we have the faith of a ground and much, we can stand on this mountain, be thou removed, and cast in the sea.
SPEAKER_00: We should have the hope, and this ain't the hope in the wishful seeking.
SPEAKER_00: This is a firm uh assurance, a confidence that he's talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: But he says, and love.
SPEAKER_00: But the greatest of these is love.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Or charity, one one uh the King James renders, charity.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, if we don't really love people, if we don't love God, if we don't love in the way we do things, then it's for nothing.