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The grace of God is the wonderful empowerment and action and activity of the Holy Spirit that woos us, that directs us, that enforces us, leads us, guides us. Without the grace of God, we can do nothing. And the grace of God is everything to us. And as we operate as a child of God in the kingdom of God, according to his grace that works in us, we work and build his kingdom. And as we do this, we become satisfied and fulfilled in who he is. Amen? Have you ever gone after something that you thought would make you happy? You thought you'd be fulfilled, and you thought you'd be satisfied. And it ended up that it kind of wears off, doesn't it, friends? You get a car, it gets dented, it gets rusty. You have the new clothes where you're styling and profiling in front of people. You got the swagger going on, impressing people. That gets old. You find that for you as a believer in Jesus Christ, your fulfillment and your satisfaction is living your life in honor of Jesus Christ who died for you and gave his life for you. You will be fulfilled and satisfied because that's why we were created. Amen? We were created for this pursuit and this purpose of glorifying God with everything that we are. That's how he's designed us. That's how he has ordered our existence. John Piper's quote says this God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Can I ask you today? Are you satisfied in him? Are you fulfilled in him? Amen. Augustine said this: You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. Where can we turn? Who has the answers to life? Who can really bring happiness and satisfaction to our heart? But the God that has created us. Amen. Now the Bible says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky proclaims his handiwork. And as Christ has saved you and redeemed you and bought you with a price, your life is filled with the glory of God. Amen? Your life is filled with the glory of God. As creation exhibits and ushers in this glory of God as creator, your life lived in honor to God, obeying the word of God, living the word of God, your life brings this glory of God's redemption that is found in Christ Jesus. Amen? You see that? Creation exhibits the glory of God as creator. When he created new life in you, your life exhibits the wonderful glory of the redemption and of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to save even Daryl. Okay? Daryl. To save even you and to save even me. The Bible says that while we were weak, while we were powerless, while we were helpless, God's love broke through, and I say it again and again, in our rebellion with our hand raised and our fist raised against God. God, like a steamroller of love, flattened us. And we had to give in to his love because of his great mercy and his great love towards us. He loved us first. He died for us first. That's why we love him. It's not a duty, amen. It's a delight. And this is the key factor. If I go to my wife and I say, honey, it's my duty to love you. So I must love you. I would feel the infliction of pain on my body as I said that. So I never ever say that. Because I love her, I say to her, honey, my delight is in you, and I delight in you for who you are. And this is the key for our relationship with God, friends. It's not duty. You don't come here on a Sunday morning because of your religious duty. If you do, stay away. We don't want you. You come because you want to have this personal relationship with the God of creation and the God of redemption, and that's why we serve Him. Amen. We delight to do the will of God. The Bible says, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of the Lord. If you don't desire God or you're having problems with your love and affection for God, guess what? Delight in Him. Muse over in your mind the character and nature of God. Amen. Speak to Him the wonderful things of who He is and give Him glory in all of your life. And you'll find the change and the wonder of this fact is that we have the capacity to make God look really, really good, or we have the capacity to make God look really, really bad by the life that we live. Amen. And it's very, very significant. God is magnified the most when we find our ultimate satisfaction in Him, especially in difficult circumstances. When adversity hits and when sorrow hits, when things that we hear afflict anxiety and stress in our lives. Are you trusting him? Are you relying on him? Do you still think that God is good when the adversity and the and the pain that hits your life is contrary to what you you wanted to experience or you wanted to feel or you wanted to express? We have the capacity to make God look good as we honor him in our hurtful, broken situation. We have the capacity to make God look glorious. Amen? We have the capacity to make God look great. And we have the capacity to make God look gracious as we trust him in all things. And when the world sees your action of trusting Jesus, your King and your Lord, in every circumstance that you face, whether it's in your body, whether it's a financial need, whether it's a broken relationship, whether it's uh persecution and harassment, we find that we have the capacity to glorify God in all things. Just like Peter tells us. Amen? Listen to this verse. For from his fullness, John chapter 1, verse 16 and 17, for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. Alright? Aren't you glad that God doesn't just dribble a little a little grace to us? Amen? Hey, take a little bit of this, you punk kid, you. No. He gives us this inexhaustible, continuous supply of God's favor and blessing directly from Jesus Christ's endless, perfect nature. Amen? The Bible says that when Christ hit glory, he sat down at the throne of God, and he acquired for us every spiritual blessing, every spiritual blessing has been won because of the work of Jesus Christ. Death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and glorification. And now seated at the right hand of God, interceding for you, he's praying for you. Doesn't that thrill you? If I pray for you, eh. If Jesus prays for you, yeah. Amen. Jesus is praying for you. Do you think you can make it? Do you think that you're good you're gonna overcome? Do you think that you're gonna get through this situation? Do you think that God is working everything out for your good? Jesus is praying for you. And he sends the Holy Spirit to minister his will and his way and his work in your life, but we have to receive it. It's a gift. Amen? It's a gift. We receive it. For from his fullness, from his fullness, wow. God is pretty, pretty full. Amen? And out of that fullness, he gives us what the Bible says, everything we need for life and godliness in this world and in the world to come. And we give him praise. We give him adoration. Listen to this first, 2 Corinthians 9, 8. God is able to make all grace. Let's say it together on the count of three, all grace. One, two, three. All grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency, count of three, all sufficiency. Ready? One, two, three, all sufficiency in all things, at all times, that you may abound in every good work. What a great verse. Amen? Aren't you glad that God is giving you and is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things, at all times, you may abound in every good work and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. All grace is given to us. And then, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 10, says this, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And you thought Popeye came up with this, okay? Alright? No. Popeye got this from the Apostle Paul. The problem is Popeye relied on spinach, God relied on the grace of God. Amen? For power and ability. Let's read it again. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any one of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Isn't that fantastic? The grace of God that is with me. His fullness, overflowing perfection of Jesus Christ. Grace upon grace is his ministry of blessing and favor piled on top of another, gifts heaped upon gifts. It signifies that every time you need help, you are met with fresh, endless waves of God's unearned favor for your life. That's why we bless him. Amen? That's why we love him. That's why we give him our all. Now Peter wrote this, these verses, to people that were being harassed, people that were being persecuted, people that were being killed for the gospel. After 2 Peter was written, it was only a short time that the Apostle Peter was crucified upside down because he did not feel worthy of dying like his Savior and like his Lord. Amen. So we see in this passage of Scripture, we must love one another fervently or earnestly. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. So show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Oh man, there's a lot of grumbling in the church, isn't there? You know, we gotta stop it, man. Complaining and grumbling. And here's a here's a thing for homework for you to do this week. Try not to grumble or complain about anything all week. Who said can't do it? Eddie. Let's gather around Eddie and pray for him right now. Amen. You know how you know what we do when we complain and we grumble? We say, God, I don't want your blessing, I don't want your favor, I don't want your grace in my life. I want my rule, my governance, my way. Ouch. Okay? We replace the complaining and the grumbling with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the password into God's presence and his purpose for your life. When you give him praise, you praise him for his character and his nature, and his character and his nature begins to form within us and change us and mold us. Amen? And we begin to see the wonderful blessings that the Lord has for us. If you're complaining and you're grumbling, you'll never receive the blessing of the Lord. But as we give him thanks and as we praise him, we have this wonderful blessing of God's grace and the enablement of faith to receive everything that God has for us. Amen? Everything that God has for us. So this love, it's not the fluffy, duffy, cozy, dozy love, okay, that is filled just with emotion. This is the strained and stretched out kind of love. Jesus said that love for one another is his new commandment, the mark by which the world will know that we are his followers. Jesus said, As I have loved you, so love one another. Amen? Now he said this when he washed his disciples' feet. Now I want you to grasp this in your mind and heart. This is the God of creation that stepped off his throne, took a towel, and wiped and washed his disciples' feet. And now he's telling us, as I have loved you, now go love one another. It kind of stretches us a little bit, amen? Now we're not going to have any kind of foot washing in here because that's disgusting and that's their culture, not us, amen. So just be just be happy about that, okay? I'm just saying. But in serving and loving and humbling ourselves and stretching ourselves and straining ourselves, we can serve one another with the love of Christ. Paul told the Corinthians that he could have all spiritual gifts and faith, but without love, he would be nothing, a clanging symbol. Isn't that annoying? Somebody comes up to you and clangs a symbol, and it is as annoying when somebody serves, exhibits faith, does the work of the Lord without love. It's annoying. And it doesn't give God glory and it doesn't give God honor. We must love. Here it is, 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient, kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Amen. Is this not Jesus Christ incarnate? Amen? Love is patient and love is kind. Loving our neighbor is second only to loving God and is to is tangible evidence that we do love God. How are we going to show that we love God? By putting on a robe, right? Going over to the Martin Road Pavilion and just start preaching? No. We show the love of God by how we interact with each other. We prefer one another. We honor one another. We bless one another. We look at each other and we say, you know what? I want the best for your life. And God is going to give me the grace to treat you the way I need to treat you because Jesus loves you. Amen. Peter didn't doubt that his readers were practicing love, but he knew that under such trial and persecution, it's easy to start talking or taking our frustrations out on the ones that are closest to us. Isn't it true? Because of our human nature cannot take the sorrow and the pain and adversity of this life, we get weighed down, don't we? If we have a health problem, it weighs us down. If we have a worry or a fret, it weighs us down. And he knew that under these trials, we might not treat each other the way we need to treat each other. But we need to be encouraged and treat each other with love, even as we're suffering adversity, even as we're going through a trial that we don't understand. He writes, keep fervent in your love for one another. Keep earnest. Earnest love. And this refers, the Greek word refers to was used of an athlete stretching and straining every muscle toward the end of the race. A beautiful picture, isn't it? Now, when I went and I saw Amaris run track, she was awesome. There she is. I'm going to tell a story about you, okay, Amaris? I went to the race, and I think it was one of the final races. And um I looked at the girls that were running, and they looked mean. Real mean. Real athletic. And I actually said to myself, oh, poor Amaris. You know, such faith and hope. Right? Such faith and hope. But let me tell you, normally she would start out and then stay back and then make her move at the last curve. But I'll tell you what, man, this race, she just said, heck with that. I'm going. And she took off and she won that race, and my jaw dropped. Because I couldn't believe it. She did it. Amen? She did it. And friends, this is a picture of what agape love is. If the love of God in your heart and life is not stretching you, it is not the love of God. If you're doing something that only you want to do because you know it's going to be mutually accepted, maybe you're going to love somebody that loves you. Maybe you're going to even love somebody that you like, right? What kind of love is that? The love that Christ is talking about is the love that loves enemies and the love that it costs you something, where you have to sacrifice something, where when you wake up in the morning and have an event to go bless somebody or minister to somebody, and you're saying in your mind, I don't want to do this. That's the time to say, but Jesus went to the cross and died for me. Amen. I had a saying for one of my friends that wasn't getting out of bed in the morning on Sunday morning, and I would say, Listen, man, Christ rose from the dead, you can get out of bed. Amen. Christ rose from the dead, you can get out of bed. A fervent love is a love that stretches you and strains you. It's a love that says, I gotta be with the people of God. I'm tired. But you know what? We've got to love each other. We've got to stretch and strain every muscle to minister the love of and the grace of the Lord to each other. As we see the Lord's coming, drawing near, we should exert ourselves to love one another even more. And that means getting together with each other, sharing love, a spiritual warmth and a relational warmth that means something. Amen? So love is not a warm, fuzzy feeling. Rather, it takes sustained, strenuous effort, such as athletes making that final run to the finish line. The fact that love can be commanded shows that it is primarily an action and not just an emotion. Isn't it true? Now, if you're married, there are times, maybe, not in my marriage, but possibly in yours, that you might not feel love because something's going on. Maybe you had an argument. Guess what? Who cares? You've committed yourself to love. Amen? And love means action, it means commitment. And here's the saying often biblical love is more sweat than sweet. It involves effort. Amen? We're commanded to love people in the church that we may not like. Let's be honest with ourselves, people. Everybody is diverse and everybody's different. There's folks in this place that you might not like. Maybe their personality kind of grinds on you, right? And you're like, wow, I'm never gonna have a cup of coffee with that person. Oh yeah, who knows? Right? God's will and God's work is like the New York lottery. Hey, you never know. Amen? You never know. Listen, Peter knew that we aren't inclined to like everybody. And that's why he mentioned this specific duty of love, to be hospitable. We can be outwardly hospitable while under our breath we're saying, I wish they would leave, but we're supposed to do it joyfully, and we're supposed to do it as unto the Lord. Amen. Here's a great verse, Colossians chapter 12. No, Colossians chapter 3, 12 to 14. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other. Amen? As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. And above these, above this all. Put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Oh man. Harmony is a good thing, isn't it? Have you ever gone to an early elementary um orchestr orchestral concert? Might be a lot of dissonance going on because they're young. And the dissonance is like, oh, ee, that doesn't sound too good, right? When we don't love each other in the body of Christ, there's dissonance. And it creates this unity. But the Lord is asking us to be in harmonious relationships with each other. When we love each other, there's a harmony that people see. There's a beautiful symphony of God's love that is wonderful, amen? That we uh that we go through, and this this is beautiful. Biblical love is not based on feelings, but on commitment. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love covers sin does not mean that love condones sin. Amen? Scripture's clear that love often confronts sin. Sometimes the church has to discipline members, which is sometimes necessary as an expression of love, exposes rather than covers sin. So how do we know when we love someone and love covers a multitude of sins? It's helpful to distinguish between immaturity and defiance, isn't it? Is this person a rebellious Christian who knows better or just an immature one? Paul wrote that we are to admonish the idle, we are to admonish the unruly, to encourage the faint-hearted, and help or hold on to the weak and be patient with them all. The unruly or the idle are those that are out of step with God. They're defiant, and their defiance, like those out of step in a company of marching soldiers, will affect others, doesn't it? Their sin needs confrontation, not covering, but others are discouraged or weak. We need to encourage them. And just being held on to so they don't go under. Cover their sin. Secondly, cover whatever offenses you can, but if an offense bothers you to the extent that it hinders your relationship, you need to confront it. Amen? Now when you we always talk about how this is a family and who hurts you the most in life? Family, amen? So when you're here in this group, you will get hurt. Somebody will say something very stupid to you, and your flesh will rise up and say, I'm gonna kill that person. Right? That's not the way to treat one another. If somebody says something stupid that hurts you, maybe they're having a bad day. Maybe they're hurt themselves, maybe there's brokenness coming out. Maybe there's love that we can give them to bring them out of where they are into where God desires to take them. Amen? Many offenses are too trivial to confront. Maybe somebody gives you a weird look and you're like, hey, who are you looking at? Right? Who are you looking at like that? Ah. These offenses create barriers to our relationships, and these things need to be cleared up in the body of Christ. Amen? We can overlook a lot of things. Is this a minor flaw that just grates on me, or is it a character defect or sin that hinders this person's growth in Christ? If there's a defect and a sin in a person's life that is causing them to not grow in Christ, to gain spiritual warmth or relational warmth in the church, love's motive and goal is to glorify God, and that's why we speak to that person out of love. Amen. The Bible says when we go to minister to someone, we have to be spiritually discerning and realize that, but by the grace of God, we could be there. Amen? And we lock arms and we go together and we minister love together, all for the glory of the Lord. Listen to this verse, James 5, verse 20. Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. Amen? As you look around our body, we can bless each other, we can drag each other forward in the kingdom of God and be all that God desires us to be. Amen. Alright, so we show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Here's a saying some folks make you feel at home, and others make you wish you were. Amen? Yeah. Nobody in Peter's Day, um, nobody had an announcement like this. Come on down, we'll leave the light on for you. Right? Hospitality in Peter's Day often meant opening one's home to traveling believers and persecuted Christians because they became destitute because of persecution. Individuals and families needed the body of Christ to take them up and to bless them and to show them the favor of God. It means opening your heart, your home, and your life to people, accepting people. Amen? Listen to this verse, Romans 15, 7. Therefore, welcome one another or accept one another as Christ has welcomed and accepted you. Do it for the glory of God. Amen? Am I known for criticism or compassion? Am I quick to forgive? Am I welcoming others into my life? Do I prejudge someone based on looks, maybe based on their race, their mannerisms? Hospitality says, I will accept you, because guess what? With all my sin and all my faults and all my inadequacies and all my insufficiency, Christ, the holy God, accepted me. Amen? And we should accept one another. There's so many diverse personalities and experiences in here. Some of you are just weird. That's okay. We love you. Amen? Many of you think I'm weird. That's okay. You gotta love me. Amen? We love each other because Christ has uniquely created us before time began. And when he made each of us, he threw away the mold. And he said, You are unique for eternity. And I love you. Amen. Man, we serve one another faithfully. And we'll get through this in 1 Peter chapter 4. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace or manifold grace. Each of us has received a gift. First of all, if you're in Christ today, you've accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, knowing that your sin would drive you to wrath and drive you to judgment. You've accepted Christ as your Savior. This means that you have received a gift, and that is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the grace of God that has saved you. The Bible says that as you were dead in your trespasses and sins, Christ quickened us, made us alive. Amen? To the things of God. We've been born again. Our dead spirit, governed by the flesh, the world, and the devil, has become made alive to the kingdom of God, and now we serve him because he's our Lord and our Savior. Every believer has a gift. No Christian is giftless. Every believer has been equipped by God. Some teach, some encourage, some give, some lead, some serve behind the scenes. Every gift matters. Amen. Spiritual gifts are for serving others. Spiritual gifts and the grace that God has given you is never meant for personal recognition. It is meant for the ministry of the Holy Spirit, to the body of Christ in our community. Amen? To bring the salvation of God. It was never meant for personal recognition. We are stewards, not owners. Paul calls us stewards. A steward manages what belongs to someone else. Amen. The grace of God has been given to us. It's God's gift, and we steward the grace of God. We steward the power of God. We steward the ministry of the Holy Spirit by giving him glory and giving him honor and living out his will for our hearts and our lives. First Corinthians 4 2 says, It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. Amen? Faithful. So a bank teller handles millions of dollars, don't they? But they own none of it. How frustrating to be a bank teller, amen? Count all these hundreds of thousands of dollars every day. The back of their head, they're like, if I could only. If I could only, right? God has entrusted us with spiritual gifts. He's entrusted us with his grace. Our salvation and our ministry and our serving belong to him for his glory and for his honor. And we do it for him. Amen? So what gift has God given you? Are you using the gift of grace that God has given to you? Are you serving faithfully? Glorify God through everything that you do. Whoever speaks is one speaks the oracles of God. Whoever serves is one serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Those who speak, speak God's word faithfully. We try not to speak our opinions. We should not speak our opinions. We should speak the truth of God's word. Amen? Those who serve, you serve with God's strength. You serve by God's grace. You serve because it is a transaction between you and your Savior and that alone. If God calls you to serve, you serve because you love Jesus. You serve because you want to honor Him. You serve Him because you want to give Him glory. And if you get no recognition, that's okay. If you don't get a pat on the back, that's okay. If you don't get any accolades, that's okay. Because you are not a man pleaser, you are a God pleaser. Amen? And that's how we serve. And that's how we love. And ministry can be exhausting. But guess what? When Jesus carried that cross down the Via de la Rosa toward Golgotha, he was exalted, exhausted, he was beaten, he was bloody, and he was bruised, and he was broken. Amen? And he suffered for us. How much more can we give of our lives to serve Jesus, serve this body of Christ with the giftings that God has given us? You have a gift. Yeah, even you. Amen? A gift. The ultimate goal is God's glory. We don't serve because we feel good. Amen? Usually when we serve, it stretches us and it strains us. And we don't want to do it. And that is an excellent feeling. Amen? Because it moves us to the cross. Paul said it, My grace is sufficient for you because in your weakness, in your not wanting to do it, in your insufficiency, and in your inadequacy, guess what? That's where I become your strength. Amen? What a beautiful passage of scripture. God supplies the strength, and we do it because of who He is. In all things that God may be glorified. This thing of glory. In the Old Testament, the glory was in the temple, the glory was in the pillar of cloud, and at night the pillar of fire. You couldn't go near the glory of God. It was weighty, it was heavy. Right? It was outside of the realm of our capacity to receive. But thank God, because of Jesus. Amen. Now, through the power of the Holy Spirit, what once was for the Israelites a temple that they had to go to. And a temple where a high priest had to go in once a year with bells on and a rope around his foot because he might not have ceremonially cleansed himself properly. Now, because of Jesus Christ, we are the very temple of the Holy Spirit. God's temple dwells within us. Access into his presence. Amen? We belong to Christ. We're accepted by Christ. We are the very temple of the Holy Spirit. And that is absolutely wonderful. So, a stained glass window is beautiful. But it's not really beautiful, it's kind of dull when the sun is not shining through it. Amen? And guess what? Your life is really dull if you're not letting the Spirit of God shine through you in every facet and fabric of your being. Without the light, it appears dull. We've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his light. Let the light shine. Amen? Let the light shine through your heart and life. Realize that everything that you are and everything that you have is Christ's. And every service and every ministry of the Holy Spirit that you do is done because of the grace of God that dwells and lives within you. Our lives are meant to let the light of Christ shine through, so that others may see Him and give glory to God. Amen. Amen. Let's close in a word of prayer. Lord, we love you today. We thank you for your great love. We thank you, God, for the fact that in these jars of broken clay we can exhibit the very glory of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. You choose the weak things of the world to tear down the strong. You use the foolish things of the world to bring to naught the wisdom of this world because of God's wisdom. God, we love you today. And we pray, Lord, that every person in this house of the Lord today would realize their calling to live out the grace of God by loving fervently, being stretched, being committed, not to a cozy dozy, fluffy, dovey love, but a love that says, I will serve and I will minister because I love Jesus with all my heart. And then let's accept one another, let's welcome one another. The many diverse personalities, character, traits. We accept everybody, and we love everybody. Love covers those sins where there's unkindness, or maybe somebody has spoken to us rudely. We cover those with the blood of Jesus and we love them because we know, God, that you covered our sin, every sin. Love covers the multitude of sins. We pray, Lord, that we would be a church that does not condone sin, but confront sin out of mercy, out of compassion, out of love, because we want to see every person, man, woman, and child, grow in the maturity of Jesus Christ. Grow up to be like Christ, conform to the image of Jesus Christ. Thank God we make it our aim tonight, today, to put everything aside that does not give you glory. We will not live for our glory, for we know that you will not share your glory with another. We do not live for our glory, for our recognition. We live for you. That you be exalted, and you will draw everyone to yourself, and we give you praise and we give you glory. In Jesus' name, amen.