Everything - Love = Nothing

[00:00:00] First corinthians 13. [00:00:03] And I'll just read the first three verses here Paul is writing. He said, though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity or love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. [00:00:35] And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me. Nothing. [00:00:49] Nothing. [00:00:52] Preach to us today for a few minutes, and this is what the Lord has for us today. Everything minus love equals nothing. [00:01:03] Everything minus love equals nothing. Lord, thank you for your presence in this house today. [00:01:10] Lord, I know that we don't have to wait until we get to this point. Lord, you've already, Lord, I believe healed in this place. You have already changed lives in this place just through your presence, just through worship and you being here among us. And I pray today, Lord, that now, as the word goes forth, that you would help me. Oh, that you would anoint my lips of clay today, that you would help our ears, our spirits today, to receive your word with gladness and to be changed and made better and to become the people that you want us to be. Everybody said, in Jesus name, Jesus name. Amen. Clap your hands to the Lord one more time as you're seated in his presence today. [00:01:58] Amen. [00:02:00] The Lord has moved on my heart to continue in this kind of a vein of kindness and love. [00:02:14] I sought the Lord, just praying and getting ready for today. [00:02:24] It's easy to preach a shout message. It's easy to do something that, you know, it's going to get the blood pumping. It's going to get the feet moving off the floor. It's easy to preach a message that you can kind of growl through. [00:02:44] But I always want to be in line with how the Lord wants to help and edify this church, this body, because we can shout our way all the way through every service. But, hey, we shouted already. And God wants to help us by his word today. So the Lord has moved on my heart to continue in this vein of kindness, love. [00:03:09] And you remember a few weeks ago I preached a message titled friends. [00:03:14] Well, the Lord, he moved on me as I prayed and prepared. And he just kind of said, well, here's part two. [00:03:23] Here's part two. And I realized today that God has assigned me not to just preach a one off reminder, but rather he is wanting for this church. In this church for there to be a continual baptism of love, a continual revival of the love of God. [00:03:49] And I have through the years, many of you know, I've championed unity in the body and I believe in it. And, you know that through the years that I have championed romans eight and that I have been a voice crying out that I am persuaded. [00:04:10] And, you know, that is something that I have pushed and spoken over our church through the years when I had opportunity. Well, I'm still persuaded that nothing shall separate me or you from the love of goddess, but that love that I have freely received, I'm going to freely give. The love that we are so persuaded about that we have freely received, we have got to freely give. And so I'm going to champion the love of God in this church. I can't get no amens in here this morning. I'm going to champion the love of God in this church as much as I champion anything else, as much as I preach acts 238. I'm going to preach the love of God from behind this pulpit because God wants there to be a fresh baptism of love, of kindness, of unity, of togetherness. [00:05:11] God wants to baptize us with love in this church. [00:05:17] And I say all this because God, he's wanting us to reach a level of spiritual maturity that we're only going to reach one way. [00:05:30] And I believe. I believe with all my heart. I believe in prayer and fasting and the deep things of God. And I believe in all of that. I believe that we've got to. To seek to go deeper. I believe deep calls unto deep. I believe that we can just continually grow in the things of God. But what we read in first corinthians this morning is that I can have all of that and I can be good at all of that. And I can check all these things off of my list. [00:06:11] And if I don't have love, it doesn't mean a thing. [00:06:18] And so I'll pick up where we ended a few weeks ago in two Peter. [00:06:27] And Peter is in the first chapter, verse three. I'll just read these few verses to you according as his divine power hath given, given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us unto glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that these ye might be partakers, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue. Add to your virtue, knowledge. And to knowledge, temperance. And to temperance, patience. And to patience, godliness. And to godliness, brotherly kindness. And to brotherly kindness, charity or love. [00:07:26] For if these things be in you and aboundhouse they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:07:38] But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. [00:07:53] And so again, there's a level of spiritual maturity that God wants to get us to that we cannot bypass with prayer only, with fasting only. Again, you have to understand, I'm not preaching against those things. I'm saying that there's a lot of spiritual things that we can do and still not really grow if we miss this. [00:08:24] And there's an order to spiritual maturity that we see here in two Peter, he says, there's got to be the base of faith. [00:08:39] You've got to have faith. You've got to believe in God. You've got to believe in what he's offering. There's got to be a base level of faith. You're not going to advance anywhere in God if you don't have a little bit of faith in God and who he says he is and what he's offering to you. And so I've got to have faith at the very beginning, and then I've got to add to my faith virtue, which really is just a basic morality, and understand that there are some things that I might have felt differently about before. But now that I have faith in God, I start to see it the way God sees it. I start to realize that God does differentiate between sin and not sin and holy and unholy. And he does have morals. [00:09:27] And while there are things that we see that over time, God has changed through scripture, the moral law of God does not change. Sin is still sin. God is still holy. God still says, this is this and this is this. Amen. We can't be lukewarm. We can't try and walk the line. There still has got to be virtue added to our faith. We've still got to be able to see that there is right and wrong. [00:09:57] And so we start to add to our faith virtue. And then we add to our virtue knowledge. [00:10:04] And we've got to have some knowledge of God. We've got to have some knowledge of the word of God, because we can take our virtue, and our virtue can turn into something that we beat people to death with. Our virtue can turn into something that we condemn and isolate people with. And so I want to have some knowledge about the love of God. I want to have some knowledge about having virtue with wisdom and with love, as we'll see. So I've got to have some knowledge about the things of God and the word of God. And I start to grow a little bit when I get some knowledge added to my virtue. And then to my knowledge, I'm going to add temperance or restraint. Because when I have knowledge of the word of God, I'm going to be able to restrain myself from making sinful decisions. [00:10:54] And sometimes we fall flat on our face, but I'm thankful that there's an answer for that. But when I have temperance, I have restraint. And I have restraint to abstain from sin, restraint from ungodliness. I have restraint from cussing somebody out in traffic. I have restraint from. You know, I'm able to be slow to anger. I'm able to be slow to wrath. And I have some restraint on my tongue. I have some restraint on my actions. Because I have some knowledge about God and about the word of God. And it helps me have temperance. And I add to my temperance, I add patience. [00:11:36] Cause when I exercise temperance, when I exercise restraint, it'll help me more and more to exercise patience. [00:11:43] It'll help me to be able to be patient with myself when I fall flat on my face. It'll help me be able to be patient with my brother and my sister when we might butt head sometimes. It'll help me to be patient with people that are not like me, that don't think like me, that have different worldviews than I have. It'll help me to be. To be patient. It'll help me to be patient with God. Because he's an on time God. He may not come always right when I want him, but the song says he'll be there right on time. And I can have patience. And I can wait upon the Lord and my strength be renewed. Because I'm exercising patience with these things now. And I'm growing. And when I have these things, I start to add to that godliness. [00:12:32] Because when I show restraint, when I show patience and I start to have these fruit of the spirit that are blossoming in my life, it helps me to exercise godliness. [00:12:46] And I can't be perfect like he is, and I can't reach the holiness that he has. But I can be like him, and I can strive to be like him. I can strive for that perfection like it's written in the word of God. And I can have some godliness in my life. [00:13:05] And with godliness, I'll be able to add brotherly kindness. [00:13:11] Be able to add brotherly kindness. [00:13:15] We ought to be able to be kind to our brother. We ought to be able to be kind to our sister. [00:13:23] We ought to be able to be kind to everybody. [00:13:26] There are people that don't believe like I believe. I'm going to be kind to them. I'm not going to condemn them and I'm not going to look down my nose at them. I'm going to be kind to them. There's people in this world today that they live lifestyles that I would never live by the grace of God, but I'm going to be kind to them. [00:13:44] But we read a few weeks ago how he said, especially unto those that are of the household of faith, and I'll say it again, that if I'm going to be good with anybody, I ought to be able to be good with the one that's sitting to my left and my right or across the aisle or on the other side of the church today. Amen. Amen. I ought to be able to show brotherly kindness. [00:14:08] And with brotherly kindness, that's going to exercise charity or love. [00:14:13] And so I see that this level of spiritual maturity up here is not how high I can jump in the altar. It's not how loud I can scream or lift my voice. It's not how fast I can go if I run the aisles. It's not about how good I can sing or play or even preach. It's not about what I have attained or my accomplishments or anything like that. When I reach a level of spiritual maturity up here, it's going to be, how do I love people? [00:14:45] How do I love people? [00:14:49] That's when I start to show spiritual maturity. Amen. Is this okay today? Is this okay today? [00:14:58] And so there's spiritual maturity that we're only going to reach one way, and we can't bypass love. [00:15:07] There are things that God is only going to trust us with if we have love. There's revival that God's only going to trust us with if we have love. Because if we're just swinging around all these other things without love, we're going to hurt somebody. If we're swinging around all these other things without love, we're going to hurt somebody. And we've got to have love because everything minus love equals nothing. [00:15:37] I'd like us to look at numbers. [00:15:40] Y'all said, lord, have mercy. You're going from one end of the book to the other. Today I want to look in the book of numbers. [00:15:47] This is something I found so interesting. [00:15:52] And Lord help me if I. I'm sure there's all kinds of things that I can study into this, but this just a point that I've seen in this. The book of numbers, chapter 21, verse five. [00:16:07] The people spake against God and against Moses. [00:16:12] Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, there's neither any water. And our soul loathethe this light bread. [00:16:27] We're sick of this stuff. [00:16:32] They're complaining and murmuring, as they often did at this time in the wilderness. [00:16:40] And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people. And much people of Israel died. [00:16:50] Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned. We've spoken against the Lord. We spoke against thee. Pray unto the Lord that he may take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. [00:17:08] You know, this is the people of God, the people that he brought out of Israel. This is a chosen people. [00:17:16] I feel like Moses was stressed. [00:17:21] I'm telling you what my man, Moses, the Lord had to really help him, because the complaints that were leveled against him a lot of times, I'm sure that. I know that his face glowed with the glory of the Lord. I think probably a lot of that gray or white hair came from that stress from this people. [00:17:50] But he prayed for them. And the Lord said to Moses, make thee a fiery serpent. [00:17:57] Set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, that when he beheld a serpent of brass, he lived. [00:18:19] You see that in John three, Jesus reveals that this is a type and shadow. [00:18:26] He says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, have eternal life. They can look to me and be saved from the affliction of their sin, and I'm so thankful for that. But the point I'm getting to in two kings now, in chapter 18, verse three, Hezekiah begins to rule. And it says, he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. [00:19:01] They had not been doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. [00:19:05] He said, I'm going to do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. According to all that David, my father, did. And he removed the high places, break the images, cut down the groves, and break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. [00:19:22] For unto those days, the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nehushtan. [00:19:34] So they had, with all these idols and these things that they had begun to worship, they had got their eyes off the Lord, and they were getting into idolatry, and they're not doing that which is right in the sight of the Lord. But while Hezekiah is removing all this stuff, one of the things that he removes out of the temple is this brazen serpenthe that I guess they had kept. They had held onto it, but they had started to worship it like an idol. And he took that serpent that Moses had made, that God had told him to make, that had once been used for a miracle of healing and salvation for the people. He took it, he smashed it to pieces. He named it Nehushtan, which I think there's a couple of different ways of saying it, but basically it comes out to mean worthless brass or just a piece of brass. [00:20:35] And we can see here that the things God uses for a miracle can be twisted and perverted into something else. [00:20:45] We may turn a component of the miracle into an idol and look to it instead of the source of the miracle. God help us if we look to the means more than we look to the maker. Amen. I don't want to worship the means. I don't want to trust in the means more than I trust in the maker. [00:21:04] But the point that the connection that I want to draw here is just like the fiery serpent of salvation became nehushtan, or worthless brass. [00:21:17] So can our cloven tongues of fire become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal? [00:21:26] I'll give you a second to let that settle in. [00:21:31] Our cloven tongues of fire and our fiery services and our fiery church can become like Nehushtan, worthless brass. And I want to tell you that if it appears fiery but it lacks love, it is worthless noise. If it appears fiery but it lacks love, it's no good. It's worthless brass. It's worthless noise. Call it in a hush tan if you want to, but it's no good. And that's how you turn your fire into worthless brass. That's how you turn people away from God. When you say, we've got the fire, but we don't have love, I'm not expecting you to run the aisles today. I'm just trying to help us. [00:22:20] I don't want the fire. [00:22:24] I don't want that pentecostal fire to become something that is repulsive to people and that is hurtful to people. I don't want my cloven tongues of fire become just worthless noise because I have no love coming out of my life. [00:22:45] I don't want to become. [00:22:49] I don't want to speak with the tongues of men and angels and not have love and become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Is this okay today? [00:23:03] Y'all still love me. [00:23:06] God's trying to mature this church. [00:23:11] God help us if we speak in tongues but we're mean in English if we speak in tongues but we gossip in English if we speak in tongues but we curse people in English. God help us if we speak in tongues and belittle people English. God help us if we speak in tongues and we run the aisles and we jump for joy and we have the fire, but we slander people in English. [00:23:39] Sweet water and bitter water are not going to flow out of the same fountain. [00:23:44] Come on, somebody. [00:23:48] God help us if we claim to be spiritual, but like the Pharisees, we are full of pride and self importance that causes us to isolate people and belittle people and discourage people who are trying to grow in God. [00:24:04] God help us if we claim to be spiritual, but we won't forgive. We won't be kind. We won't speak. We hold grudges. We have sour attitudes. We isolate people, we shun people. We're judgmental to people. [00:24:20] God help us not to have fire. That's just sounding brass. [00:24:28] God help us if we do unto others as they have done unto us instead of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. [00:24:38] Y'all didn't hear me right there. God help me if I do unto others as they've done unto me. Instead of doing unto others as I would have them do unto me. [00:24:48] I'm not going to reward evil for evil. [00:24:53] I can't be overcome of evil. I've got to overcome evil with good. Two wrongs don't make a right. [00:25:05] Tough crowd. [00:25:07] Lord help us today. [00:25:12] That's something that we struggle with, and it's that golden rule. [00:25:19] Do unto others as I would have them do unto me. [00:25:24] But so many times we do unto others as they have done unto us. [00:25:30] And we'll say, I'm not speaking to them. They didn't speak to me. [00:25:36] I'm not going to forgive them because they didn't initiate forgiveness with me. [00:25:42] I'm not going to be kind to them because they're not kind to me. [00:25:47] I'm going to punish them because they wronged me. [00:25:51] I'm going to shun them because they wronged me. [00:25:58] But really, we're supposed to strive to be at peace, strive for unity. [00:26:07] I'm telling you today that tolerating one another, I'm sorry, it goes against some people's new theology today, but tolerating each other is not enough. [00:26:20] Tolerating my brother and my sister is just not enough. I'm sorry, that might go against what you think and how you feel, but tolerating my brother and my sister, that's not enough. I'm going to strive to be friends. I'm going to strive for my brother and my sister to live in harmony, to be workers together with him, to be laborers together with him. Oh, come on, somebody. I wish somebody would shout about this like you shout about acts 238. I wish somebody would strive for the bond of peace and unity and love in the Holy Ghost. [00:27:00] Tolerating my brother is not enough. Tolerating my sister is not enough. Just being. Just not being mean is not enough. [00:27:11] We ought to strive. [00:27:13] We ought to go that extra mile. [00:27:16] If I get slapped in the face, I'm going to turn the other cheek and say, slap this one, too. I still love you. I still want to be friends with you. You're my brother. You're my sister. [00:27:27] Well, it goes against our carnal way of thinking, but it's the word. [00:27:36] And it's quiet in here because God's saying, because he did it for me. [00:27:43] The Lord has been dealing with me about this. [00:27:47] I'm going to do unto others as I would have them do as they have done. [00:27:53] Strive for unity, strive for love, strive for reconciliation. We always say, well, I can forgive, but reconciliation doesn't always happen. And it's a sad thing when someone doesn't want to reconcile. It's a sad thing when somebody else doesn't want to have that same mindset. But strive for reconciliation anyway. Strive to restore anyway. Strive to repair anyway. Strive for love, strive for unity, strive for peace. Strive for togetherness, strive for it. [00:28:34] Just bear with me for another couple minutes here. [00:28:40] I want to look at Ephesians chapter four, and I'll be getting ready to close here in just a moment. Just had to speak what the Lord laid on my heart today. [00:28:54] Ephesians chapter four, and I read it a few weeks ago. I'll read it again here. [00:29:00] Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. [00:29:12] If you can't say something, nothing, don't say it at all. [00:29:19] If I'm about to slander, if I'm about to level something against my brother or my sister, Holy Ghost, keep those words inside my mouth. Help me to swallow it. And let that which is good to the use of edifying minister grace to somebody and grieve not the holy spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. [00:29:51] Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. [00:30:02] And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. [00:30:19] Go ahead and stand with me today. [00:30:22] I want to take that just a step further. [00:30:27] Be ye kind one to another. [00:30:32] I believe that we ought to be nice, but I don't think we can be nice without being kind. [00:30:42] Kind. [00:30:45] That's kindred. [00:30:48] That's family. [00:30:53] Treat each other like family. [00:30:57] Don't just be nice, just base level. [00:31:02] Treat each other like your kindred because in him you are. [00:31:18] Treat each other like the family of Goddess church. [00:31:34] This is what the Lord wants to help us with today. [00:31:40] We can pray fast. [00:31:44] We can seek the open doors of revival. We can believe God for the promises to come to pass. We can. And I'm so thankful for what God's been doing in our church. I'm thankful how the Lord's been moving. But we can look and believe for all these great things. [00:32:03] And you got to hear me today that I'm not leveling this at any one person today. [00:32:10] I promise you from the bottom of my heart, this is a word for the church. [00:32:15] I promise you, if you feel like I'm trying to step on your toes today, I promise you, I'm speaking to the church. [00:32:24] We can want and desire and pray and fast for all these things we can have on the surface level, good church. [00:32:34] But there is a level that we won't reach. [00:32:40] There is a dimension that we won't reach. [00:32:44] Unless love is operating unhindered in this body, it's not going to be just a select few. God forbid that it just be a select few or that it be some trying to do it this way and some trying to do it this way. [00:33:06] Treat each other like family, like kindred. [00:33:14] It sounds so inspirational to say, but do I mean it? [00:33:19] You're my brother. [00:33:22] You're my sister. [00:33:29] I'll do anything to help you. [00:33:32] If you fall, I'll pick you up. [00:33:35] If I fall, I'm going to reach for you. [00:33:41] I'll stand with you. I'll pray for you. [00:33:45] God forbid we disagree. [00:33:48] I'm going to reconcile with you. [00:33:53] And today somebody needs to settle in their heart. I don't care what's happened. [00:34:00] I don't care what's happened before the blood of Jesus. I don't care what's happened before, before life with God. [00:34:09] You're my brother. You're my sister. [00:34:13] What was then? That's then. That's under the blood. What's now is you're my brother, you're my sister. [00:34:23] We are workers together with Christ. [00:34:29] God help us, Lord. Don't let us miss this moment right now. See, you think I'm just teaching you a sweet little Sunday school lesson today, but God is trying to do something in the spirit right now. And I wish we could just right now, could you. Just before you even come to these altars, could you just begin to lift your voice for a moment right now? Lord, help us. Lord, help us. Lord, help us. [00:34:53] Help us, Lord. [00:35:07] Because if we run the house and if we have good music and we have good church, and if we have 500 people in service next Sunday, if we have all this stuff and we don't have love, if we have all this stuff, but there's discord in the body, if we have all this stuff, but there's a cold war between the pews, it profiteth nothing. [00:35:47] You're my brother. You're my sister. [00:35:50] You're my family. [00:35:54] We come from different backgrounds, different ways of thinking, different cultures, different places. [00:36:02] But we are baptized into one body, and if we believe that there is one God, if we shout that there's one God, and in him dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily. [00:36:20] If we believe that there is one God, then we better believe that there's got to be one unified church. [00:36:29] If we believe that he is one in our theology, but we believe that there's many different bodies of Christ. [00:36:38] Doesn't work. [00:36:40] I'm oneness in theology, and I am oneness about the church. [00:36:46] We are baptized into one body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and we are baptized into one body. [00:37:02] I'm inviting you today, I'm not commanding you or pressuring you, but I'm inviting you to come to these altars or to find a place to pray for a few moments. [00:37:14] And I don't worry, I'm not going to try and teach a series on this every Sunday. [00:37:20] But I want us to hear the word of the Lord today and not miss what God wants to do in our hearts. God wants to unite this body. Every single person, like never before. [00:37:34] Let's pray today. God, make my heart right towards my brother. Make my heart right towards my sister, Lord, everything else is under the blood. [00:37:47] Lord, unify me with my brother. If I have all against any. Lord, cleanse my heart today. [00:37:54] If I have unforgiveness in me, Lord, cleanse my heart. If there's bitterness growing in me, Lord, cleanse my heart today. [00:38:02] I let it go. I'm laying it on the altar today. There's no hurt in me that's justified. There's no offense in me that's justified. [00:38:14] It can't stand against your sacrifice. It can't stand against the love of God. It can't stand against the blood of Jesus. [00:38:22] I've got to lay it on the altar today.