We're going to jump right in.
So we go back about 10 years ago.
I was a Christian following the Lord, the best I knew how,
serving God, pastor of New Heights Fellowship Baptist
Church, praise the Lord, director of the Southside Light
Station.
This is pre-encouragement call, texting, and that kind of thing.
And we had a busy week.
And I was tired.
And I went to bed.
And I had a dream.
And in this dream, I was being chased.
You ever have a chased dream where
you felt like you're being chased?
It's not a super uncommon kind of dream to have.
And I was in a rickety shack made of wood.
And I could kind of see through the walls a little bit.
And I ran outside.
And I knew.
I didn't see who it was that was chasing me.
But I knew I was being chased.
And I got outside.
And right outside the front of the house,
there was lined up some vehicles.
There was a tank, a truck, a car, and a moped.
And I ran down off the porch.
And I go, I got to go.
They're coming right now.
And I got to get out of here.
I knew I had to get out of here.
And somehow, I just knew I had to take the moped.
And I'm like, OK, whatever.
So I jump on the moped.
Sure enough, started right up.
I rode a moped when I was 14, by the way,
14 and 15 years old, before I got my driver's license
and then a motorcycle license.
And jumped on this moped and fired that bad boy up
and took off at 23 mile an hour.
And as I'm looking at the speedometer,
it's going 23 mile an hour, which even my moped that I had
when I was 14 and 15 could go a little faster than that.
I'm going, well, at least they're on foot.
And the moped's running.
And I'm getting away.
But even while I'm driving the moped and I'm escaping,
I'm thinking to myself, a tank?
That might have been better.
Or a truck?
What if I got to go off road?
Or a car?
Be a lot faster right on there.
I could get away a lot further.
And I'm thinking to myself, as I'm driving the moped
and I'm feeling like I'm just getting away, Scott Free,
whoever was chasing me is way behind me.
They're not going to catch me now.
I'm thinking to myself, what do you think of a moped?
That's really dumb.
They're going to take me now wherever I'm going.
It's going to take me forever to get there.
So I want you to remember that, if you will,
then as we look at the final verse today
of what has been a relatively long journey for us.
And we are in 1 Corinthians 13, 13.
Woo!
Praise the Lord.
So you won't probably forget that reference, will you?
I mean, 13, 13, that's pretty good.
Pretty easy to remember.
1 Corinthians 13, 13.
So there are, as you might expect now,
13 verses in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians.
And so we're in 1 Corinthians 13, 13.
Now, if you could break this verse down
that we're about to read,
you could get everything from the chapter that we got.
The problem is, you would really have to break it down.
You'd have to look at the words
and go into the little bit deeper meaning.
And then from there, you'd have to fold that all out
and look at what all of that means.
So for example, the very first part of it says,
but now abide or remain, right?
So everything that we've been talking about,
here's what continues.
Here's what stays the course.
Here's what's still alive, thriving and powerful, okay?
He says, but now abide.
And then he gives us a short list, a very short list.
And you've probably heard these three words quoted
in every kind of, all over in Christian kingdom
and God's kingdom and so on.
In fact, they are the name of my favorite movie.
And it is faith, hope, love, okay?
So now abide faith, hope, love.
Notice that the verse does not really have it as and,
and in the original language, it's just the three words,
faith, hope and love.
Now we talked about faith, hope and love
throughout this chapter pretty extensively.
We talked about faith and we said how faith
is essentially believing in God,
believing in something that you cannot physically see
or touch or feel or taste, right?
But that there are things just outside our understanding
and we know that they are there.
God is like that.
When you believe in God and have faith in God,
then that opens a channel of faith between you and God.
And Ephesians two says, for by grace, through faith, right?
And the through is a little dia in the Greek.
And it means that's the pathway.
That's how it's accomplished.
You have to believe.
When you believe and receive, you get saved.
What do you believe?
You believe that God the Father sent Jesus the Son
to save us, right?
In Him as Lord, He has a right to be in charge
and as Savior, He paid the price for your sins, right?
And if you believe that, have faith in God that way,
then the channel is open between you and God.
And then as we learned very, very strongly
in the story of Asa at that point,
that's when God by His grace shows up and does all the work.
Right?
There's no work that you'll ever do to be saved.
Even faith is not a work.
It's just a believing, right?
So I know this is true.
God is real.
God wants to save me.
So that's faith.
And then we talked about hope.
And hope is a little bit different than faith, right?
So hope, if faith is believing in God,
then what's the difference?
Hope is believing God, that God can, right?
It's believing in God.
Believing in God's promise.
It's believing that He will do what He said He will do,
which of course is a logical extension of His character.
God has never made a promise that He didn't keep.
God does not lie.
God Himself does not die out.
And He does remain.
And He has the power to do everything
that He said He would do, all right?
So we trust or hope in God once we know Him.
So we believe that He exists.
And then hope is us hoping or believing
that He will do what He has said He will do.
And that's those two things.
And then there's love.
And that's what we've been talking about.
And so we could go back to the beginning of the chapter
and we could talk about how love is the validator
or qualifier of all the good Christian works
and the gifts themselves are worthless without love.
In fact, Christians are worthless without love.
It says, if I give all my possessions to feed the poor,
if I deliver my body to be burned,
but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient, kind, does not brag,
it's not arrogant, does not,
but we drill down on all of those things.
We spent a week on every one of those qualifiers.
So by now, you know to an extent what love is.
Here in 13, he says, but now abide,
faith, hope, love, these three things, these three.
And then he says, but the greatest of these is love.
But the greatest of these is love.
And that word there, greatest, really is a lot, isn't it?
Because we know faith, we know hope, we know love.
And now when we say love stands out,
how love stands out really matters, doesn't it?
How does love stand out?
That's what really matters.
If you have a list of three and one of them stands out,
then the point is that one that stands out
is really important in some way.
And the word there that's being used
would be pronounced like,
if you kind of brought it over in English,
it'd be like my zone, okay?
And it means greater, larger, stronger, elder, okay?
I have an older brother, he's my elder.
Zoe has a bunch of older brothers, they're her elder, right?
And when Zoe wrestles with Jason,
Zoe only wins if Jason allows it, okay?
And that is because not only is he her elder,
but also because he's stronger, okay?
He's also larger.
Now there is some question as to whether or not
he is greater, right?
She is a human and extremely creative in her own right,
fast, thoughtful, all kinds of things.
He is the same, but different, okay?
And so this says that love is greater, larger, stronger,
and the elder of hope, faith, and love.
That's what the word means.
That's a lot.
And it's not just one of those things.
It's not just greater, it's also greater, stronger,
larger, and elder, right?
So to say something is greater
is to say that it is bigger or has a bigger impact, right?
It makes a bigger difference, if you will.
So love makes a bigger difference than faith and hope.
And that's scary because faith opens the channel to God
whereby we can be saved,
and love as a person comes and resides in us.
And so without faith, it feels like it would be impossible
for love to do its work, and yet love is greater.
Love is stronger.
So stronger is being able to lift more,
being able to get more done.
It's literally that word, love gets more done.
Love is stronger.
We talked about how love covers a multitude of sins.
Faith doesn't cover any sins.
I mean, you wish it did.
I mean, because it's like a gift from God.
You almost kind of, you don't have to do anything.
I wish my sins could all be covered.
I just don't do anything.
I believe in Jesus, and so nothing's gonna happen to me
for all the bad things that I did, right?
No, faith opens the channel.
Grace covers the sins, right?
And so love then is stronger than faith and hope.
It can do more lifting.
Then also it is, love is larger.
Larger.
Love is big.
Love is so big, in fact,
that it's almost impossible to fathom.
It's almost impossible to get your mind
wrapped around the concept of what love is.
So this word that we've been talking about, love,
all throughout this chapter is always the same word.
And it's in the King James translated as charity.
And you know why that is?
Because this word love is love in action.
Love enacted, love carried out, love done, if you will.
Love been, if I may say it that way.
And so then we can think of love being greater,
larger, stronger, and then lastly, elder.
Love is old.
Love goes back to the very beginning.
Faith is good.
But the truth is before mankind was created,
faith was unnecessary.
Faith didn't exist, right?
People have faith.
But God is love.
And so love existed even before people existed.
Because love existed even before people existed,
God created people.
And He made people able to love like He could love.
And then people sinned against God
and began even then to turn something into,
turn love into something that was not what love was.
Love doesn't die out, it remains.
Love doesn't become absolute, absolute.
It's always useful.
It's always greater, larger, stronger, and the elder.
Love doesn't wear out.
It doesn't pale by comparison.
Nothing is going to come along at any point
that's going to be as good as love
or make love look any less.
Even though the world is putting out there right now
a certain kind of love, a certain kind of sacrifice,
a compassion that observes the opinions of men
more than the opinions of God.
Even though that's come and it seems to be an easier road,
it seems to be better at times
because you can do whatever you want to do
and whoever it is that you're talking about
has to love you compulsory.
They're required, regardless of your actions.
So that makes free will seem better than love,
but love does not pale under the influence
or comparison with free will
because free will is simply necessary for love.
In fact, free will culminates in love.
The Bible says that those who love God
are His elect in Romans 8.28,
where it says all things will work together
for the good of those who what?
Love God and are called according to His purpose.
So who on the earth has God's favor?
Who on the earth has God on their side?
Who on the earth are the people
that God will always intervene
and turn out the end result for their blessing?
Well, those who love God
and are called according to His purpose.
Also says in 1 Corinthians 8.3, which that's so close,
we'll just have to flip there and read it word for word,
although we've done it once before in the last few weeks.
1 Corinthians 8.3 says,
but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.
So who is it that God knows?
Who is it that God has your number?
If your soul has a serial number,
who has memorized that serial number?
If there are hairs on your head,
who knows the exact number?
Well, that would be God.
Those who love God are God's elect.
And what does it mean to be elected?
It means chosen, He has owned you.
He has taken you as His very own child.
One theologian said it this way,
they are known fully, savingly, personally,
and everlastingly by God.
And so those who are like this,
those who have loved God,
those who have had a loving relationship with God,
they are known fully.
That means God knows everything about you in completeness.
They are known savingly.
That means God will save your soul, has saved your soul.
His love has the ability to save your soul.
They are known personally.
That means He knows you in your kind of idiosyncrasies
and the oddities and the strange things that you do.
He knows how you feel about stuff.
And they are known everlastingly.
It does not wear out, it does not quit,
and it will take you right into heaven.
Our focus now should be on God's knowledge of us,
not on our knowledge of Him.
As important as it is in the proper context,
it is more important that He knows us
than that we know Him.
To know that we are known by God,
personally, savingly, completely,
is the greatest knowledge.
It surpasses all other knowledge
as the light of our sun surpasses all lights.
You don't burn a candle in the daytime outside,
and you certainly don't get any benefit by it
if you choose to do so.
Thus love is the greatest of these three things,
because number one, Christian virtues
and ministries of the Spirit
depend on it for their validity.
In other words, everything you do right,
everything you do for God,
every action that you carry out,
every time you deny yourself
and take up your cross daily and follow after Him,
every time you do that depends on love.
And if you're doing it for some other reason
so that someone will see you,
someone will bless you, someone will want you,
someone will think highly of you,
that's not love and you are nothing.
Not my words, Paul's to the Corinthians
at the beginning of this chapter.
So our Christian virtues and ministries of the Spirit
depend on love for their validity.
Also, love is greater because it lasts for eternity,
and it is the method, as we talked about last week
at the very end, by which we store up treasures in heaven.
That which you do in love, because love lasts,
will make what you do last.
Also, it binds the Christian community together now
and eternally.
The church is God's composite agency.
In this room, we have some,
I'm just gonna be kind of gentle with this one,
some oddballs.
We have some knuckleheads.
We have some jerks.
We have some wenches.
They're all those things.
But God, in His love, has taken those things
and turned them into loving brothers and sisters in Christ.
He has cleansed and regenerated and sealed us for eternity.
And because those things have happened,
we become His good composite agency, acting on behalf.
That's why we are called the body of Christ.
And if you read there, those words literally mean
the body of Christ, the body owned by Christ,
the body that is Christ's body.
We are that.
Despite all that we were and how far away from God we were,
because of God's love for us,
He translated us to become His people.
And this love then binds the Christian community together.
We love one another.
And because we know that others love us,
we are free to do the things that we're supposed to do.
And because we know that we love them,
we are free to do the things we're supposed to do
to sacrifice on their behalf.
The Christian community is essentially bound by love.
It is the, lastly, it is greater
because it is the nature of God
as revealed in Jesus Christ.
If you wanna know something about God,
look at Jesus.
All of the qualities of the God of the universe,
everything that is God was displayed in Jesus.
And those who say that they know God
by some other method are just wrong.
If they know they're wrong, they're liars.
If they don't know they're wrong, they're deceived.
Because if you wanna know God, you gotta know Jesus.
That's why Jesus was able to say
that whosoever cometh to the Father cometh through me.
That's the only way.
Because Jesus is the image of the God of the universe.
Pardon me.
Jesus is the one who's, R.G. talked about how
we don't want our children to be like us,
we want our children to be like Jesus.
That's the goal.
And Jesus is the full embodiment of God's love.
This is love that a man might lay down his life
for his brothers.
You think Jesus set that model, that example for us
so that we could then go on and rewrite love,
make love a different thing, make love a lesser thing?
How many churches preach all you need to do is believe.
Just believe.
I submit to you that if you believe in God
and open the door, that channel of faith is present.
If God does not do the grace of saving you,
you're still lost and you'll still be in hell.
You'll still rot in hell for eternity
unless God by His grace saves you.
It is an action of God that provides salvation.
The action of faith is essentially knowing
that God can be appealed to.
Now will God ever not do the action of God to save you?
Is there ever a time in which a person cried out verbally,
Lord, God saved me through Jesus Christ, and he did not?
Before you say no, never such a time.
Be careful, because a man may speak many words.
Jesus said, not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord,
will enter the kingdom of heaven.
So that says what?
Yes, there will be those who cried out unto him
and called him Lord, and yet will not
enter the kingdom of heaven.
For it is those who do the actions of God,
the actions that God calls them to,
who have truly called upon the name of the Lord.
And so the answer is, yes, you might cry out to God, save me,
and even though it says, whosoever called upon the name of the Lord
will be saved, you might cry out to him and not mean it.
The channel may not actually be open.
You don't actually believe that God will answer your prayer.
You don't actually believe that God exists,
and he is a rewarder of those who seek him,
of those who believe in him, and that he is a rewarder
of those who seek him.
So faith and hope, they are essentials.
It's true.
There is how you can be saved.
There is how you experience love from God and love in God
and God's love through you and all of that.
But unless God by grace saves you, that love will not exist in you.
And if it does not, you're kindling for the fire.
So what is this Christian love?
What is it that we have been talking about?
I'm going to sum it up for you now.
After everything that we've been through and all that we've looked at,
I'm going to make it super easy for you to act on it.
That's tough, right?
Because it's hard to think, how do I love somebody
without ever thinking about me, without dwelling on the wrongs
that they've done?
How do I do all of that?
Let's make it a lot simpler than that.
It is this.
It is the identification of ourselves.
In other words, this is who I am.
I am now identifying with this God's interests in other people.
That's what you do.
That's how you love like God has called us to love.
That's how you become the love of Christ and the body of Christ,
is you look at others and you say, I identify.
Here is my identity.
Not just my identity as Pastor Daniel R. Stevenson.
That's my name.
Who is Pastor Daniel R. Stevenson?
This is who I am.
I identify with God's interests, what God is trying to accomplish
in other people.
That's it.
Not I want.
Not I think.
Not I pursue.
Not I have a plan.
Not if I say this, this will be the outcome.
But I identify.
My identity is now wrapped up in God's interests
coming to fulfillment in other people.
Love is what God in Christ has shown or done for others.
See, if God didn't send Jesus, that
would not be keeping in His character of love.
He is love.
And therefore, of course, He sent Jesus.
Not He had to, but of course, He sent Jesus.
In some sense, you could say that God had a love debt to pay
and He paid it through Jesus.
And you are in the same place being
created in the image of God.
You have a love debt to pay.
And you pay that debt most completely, most successfully,
most wholly when you love others and become identified
with God's interests at work in them.
You say, well, God wants to save them.
They don't profess to be saved.
God wants to save them.
So now I want to do everything I can
to see that person get saved.
Not just I want to do, but I want to become.
I want to identify with God's action, His motivation,
His direction inside that other person.
Now obviously, this takes place most completely in the church.
In fact, Jesus said it.
And then Paul said it a bunch of times.
You read the first chapter of the book of Philippi,
the first chapter of the book of Colossians.
And I think it's probably in every one,
but I didn't go through every single one
to check all the letters.
One of the things he observes about the church
and quotes and talks about every single time is their love.
That's it.
And so he says, this too I have seen in you.
Or this, I pray, will come to even more fruition in you.
He's always talking about their love.
God's people love each other.
We love each other.
So first and foremost, you need to identify yourself.
I, and you want to put your name on it, you can.
But this walking being, this living, breathing human body,
and all my soul and all my mind and all my heart
are at this purpose, at the whim of this purpose,
for this purpose, working in this purpose,
that God's interests may be served in other people.
And so when I look at the teenagers in this room,
I think, who am I that I can work God's purposes
in them somehow?
When I look at the older adults, I think,
who am I, who might I be?
What is God gonna make me into?
See, a lot of times people talk about how Paul,
Paul says, I became, right?
I became all things to all men that by some means,
I might reach some, right?
Except we forget.
It doesn't say, we then translate or transliterate
his words to say that he says, well,
he did all of these things.
Like I did this so that I might reach some,
and I did this so I reach some.
That's not what it says.
It says, I became.
This is about your identity.
You have to be willing to surrender your personal identity
into the efforts of God that the interests of God
may be achieved in other people.
And that is the very love that we've been talking about.
Love is what God in Christ has shown and done for others.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Why?
Because God became what he had to become
so that God's interests could be worked in other people.
And if we're gonna follow God's example,
we must become whatever we must become
so that God's interests may be worked in other people.
Love makes God's interests in others our own interests.
Once you've done it, this is how you know,
this is the measure, would you figure it out?
You become whatever it takes to work God's interests
in those other people, and then God's interests
in those people become our interests, right?
Because we essentially become God's love,
and God is loving.
Finally, as Christians, we've achieved that place
in which we represent God, which is what we were doing
all the while, it's what God was working at
all the while since Adam and Eve.
Faith is believing in God, hope is believing God,
and love is identifying with God's interests in others.
Predominantly true for Christians,
but also because we are aware of God's nature outside time.
So in other words, I look around this room
and I see people who are professing to be Christian.
Because you're professing to be Christian,
I want to let God change my identity
into that whichever it is that will work
God's interests in you.
But I'm gonna leave this room eventually.
Or I know that there could be people in this room
who are not truly Christian at this time.
And when I do, I'm gonna run into people
who do not even profess to be Christian
out there in the world, at the park,
at the restaurant, et cetera.
And I still want to see God's interests at work in them.
Now I can be loving to them, I can expend my resources,
I can work hard, I can slave away,
I can be outspoken though I am shy or introverted normally,
or whatever, I can do that, I can talk about God with them
to work God's interests in them.
And I can do that because I know
that we're all on the same page.
And so we go to a restaurant, I have no problem
asking the waitress if she has any prayer requests
and trying to open the conversation, right?
And you can tell usually from that point on
whether they're open to talk more,
or they'll be kind of scarce at the table after that point,
just pop in real quick so you don't bring up
anything more about Jesus, you know.
But the bottom line is, I feel comfortable doing that
when I'm out with the people from the church
because I know we're all supposed to be on that same page.
I can't make you be on that page,
we can't force each other to be on that page,
but that is God's interests in me.
God's interests in us, that we would be used as His agents
to act out and work on His interests in other people.
And so it says in Galatians 6,
that we work on behalf of one another first,
and then the rest of the world second.
So you have to make a choice between
loving your church members and loving other people
out that are not part of your local church,
and the Bible gives you the direction
to seek God's interests in the people in your church,
and then seek God's interests in the people
outside your church second.
This last we can do because we are unified
in the bonds of brotherly love,
and we can believe in God's interests
in brothers and sisters, that they too want to see
this love manifested above all else,
that God's interests may be served and furthered.
Because of this reason, joining the church
is actually recognizing the work of God.
It's not doing a work of God, it's recognizing God at work.
Like when I was sitting in front of the ordination council,
and they asked me and said,
so you're here today to be ordained to be a pastor,
and so what happens if this ordination council
votes for you to not do that?
And you're not supposed,
we think you're not supposed to preach,
or we think you're not supposed to pastor.
And my answer was, well, I guess I'll just do
the same thing I'm doing now.
Because I believe it's God that called me,
and I'm gonna do what God called me to do.
And if you're all right, what do you do
when it gets really super dark?
You just keep lighting.
That's what you do, right?
And so God did not call you to be part of the church
so that you could do a work of God.
God called you to be part of the church
so that your identity would be changed.
See, in some sense, when you became
New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East Lido,
you became New Heights Fellowship,
that's why we say you can now have in your answer machine,
or you can now get a return address label,
or you could put New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church
on your voicemail if you want, right?
Or on your texting signature.
If you're a member of the church, you can do that
because your identity changed.
We are the church now if you've become the church.
And that's why, because we are not doing the work of God.
We are recognizing the work of God
to change us into something.
What?
To change us into that identity
which seeks his interests in others.
We join, joining the mission is a choice,
but it's not like joining a club or a gym.
It's not like signing on a membership role.
It's your identity being changed to become a thing
that desires to see God's interests at work in others.
That works to see God work in others.
That's not what I do, that's who I am.
I have known.
I have become.
I am known.
So what are God's interests?
Well, this is some pretty easy answers right here.
So he desires to see everybody saved.
He desires to see everybody sanctified.
That means to be progressively more holy
with every day of your life.
So you're gonna become more like Jesus,
more like God with every day of your life.
To be justified so that it will be just
as if you never sinned.
So you're cleansed, all your sins are forgiven,
and everything that you currently do that is a sin
will be immediately forgiven just as if you had never sinned.
And then ultimately to be translated
into heaven with him for an eternity.
He claims for himself a people.
He lives in that people, and he brings that people
to heaven for an eternity.
Through faith and hope we know this,
and through love we join in it.
We essentially become it.
We deliver faith and hope into other people.
So now faith and hope become not the tools
by which we recognize grace and allow grace to come into us.
They're no longer that, but rather they are the things
that we deliver to others so that they can be saved.
We're moving into the conclusion.
Through faith and hope we know this,
and through love we join it.
Because we have joined in it, we are known,
according to scripture, by him and known by others as his.
Many years ago, and I use this illustration,
before many years ago my brother sang in the choir,
the OSU Honors Choir.
And so they picked about 300 teenagers from all over the state
in their high school choirs, and they tried out,
and they got picked, and he went down there,
and there's a 300-person choir in OSU,
and they sang every day at a concert,
like every 90 minutes to two hours,
and they did that for like a long time.
It wasn't the whole time the fair was open,
but it was like two weeks or something.
While we were down there, a famous country star was there,
and we got to go see her concert.
And my mom really wanted to meet her.
It was Loretta Lynn, I don't know if you know that name or not.
We had eaten at her restaurant in Tennessee,
on the edge of Tennessee.
And my mom really wanted to meet her in person.
They said, sometimes she goes to the restaurant.
We went to the restaurant, she wasn't there,
and my mom was put out.
So here was my opportunity for my mom to meet Loretta Lynn.
And so then after the choir concert,
we raced over to the Loretta Lynn concert,
and there she was coming out, and lo and behold,
my mom got to go up and meet Loretta Lynn.
And my brother was there.
He'd come at the very end of the conversation,
because he was coming straight from,
breaking up from the choir, and I was there for a few minutes.
My dad was there, and we all got to meet Loretta Lynn.
It was all very exciting.
Walked away, and my mom said, I know Loretta Lynn.
And I said, I don't think that's true.
I mean, I think you know, you've met her.
You've met Loretta Lynn.
I didn't say anything at the time,
because I didn't want to get in trouble,
but I was thinking to myself.
And then my brother, he'd come,
and was at the end of the conversation,
then he kind of drifted away, and he came back.
He wasn't excited about Loretta Lynn, apparently.
And my mom said it again.
She said, I'm so glad I know Loretta Lynn.
I'll be able to tell all my friends and family members
that I know Loretta Lynn.
From now on, I can say I know Loretta Lynn.
And my brother, because he was four and a half years older
than me, a little bolder than me,
and he'd been in a lot of trouble in his life,
said, Mom, you don't know Loretta Lynn.
And she said, what do you mean I don't know?
I just met her.
He said, you met her, but you really don't know her.
And she says, I know her, and she knows me.
I told her my name, so we know each other now.
That's what that means.
You meet somebody, you know each other now.
And I was thinking in my head, no,
I wasn't gonna jump in the conversation,
but I was thinking, no, I don't think so.
And then my brother and I got away a little bit.
He said, you understand what I mean, right?
She doesn't know her.
She just met her once.
And then we were talking about it some time later,
I don't know, like months later or something like that.
And my dad brought up after she said,
I know Loretta Lynn still,
she was still saying this like months later.
My mom was very stubborn,
she raised us to be stubborn too.
And she said, I know Loretta Lynn.
And my dad says, honey, I doubt she even remembers you.
She met hundreds of people that day.
She gets concerts all the time.
And she said, do you think she would even remember you?
Now that could be the end of the story.
And you could know that just meeting somebody,
just kind of getting close to somebody,
coming in their proximity, that's not enough.
But some years later,
my parents visited Loretta Lynn's restaurant
on the edge of Tennessee again.
And lo and behold, Loretta Lynn was there that day.
And my mom walked up to her like an old friend.
And she said, you remember me?
We met at the Ohio State Fair,
and you could have heard a pin drop.
And Loretta Lynn said, I do remember you.
I remember meeting you at the fair.
She said, your son was singing in the choir, right?
And he came over right at the end of we were talking,
I remember you.
And I was stunned that Loretta Lynn remembered my mom.
When we have joined in God's purposes,
when we have loved like God,
we are known by Him and known by others as His.
God orchestrates the ongoing death.
There are a lot of dead people in the world
walking around doing things.
They'll be shopping at Walmart later today.
There are a lot of dead people
dead in their trespasses and sins.
That's Ephesians two.
They're walking around and God orchestrates their life
that they might find life available in Christ,
that they might be reborn and become the father's children,
experiencing God's love and then becoming a part
of His effort, becoming a part of His love,
to love others, to see His purposes enacted in other people.
The one who loves God is known by God.
We read those verses at the beginning,
1 Corinthians 8.3 and Romans 8.28.
First John chapter four, basically John, not Paul,
says the very same things that we are reading,
that we are learning today and he uses different words.
And so sometimes I find that when I want to learn something,
I want to hear it a different way.
And this is what it says in 1 John chapter four,
beginning in verse eight,
the one who does not love does not know God,
for God is love.
By this, the love of God was manifested in us,
that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world
so that we might live through Him.
In this is love, not that we loved God,
but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation,
that means the full payment for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another.
No one has beheld God at any time.
If we love one another, God abides in us,
and His love is perfected in us.
For this we know, that we abide in Him,
I'm sorry, by this we know that we abide in Him
and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit.
And we have beheld and bear witness
that the Father has sent the Son
to be the Savior of the world.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God,
God abides in Him and He in God.
And we have come to know and have believed the love
which God has for us, God is love.
And the one who abides in love abides in God
and God abides in Him.
By this love is perfected with us,
that we may have confidence in the day of judgment
because as He is, so also are we in this world.
Remember I said, it's not anymore that we would know God,
that's not the point.
It's that what God would know us.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear
because fear involves punishment.
And the one who fears is not perfected in love.
We love because He first loved us.
If someone says I love God and hates His brother,
He is a liar.
For the one who does not love His brother,
whom He has seen, cannot love God whom He has not seen.
And this commandment we have from Him,
that the one who loves God should love His brother also.
May the Lord our God be with us as He was with our fathers.
May He not leave us or forsake us,
that He may incline our hearts to Himself,
to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments
and His statutes and His ordinances,
which He commanded our fathers.
And may these words of mine,
with which I have made supplication before the Lord,
be near to the Lord our God day and night,
that He may maintain the cause of His servant
and the causes of His people Israel as each day requires.
So that all the people of the earth
may know that the Lord is God.
There is no one else.
Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted
to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes
and to keep His commandments as at this day.
Does anybody recognize where that comes from?
Comes from the prayer of Solomon to dedicate the temple
a long time before Paul escaped the womb.
God's people have always known this,
that God is love and if we love the way He loves,
that is if we desire to see His purposes enacted
in other people, if we become His purposes
enacted in other people, then we love the way He is loved
and we shall know Him and be known by Him.
How shall we know Him?
Only in part, how shall we be known by Him fully?
Know that the Lord Himself is God.
It is He who has made us and not we ourselves.
We are His people and the sheep of His pastor.
That's Psalm 100.
Psalm 100, know my anxious thoughts.
I know that everything God does will remain forever.
There is nothing to add to it
and there is nothing to take from it
for God has so worked that men should fear Him.
That's Ecclesiastes 3.
You are my witnesses, declares the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am He.
Before me there was no God formed
and there will be none after me.
Boy, that sounds like it's New Testament,
but actually it's Isaiah 44.
Do not tremble and do not be afraid.
I have not long since announced it to you and declared it.
And you are my witnesses.
Is there any God besides me or is there any other rock?
I know of none, Isaiah 45.
The one who says, I have come to know Him
and does not keep His commandments is a liar
and the truth is not in Him,
but whoever keeps His word in Him,
the love of God has truly been perfected.
For this we know that we are in Him.
By this we know that we are in Him.
The one who says He abides in Him
ought himself also to walk in the manner He walked.
However, at that time when you did not know God,
you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods, by now.
But now that you have come to know God
or rather to be known by God, listen to that.
He says, but now that you have come to know God,
but rather actually better, more important,
notice this, to be known by God,
how is it that you turn back again
to the weak and worthless elemental things
to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?
In other words, don't.
God has called us to be His very purposes on the earth,
not to do.
I think we're confused about that.
Why is there always wrestling going on in Christians?
The answer is because we think
we are supposed to do certain things.
God did not die so that you could do certain things.
Lots of people do certain things.
You understand that atheists give charitably.
Atheists do nice things.
They do nice things for people.
In fact, when Sherri and I were living in Lansing,
just south of Lansing, and I was going to Bible college,
one of our friends, who at that time was a professing atheist,
prepared a guest room in our house
and we would come down on Saturday
and spend the night in his house and eat his food.
He always made sure, Becky, ask us,
what are your favorite foods?
What needs to be in the kitchen when you come?
And he would prepare a guest room
and have food in his bathroom.
And we would come down every Saturday.
And then every Sunday morning,
we would get up and teach Sunday school.
And every Sunday, late morning,
we would go to church and we'd worship.
And I would sing in the choir.
And every Sunday night, we would work in the Iwana program.
And afterwards, we'd go to choir practice.
And then we'd drive back home at 11, 12 o'clock,
absolutely exhausted, and do it over again the next week.
And it was my atheist friend,
my friend who did not know God,
who did those kind things for us,
my friend who did not know God,
who went to the grocery store every Saturday morning
or every Friday night and bought groceries
to make sure that in his kitchen
was stuff that we could eat, would eat.
He provided that hospitality to us.
Does that not sound like love?
It absolutely does.
And so you doing these things is not enough.
You showing up and being a better person is not enough.
This is not about the work that you do.
Yes, we must follow the command of the Lord.
But let me tell you, it'll get a little bit easier
when we stop thinking we must do something
and realize that Jesus Christ died
to make us become something,
to change us, to transform us,
to make us reborn and new in his people
so that we can love like he loves,
which is to see his purposes fulfilled in others.
That is first accomplished in the body of Christ
and by this, our love,
they will know that we are his people.
And then as we love each other that way,
we free each other up to go out into the world
to spend our resources and our time and our energy
to reach others with the gospel of Christ.
Here is the problem why the church is not loving the world.
It's not even that the church is not loving itself.
That isn't even the problem.
The real problem is this,
that we have not become the love of God.
We do not love others to see the purposes
of God fulfilled in them.
That's what it means to love.
And according to Paul in the beginning of the chapter,
if you do not do those things and become those things,
you are worthless in the kingdom of God.
I don't want to be worthless.
I don't want my loving kind statements
to be heard as a clanging gong.
Bang!
What did he say?
I don't know, I didn't hear him really.
All I heard was bang!
But we can become what he died to make us into.
And when you become identified,
when your identity is wrapped up
in whether or not God's purposes,
God's work, God's interests are happening in other people,
when that's your identity,
then you think about like RJ was saying being an example.
Or you think about like, hey, can I punch him?
Can I yell at him?
Can I post nasty things about him on Facebook?
How on earth the half the things that we do
on a daily basis contribute to God's interests
being fulfilled in other people?
And if your actions are not contributing,
then yeah, it could be well-assigned
that you are not being transformed
into the thing that God is making you into.
But now abide.
Faith, I believe.
Now so do the demons.
But I believe.
In fact, they don't really believe because of faith.
They were around a long time ago and they saw it.
I hope, I hope that the world will be reached to the gospel.
I hope that we will see people get saved.
I hope that the people in this body
will take a stand and be transformed
and identified with the person who died for us
that we might live with God for an eternity.
But better than faith and hope is love.
And how do we love?
We become identified with God's interests in other people.
That's how you love.
Starting with the body of faith,
we have God's interests as our identity
in the body of faith and overflowing to the world.
I pray that as we finish up
thinking about chapter 1 Corinthians 13,
we will not stop thinking about this chapter.
That we will be able to say to ourselves,
I am doing this good work,
but what is my actual motivation?
Has this become the person that I am?
I had a good, dear friend of mine
who went to be with the Lord
and he had the gift of giving.
He called it the gift of giving.
I think really it was faith, the spiritual gift of faith,
but he called it the gift of giving.
And he said, I just give.
I see a need and I give.
And the week I met him,
the first time I met him the week before,
he had just gotten a guy that was working with him,
that got hired, he found out the guy was homeless,
he found out the guy was,
he didn't have anywhere to eat,
didn't have food to eat,
he was just barely getting by in that kind of thing,
but he had just started a new job.
And so he took that man and he bought him clothes for work
and he took that man and he went to the American Table
restaurant out on 25 and he said,
I want him to be able to eat breakfast, lunch,
and dinner here every day for the next two weeks
until he gets the first paycheck.
And he bought him clothes
and I think he repaired his car once
and then he got a new car.
He got him a place to stay.
And so now, mind you, he was wealthy.
I understand we're not wealthy like he was,
but he was wealthy and he did all of that.
Then I met him.
Then he helped our family with a financial burden
that we were facing.
And then I met him again two months later
and I had, after he helped us,
I think at that time he helped us get tires on our van,
after he helped us,
I was supposed to give him the receipt.
And he contacted me and he said,
hey, you want to get lunch?
And I thought for sure he was going to ask me
for the receipt for the tires.
And he said, at the end, I forget I'm eating.
He said, I want to ask you something.
And I thought, here it comes.
He's going to say, why didn't you receive?
And I had, I anticipated this.
I had the receipt in my pocket.
I was going to give it to him as soon as he asked for it.
And he said, is there any way that I can help you today?
They didn't ask for the receipt,
even though he needed a receipt
probably for his tax purposes or whatever.
I don't know what he was going to do with it.
He asked me for it.
He said, is there any way that I can help you today?
And I said, well, I really can't ask you for more help.
I said, you really helped us.
We don't really need anything right this second.
And he didn't help us right then,
but he did help us again later.
And I said, by the way, I have that receipt.
You asked me to give you the receipt for the tires.
And I said, I have it right here in my pocket.
And he said, you know what?
I forgot about this.
I helped you get tires.
Did I do that?
I said, yeah.
He said, I totally forgot I helped you get tires.
When did I do that?
It was like a month before.
I said, when did I do that?
It was like a month before.
And I said, well, last month, you know,
and he said, I totally forgot I did that.
He said, that happens to me a lot.
I give and I forget.
I even gave.
Once you start loving like God has you loving,
once you start being the person that God wants you to be,
and you're more concerned about God's interests
being met in other people,
you're gonna start forgetting,
you're gonna start not worrying about the expenditures in question.
If you have to ask yourself, look,
I've been trying to help them and they keep doing this,
they keep doing that, they keep wanting this,
they keep wanting that.
It's not going, they're not doing what I'm wanting them to do.
If that's where you're at,
you have not become the love of God in their life.
Because love keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not dwell on the bad things that people do.
But if you have become love,
if you have become what God is desiring you to be,
then the next time somebody does something stupid to you,
instead of thinking, man, I'm not gonna tolerate that,
or I'm gonna come back against them,
or I'm gonna chastise them,
I'm gonna raise my voice,
or I'm not gonna have anything to do with them anymore,
you're gonna be thinking, what can I do?
What kind of person can I be
to see God's interests at work in them?
What would that look like?
And then as long as that is not unbiblical,
and at times it might be, and you might have to say no,
but as long as that is not unbiblical,
then that's the kind of person
you're going to become in that situation.
That's how we know that we have known God,
and we know him only in part,
but it's also how we know that he has known us.
If you have lived otherwise,
turn to God today and say, okay, God,
make me into the kind of person
that this word is talking about
so that I can know the single most important thing to know,
and that is that you know me,
so that I can remain as love remains,
so that I can continue,
so that I will not wear out,
so that I will be greater,
so that I will be larger,
so that I will be stronger,
so that I will be endless.
Would you turn to God today and say,
I want to love,
or will you be back and forth, back and forth
over the next one year, 10 years, 50 years?
Some of us, let's see,
some of the youngest people in the room,
100 years maybe,
especially with modern science advancing,
that kind of thing,
if Jesus doesn't come again first,
then you'll fight your whole life.
Or if you just let God turn you
into what he's trying to turn you into,
then you'll find yourself loving
without even realizing you're doing it.
That's what God has called us to.
At this time, we ask the praise team
to come forward and lead our closing hymn.
I'm asking you to seriously consider
how you feel about your siblings,
how you feel about your church members,
how you feel about your children.
It's the most important thing to you
that God's purposes would be happening in their lives.
When you look around this room,
and if they go that perfect God under my skin,
boy, I got mad at that person.
You need to realize, you need to defend,
because that's not love.
And we're called for love.
We're called to be identified
with the purposes of God at work in others.
Stand with me as we sing this song.
If the Lord's speaking to your heart today,
you respond, maybe you're accepting Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior for the first time.
May your commitment to love like this
be granted to a lot of God's,
starting with the person who desires his interests
in others more than anything.
It's a miracle only he can do.
Try me, cross me.
Never let me go.
May it all come again.
Please say that I won't rest.
You are my desire.
I'm your desire.
No one else way out, you know.
There's nothing else to take your place.
Feel the warmth of your embrace.
Help me find a way, bringing me back to you.
You're all I want.
You're all I've ever needed.
You're all I want.
Help me find a way to find you.
As we were just singing that song I was thinking about,
so back in the day, it's been a little while now,
it's really pre-COVID, we had a couple,
three mission teams come every summer to do ministry.
And they would get real wrapped up in sharing the gospel,
get excited about it, come to our services.
I think one of the great blessings of New Heights
is that God is always present in our services,
and I'm grateful for that.
And they would come and they would experience God,
that would be awesome.
And they would go out into the community and knock on doors,
they'd do a VBS or Bible club in the yard, things like that.
And after five days of doing that, they were on,
they were tired because it was a long five days,
they were sleeping on air mattresses in the church building or whatever,
and dealing with all the different personalities and that kind of thing,
but they were on such a high.
Everybody had an experience, so VBS, we did VBS,
we were a teacher, we got some teachers in the room,
we'd teach kids for five days VBS,
and at the end of the week you're like, man, I'm tired,
but at the same time, it was awesome.
It was awesome to be teaching people about Jesus,
awesome to be serving, awesome to be loving in this way.
Or maybe we do a block party, come together for a block party,
or have a lot of fun, and we're serving people,
and we're working together, we're working out our problems,
and it's like, yes, it's hard, it's tiring,
but at the same time, it's awesome.
You know why that is?
Because when we're doing that,
it begins to feel like what we're actually supposed to be.
So we're doing what we're actually supposed to be doing.
Now maybe some of us, and I won't even say it's me,
but maybe some of us are being that,
and it feels normal because they need to be what they know they're supposed to be,
what they want to be during that period of time,
and then it ends.
And so this is the story that I heard about the Mission Community.
They would go home, and all the people that came up and served with us for five days,
they'd go home, and they would impact their church,
they would impact their community,
they would do mission work in their community, they're knocking on doors,
they're loving on people like they never have before.
And we heard a lot of positive things about how they came up to Toledo,
and had such a great experience,
and they walked away loving like they were supposed to do,
and they're serving and stuff like that.
And then they go home, and then the next week, or two weeks later,
they're knocking on doors and serving people in our community,
telling people about Jesus and stuff,
and we are not.
See it?
What I'm saying is, there will be another DBS,
there will be another mission,
there will be another like craft night,
because you can see Josh is in his element when he's doing craft night and stuff like that,
because he loves to do that.
There will be another youth Bible study.
Those things are going to happen.
But God's not calling us to have one more event,
or to be like that during one more period of time,
or like He's calling us to do that 24 hours a day.
And the reason we're so excited, the reason we enjoy it so much,
when we get to serve like that, and we go,
yes, I feel like God was really working through me at that time,
is because that's what we're supposed to be all the time, every day,
seven days a week.
Once we become that, once God starts loving through us that way,
it's going to be like DBS every week.
It's going to be like, okay, what can I do to help?
How can I make a difference?
How can I serve?
How can I jump in there?
Where can I fix a problem or whatever?
And not because I'm trying to get that glory,
not because I'm trying to feel better about it or whatever,
but because that's just who I am.
People serve, and people are servants.
The difference between people who serve and people who are servants
is a servant will literally do anything to serve.
They don't care what it is, when it is, first opportunity, any opportunity,
whatever, that's a servant.
People who serve are called a servant while they're serving,
but they're serving that time.
But then like a week later, they're like,
well, I'm not available to serve because I've got to do this.
Or maybe I am, I'm going to go, you know, I can't afford it,
I'm too busy, or it didn't work out the way I wanted it to,
or things like that.
That's the difference.
And so one is identity, and one is activity.
And what this word is calling us to do is identity.
So let's change our identity.
It's not that we can do it by ourselves.
Let's trust God to change our identity,
and wherever we are, to think, how can I be aligned,
how can I be the person who desires more than anything else
God's interest at work in other people?
That's it.
What an opportunity we have.
Can you imagine that?
Think of the world the way it is.
First of all, the world is very spiritually aware
or thinks they are right now.
They're very open to Christianity and to God at work.
There's all over the place it's happening,
where dozens, hundreds, thousands of people are hearing the gospel
and responding in some way.
The world is very open and aware to it.
And they get super excited about an event, right?
But what really has to be happening is you have to transform.
Born again, starting fresh, learning to love the way God loves.
Let us do that.
We're going to close in prayer at this time,
but I would ask you to don't leave Chapter 13 behind.
Walk out of this building and think, how do I do this?
How do I become what God is calling me to?
And then you're going to find it's like you can't.
So then you're going to appeal to God in faith
that God will do that work in us individually and cooperatively,
that we will become the body of Christ.
We will love the way Jesus loved and see God's purposes at work in others.
That's very good.
Proud in heaven, I thank you so much for having called us
to 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.
This is a passage of Scripture that's read at weddings
and it's on T-shirts and it's all over the place.
And at the same time, there has been such an effort by the world,
by evil spirits, by even by the church,
when the church is not being very church-like,
to pollute the understanding of love.
And it isn't comfortable,
especially if we're not having our identity rooted in your love,
to see your purposes unveiled at others.
It's not comfortable to realize that the kind of loving that you and families do,
and even the world does, is not this kind of love.
It's not the kind of love that you do.
It's not the kind of love that is you.
There is a difference.
And so Father, I praise you that you saw a race of people.
There was just one race, the human race.
You saw a race of people that was distant from you,
that regardless of what they thought they knew, they didn't know you.
And you desired to have that lasting relationship with us, to know us,
through your son, Jesus Christ.
And that's what we desire to you.
And I pray for myself that whatever my skills or abilities might be,
whatever my scheduled activities might be,
whatever my preferences might be, or even my personal taste,
that all that I am will be transformed,
that will be identified with your purposes at work in others.
And we know that your Word says in Galatians 6-10 that it is then,
especially in your church, in your people.
And we think, how about that guy that works in the ministry?
How about that guy? How about that gal? How about that kid?
How do we surround that person to see God's interests unveiled in them?
That's love.
How do we be like that?
Not how do we do that, but how do we be like that,
that every opportunity and more and more and more.
We understand it's a journey.
That's what it means to be sanctified.
But we submit ourselves, I submit myself, and I hope others are joining me in it,
to submit ourselves to that identity, that new identity in Christ,
that identity that aligns with your purposes at work in us and in others.
We praise you for it. We ask your blessings upon the cupcakes
and a little bit of time of fellowship as we celebrate.
We say it's not at the beginning, but actually it's the great triumph of our God
to Chris and Holly to make a wonderful young lady who is growing as a servant of God.
And we're grateful. We ask your blessings upon it. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Thank you very much. This concludes our services. Cupcakes, short fellowship,
and then don't forget the team leader meeting.