Out Living Your Life
Popular culture in literature, in music, in advertising and in the visual arts,
popular culture uses the word love to mean just about everything except what the Bible means.
So even we Christians are easily misled into thinking that love is primarily a feeling, something you can fall into or fall out of.
But in this chapter as throughout Scripture, love is first of all an action, an unconditional commitment, a promise that is never broken.
Lewis Smedes in a marvelous book entitled Love Within Limits outlines this approach.
He writes, patience does not include toleration of evil.
Kindness is both intelligent and tough, and without wisdom and honesty, kindness becomes pity.
Dr. Warren Wearsby says, truth without love is abuse, but love without truth is hypocrisy.
I don't love you if I can't tell you the truth.
The truth is the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God through Jesus Christ is eternal life.
There is not much being spoken in these times about what's going on in our world in terms of truth, because we do not want to offend.
We don't want to be labeled as intolerant or homophobic.
But something is evil about children being taught that you can have two mothers.
There's something wicked about a man being sexually involved with another man.
And we who are children of God, if we have a biblical worldview, it does not matter whom we offend.
If God is against it, then the church must be against it.
And we must not just be against the sins that we don't commit.
I wish I had somebody to help me preach it. It's easy to shave your hand and shout when I'm preaching about homosexuality, but I got to preach about gossiping, adultery, lying.
Talk back to me if you can. All unrighteousness is sin.
I have to confess that I'm here this morning because I did not win the Powerball.
I would be in Hawaii right now. I'd buy me an island and some members because you would no longer want to have anything to do with anybody like me.
I wouldn't care what you thought.
But the Lord knows he's got to keep me poor and broke so I can keep coming to church and you too.
You've got a ticket in your purse right now.
Listen, when we tell the truth, it frees us not to be under anybody else's opinions of us.
Because if God be for us, who can be against us?
When we expose ourselves to the love of God, his love purifies us. His love cleanses us because if we confess our sin, I wish I had a Bible reader, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
In these closing verses of chapter 13, Paul's praise of love reaches its climax.
The Corinthians had been so obsessed with the gifts that they had that they stopped loving one another.
Paul enthrones love and it is made out of the various stuff of eternity and it belongs, brothers and sisters, to this genre of the idea in Scripture that love never fails.
Love never comes to an end.
Without change of its inner essence, love passes over into eternal joy because love is eternal life already begun in time.
In the midst of the suffocating self-love of our modern and postmodern culture, the Bible is clear that our real hunger is to know the one true God revealed in Scripture.
And in so doing, then we will satisfy our craving for security, find the purpose for which we exist and we are able to live free from the slavery to self through the love of God.
Look with me in verse number eight at this expectation.
Verse eight says, love never ends.
It never fails, but as for prophecies, they will come to an end.
As for tongues, they will cease.
As for knowledge, it will come to an end.
I need you to stay with me right here.
In the Greek language, there are three basic voices which govern verbs.
There is the active voice, the passive voice and the middle voice.
Stay with me. The active voice is used when the subject is doing the acting.
The mother bathes the child.
That's the verb in the active voice.
The passive voice is used when the subject is being acted upon by another.
The child is being bathed by its mother.
That's the passive voice.
The middle voice is used when the subject is doing the acting on itself.
The child is bathing.
The child is doing the acting. That's the middle voice.
Now, let's put those three together.
Passive voice, active voice, middle voice.
When the scripture says, prophecies shall be done away with,
and knowledge shall vanish away, that's the passive voice,
meaning God is going to bring prophecy to an end.
God will bring knowledge to an end,
because prophecy and knowledge are guideposts on the road to faith.
And once you know the way, you no longer need the guideposts.
Somebody will help me preach it.
There is no longer any need for anybody to prophesy,
because everything God wants us to know is in the scripture.
If you run up on somebody who called himself a prophet, run away,
because God has no more prophets.
There are no more apostles.
The last apostle was John, and he died on the Isle of Patmos.
I have a preacher who calls himself a cardinal.
It's not going to be long before we're going to have a pope in the black Baptist church,
because bishop is not good enough. Cardinal is not going to be good enough after a while.
After a while, we're going to have a pope.
What's wrong with being pastor?
What's wrong with just being a preacher?
Everybody wants to have some special knowledge.
God is not giving anybody any esoteric knowledge.
The only knowledge you and I have now comes from reading the scripture.
Faith comes by hearing.
I wish I had some noise here.
And hearing by the Word of God.
Whatever the Word of God does not say, you need to be quiet on.
Prophecy will cease, and it has ceased,
because we have the canon of scripture.
C-A-N-O-N, the canon of scripture, the Bible in its completed form.
God is not going to speak another word until we stand before Him in judgment.
Everything God wants to say has been said finally in the Word.
In sundry times, I need two or three more Bible readers.
And in diverse places.
I spoke through dreams and visions and prophecies.
But now God has spoken through a son.
Jesus is God's last word.
In the beginning was the word.
And the Word was with God.
And the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld His glory.
The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The last word God spoke died on a cross.
Rose from the grave.
And is seated now on the right hand of God with power.
And so prophecy has ceased.
There is no special knowledge.
People come up to you all the time and say,
the Spirit told me to tell you.
Oh.
I had a vision about, oh, you last night.
And the Spirit told me to tell you.
You need to tell them.
The Spirit knows my phone number.
The Spirit knows my address.
My zip code.
My social security number.
God ain't going to tell you nothing to tell me.
Because what God wants me to know, He's shown me in His Word.
The will of God is not hidden from any of us.
God has revealed His will in His Word.
Stop reading your horoscope.
Your day ain't got nothing to do with you being a Sagittarius.
Or cancer.
Leo.
You got ugly ways because you got ugly ways.
Ain't got nothing to do with the sign of your zodiac or none of that.
You mean and crabby.
Not because you're a cancer, because you just mean and crabby.
And you need to ask God to work on that.
That has nothing to do with the stars.
It has nothing to do with the signs of the zodiac.
It has to do that you feel like cussing somebody out.
Stop giving people a piece of your mind.
That's why you ain't got that much left.
Because you're always giving it away.
Let this mind be in you.
Which was also in Christ Jesus.
And as a child of God, it doesn't matter that they don't love you.
God obligates you to love them.
Because God is not going to hold me responsible for how you treat me.
But by this shall all men know that you are my disciple.
Because you have love one for another.
I hear me brothers and sisters.
Passive voice, prophecy ceases.
Knowledge is done away.
That's passive voice.
It's being acted upon by God himself.
But tongues in this passage is in the middle voice.
Meaning that tongues will cease on their own.
And the reason tongues ceased in the home of Cornelius in chapter 10 of Acts.
Is because there was no more a need for unbelieving Jews to understand
that the same spirit that fell on Pentecost fell on the Gentiles.
Somebody help me preach it.
And so God no longer needs the apostles to speak in other languages.
Because the Bible is now interpreted in other languages.
There's no need for tongues.
Because tongues have ceased.
The same Holy Ghost that fell on the day of Pentecost.
Is the same Holy Ghost that fell in the home of Cornelius.
And they spoke with other tongues in the home of Cornelius.
And Peter even said that the same spirit that fell on us has now fallen on them.
I wish I had one or two more Bible readers.
So that if you're speaking in tongues, there needs to be present and interpreter.
Because God is no longer causing tongues to be a part of worship.
See how quiet you got right there?
I'm trying to learn something here this morning.
That this gibberish that you hear is not tongues.
It's babbling.
And when tongues happened on the day of Pentecost, it reversed the curse at the tower of Babylon.
That's why it's called babbling.
Because they couldn't understand each other.
But it does not make sense for me to come here this morning and speak Swahili when you speak English.
Because you need to hear the gospel in your tongue.
I had some help to preach right here.
Thank God that the day of Pentecost undead the curse at the tower of Babylon.
Because now everybody can hear the gospel in his or her own language and know God for himself.
Because we understand what somebody is saying.
It's in these kinds of crowds that Satan will get you distracted.
That Satan will cause you not to hear what I'm saying.
Satan will cause you to close your mind to the truth.
And you will believe fables and lies.
But brothers and sisters hear me.
Paul goes on to talk to us not only about this expectation of what's going to happen.
But he says, prophecies and knowledge are gone because the perfect has come.
When the perfect has come, prophecy and knowledge is done away.
Jesus is who David was talking about.
When David said, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He was talking about Jesus.
When Ezekiel talked about a wheel in the middle of a wheel, he was talking about Jesus.
When Daniel talked about a stone that had been hewn out of a mountain, he was talking about Jesus.
When Solomon said he's the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley and the bright morning star, he was talking about Jesus.
When Job said, if I had a dais man, he was talking about Jesus.
Every time the scripture talks about an Ebenezer, he's talking about Jesus.
The scepter will not depart from Judah.
Nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes.
That's talking about Jesus.
The prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
Now we don't need a fourth telling when Jesus is the telling that's been coming forth.
That was good. I worked on that all the week.
We don't need a fourth telling when Jesus is the telling that's been coming forth.
Now, Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, he's been coming forth.
The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent.
The serpent shall bruise his heel. That's talking about Jesus.
That's the expectation we have now what they were looking for.
But not only is there expectation in the text, in verses 9 and 10, there is an explanation.
Verse 9 and 10 says, for we know only in part, and we prophesy in part,
but when the complete comes, when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
Listen, I don't have any need now to wonder about my salvation because the Bible tells me,
these things are written that you may know that you have eternal life.
I don't have to wait to get to heaven to find out if I'm saved.
I know because the Bible says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart
that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach except they be sent?
What happens here on Sunday morning is not a man standing behind a lectern giving a lecture.
I am a preacher in the pulpit pulling people out of the pit.
That's why this place where I stand is a pulpit because I'm pulling people out of a pit.
Because one day I was in a pit and John Wilkerson preached and pulled me out of the pit.
Church is not some municipal auditorium.
Church is not some concert hall.
Get rid of your entertainment philosophy.
Trash your nightclub mentality.
Words of life are being preached into your spirit.
And when your spirit connects with my spirit and the Holy Spirit comes down in this place,
bad men become good men.
Good men become better men.
Evil people become sweet people.
Lost people become saved people.
Here it is. Here it is.
Here it is.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
I fought like a child.
I understood like a child.
But when I grew up, when I became an adult, when I became a man, when I became a woman,
I put away, listen, not childlike things, but childish things.
Because like a child, I still wonder about the grace of God.
I'm childlike with wonder when I think about God's goodness.
I am childlike with excitement when I think about preaching on Sunday morning.
I am childlike and giddy with joy when I think about the gifts God just gives me
that I don't even deserve.
And then he gives me what I didn't even ask for.
I'm about to shout right here.
You Texas people won't get this.
This is a Louisiana quail realism.
We Louisiana people have a secret handshake
and a different way of looking at stuff.
And there's stuff that happened in Louisiana that you Texas people have borrowed,
but it's not yours, it's ours.
But so you can shout with me on credit.
We have something in Louisiana where I was raised called LANYOP.
L-A-G-N-I-A-P-P-E. LANYOP.
LANYOP is when you go to buy five pounds of rice, they give you six pounds.
Or you go to get a five pound bag of sugar and they give you eight pounds.
My grandmother would look at that and if somebody baked you a cake,
you didn't just bring the plate back, you put something in it.
More than what they gave you.
That's called LANYOP.
You baked a cake, they send you a cake and some fried chicken.
You send them some soup, they'll send you back a pie and some pineapples or bananas
or some candy or some homemade stuff.
That's LANYOP, that's something you didn't ask for.
That's just extra.
God!
When you prayed this morning, you asked them for health and strength,
but he gave you something extra.
Somebody ought to help me holler right here.
You asked God for peace, but he gave you something extra.
You asked God to keep you from losing your mind, but he gave you something extra.
You got a new car, you got a new house, you got a new job,
and even if you don't have that, you got joy in your old house.
This joy!
Have I got a witness?
This joy that I have, the world didn't give it to me.
And the world can't take it away.
You can't make me doubt him, because I know too much about him.
When I was a child, I thought like a child.
I would see him shouting on Sunday morning,
and as a child, I laughed and played with that.
Somebody ought to help me finish it.
My mama would get happy in the choir,
and the Ushers had them little white caps on their head,
they had some smelling salts in their apron, or in their pocket,
and they'd put it under my mama's nose, and she'd come out of it.
And I'd get to school the next day, and they'd say,
tell your mama to calm down.
So I'd come home, I'd say, my listen.
You ain't got to do all that.
She said, just keep on living.
And one Wednesday, down in Yulis, Louisiana,
I came to Jesus as I was weary, worn and sad,
but I found in him a resting place, and he made me glad.
And now I understand why my mama would carry on so much,
because when I was a child, I couldn't get it,
because I thought I was a man.
Now that I've been through some storms on my own,
now that I've had some people to walk away from me,
now that I've had some folk to lie on me and criticize me,
now that I've had some people I fought with my friends
who turned their backs on me,
now that I've been down to my last dime,
and my back has been up against the wall,
and I've been showed up and made away out of no way.
I don't need to ask nobody about how good God is.
I know for myself, I'm not a child anymore.
I'm a grown man this morning.
You are a grown woman this morning,
with your own God experience.
And so somebody ought to help me testify.
He can do anything.
I said he can do anything.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
I thought like a child.
I understood like a child, but when I became a man,
I put away those childish waves.
You're going to help me close this, won't you?
And now we see through a glass darkly,
and face to face, I will know even as also I am known.
I need somebody to help me close here.
You can move the word love in the text,
and substitute that with the word or the name Jesus.
And it'll make this text read with so much power
that you will shout even before you get to the last verse.
I'm going to read it for you the way it really ought to be read.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,
but do not have Jesus,
I am a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
And if I give, if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith to remove mountains,
but I don't have Jesus, it profits me nothing.
If I give away all my possessions,
and if I give my body to be burned, but I have not Jesus,
it profits me nothing.
Jesus is patient.
Jesus is kind.
Jesus is not envious.
Jesus is not boastful.
Jesus is not arrogant.
Jesus is not rude.
Jesus does not behave himself unseemly.
Jesus is not irritable.
Jesus is not resentful.
Jesus does not rejoice in wrongdoing.
Jesus rejoices in the truth.
Jesus bears all things.
Jesus believes all things.
Jesus hopes all things.
Jesus endures all things.
Jesus never fails.
And now abided faith, hope, and Jesus.
But the greatest of these is Jesus.
I wish I had somebody to help me.
The reason why I have great expectation,
the reason I thank God for an explanation,
is because I have now a marvelous illustration.
You're going to help me close this, won't you?
This ignorant eight grade student,
who was a grown man in his seventies,
went to a lawyer's office
because God laid this lawyer on his heart
to go to his office and evangelize him.
And the ignorant eight grade,
seventy something year old man,
went to this lawyer's office
to talk to him about Jesus.
And every argument the old man raised,
the lawyer had an answer for it.
Because the man just went to the eighth grade.
But this lawyer was erudite and successful.
This lawyer had a jurist doctorate.
This lawyer had years of schooling.
But this old man had just finished the eighth grade.
But he went to his office to talk to him
because God laid him on his heart.
And he wanted to witness to this lawyer about Jesus.
Every argument he raised,
the lawyer had an answer.
And the man said, I'm sorry,
I just came because God sent me to come.
And I wanted to tell you about Jesus
simply because I love you.
I know I can't argue with you.
I know I don't have all the education you have.
I just came because I love you.
The man went home depressed.
He was dejected and disappointed
because he did what God said him to do.
He told his wife, I went to this lawyer
and tried to tell him about Jesus.
And every argument I raised about Jesus,
he had an answer for.
I'm failed. I'm not good at evangelism.
I'm going to my room.
I don't want to be disturbed.
I don't want to see anybody for the rest of the day.
He went in the room and closed the door.
And about that time there came a knock on the door.
The wife went to the door to answer
and it was the lawyer that the old man had gone to witness to.
He said, ma'am, is your husband home?
She said he's here, but he doesn't want to see anybody.
He said, go tell him that I'm here to see him.
And I'm sure he will come out.
And when the old man came out and met the lawyer,
the lawyer said, thank you for coming
because today because of you,
I'm saved and I know Jesus Christ.
The old man said, what do you mean?
Every argument I raised, you had an answer.
The lawyer said, but you had an answer
for which I didn't have an argument.
Somebody ought to help me shout here.
The old man said, every argument I raised,
you had an answer.
The lawyer said, you had an answer,
but I didn't have an argument
because you told me Jesus loves me.
I had no argument for that.
Jesus loves me.
This I know because the Bible tells me so.
I don't have a whole lot of theology this morning.
I just want you to know that Jesus loves you.
I don't have a whole lot of scriptures to cope this morning.
I just want you to know that Jesus loves you.
I'm not trying to be erudite this morning,
sophisticated in my argument today.
I just want you to know that Jesus loves you.
You want to know how much he loves you?
He came through 42 generations.
Let himself be born in Bethlehem of Judea.
He loves you so much that you went around healing the sick,
giving sight to the blind, making lame men to walk,
turning water in the wine, feeding the multitude
with two fish and five loaves of bread.
That's a good miracle, but that's not how he really loves you.
One Friday, he died on a hill called Calvary,
but that's not how he really loves you.
Sunday morning, he rose from the grave,
but that's not how he really loves you.
One day, he's coming back again in my father's house.
In my father's house,
many mansions, if it were not so,
I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you,
I will come again and receive you under myself
that where I am, there you will be also.
One of his disciples said,
Lord, we don't know where you're going.
How can we know the way?
Jesus said, I am the way.
I am the truth.
I am the life.
Is there anybody here?
No, he's away.
Is there anybody here?
No, he's the truth.
Is there anybody here?
No, he's a life.
Come on, help me talk about it.
He's a rock in a weary land.
He's a shelter in a time of storm.
He's a friend when you're friendless.
Bread when you're hungry.
Y'all know him, don't you?
He's Adam's redeemer.
He's Abel's vindicator.
Y'all know him, don't you?
He died.
Didn't he die?
But early Sunday morning.
Early Sunday morning.
He got up for you and for me.
Early Sunday morning.
He rose from the grave.
He got up with all power.
That's why I sing so much.
That's why I shout so much.
Why should I feel this cup?
Why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart be lonely
and long to heaven and home?
When Jesus, I said when Jesus
is my portion, my constant friend is He.
He's on the spiral.
And I know.
I know.
I know He's our Lord.
He walks with me.
He talks with me.
He tells me.
God is on and the joy.
Do you have joy?
Why don't you grab somebody?
Tell them this joy.
This joy.
Kakushama'u wage nai!
And now, abideth faith, hope, and love.
Here's three. Ah, but the greatest of these is love. And the reason why love is the greatest
is not because love outlasts faith and hope. Love is the greatest because it outranks faith
and hope because faith and hope are built on love. And the building can't stand without
its foundation. The foundation of my Christian faith is Jesus loves me this I know because
the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong.