Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.
Here in the house if you're at East Shore if you're online thank you for coming and
worshiping together.
Lifting up the name of Jesus because that's why we come together.
Amen.
We're here to worship God and I just want to say good morning.
Good morning to each and every one of you and it is a great morning.
How many got out and enjoyed the beautiful weather yesterday?
Amen.
The Lord gave us a reprieve in the middle of winter.
It's coming back.
I know it's coming back this week but it was good to be outside and to be warm and man
we were out in t-shirts yesterday.
Come on in February that's amazing.
But today we want to continue on in God's Word and to see what God's Word has to say
about authentic Christian community.
If you were here last week I spoke along the lines of Christian community about church,
what it is, what it's not, maybe even what it should be.
And last week we found a few non-negotiables I call it in God's Word for authentic Christian
community.
Elements that have to be present for there to be real Christian community actually there.
Another term you can hear maybe you've heard used is irreducible minimums.
In the Jesus community the least number of attributes that have to be present to maintain,
to function, to identify as authentic followers of Jesus Christ and really authentic church,
authentic community, authentic fellowship.
And hopefully you remember just a little bit of that but some of those non-negotiables
I'm going to review if you weren't here last week.
The first one super obvious it's Jesus right.
He's a non-negotiable.
That's why they call us Christian Christ is in the Word and it is all about Jesus.
It is centered on Jesus.
We talk about Jesus.
We brag on Jesus.
He is Lord and Savior of our lives.
He's Lord and Savior of the entire community that we call believers and followers of Christ.
So Jesus is a non-negotiable in this community.
It's first and foremost.
Secondly was the Holy Spirit because Holy Spirit needs to be present.
He sent the Holy Spirit and what we need in this community is the fruit of the Spirit.
Not our fruit because we got our own fruit.
That's all different kind of fruit.
We'll talk about that maybe a little later but we need the Holy Spirit's fruit.
Galatians 5 22 love, joy, peace, long sufferings, patience, goodness, faithfulness, generalness,
self-control.
That needs to be in the community.
So we got to have Jesus.
We got to have the Holy Spirit.
And the third element is as followers in this community that we really talked about and
dug out of scripture last week was that we have to die to ourselves.
We got to crucify our flesh.
These daily desires and passions that will help us.
These are three, just three of the irreducible minimums, the absolutes in our Christian community.
Two of them all God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
And the third one, get me out of the way.
Get my selfish, selfish self out of the way and really just crucify my flesh and follow
what Jesus says.
And we can see when we start to really get a biblical picture of Christian community
and Christian fellowship, we can start to see why it's the greatest community on the
face of the planet.
Why it is, it is amazing.
Why it works.
Why there's nothing more effective when we do this right and nothing will impact our
society more than if we get this straight.
But I want to take you into the book of first Corinthians today to give you another one
of those non-negotiables, another one of those irreducible minimums.
So if you got your Bible, you can head to first Corinthians.
We're going to land in chapter 13 and we're going to learn one more of those non-negotiables
for authentic Christian fellowship.
And the fact is, if this ingredient is not present in our actions, in our attitudes,
if it's not there, everything in our community fails.
Anything we set up to accomplish will actually come to naught.
It'll become worthless without this ingredient.
Short of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Father, this is second.
Second to God himself in his community is this, and it is love.
Say love.
Agape love.
Say agape.
All right, agape.
Agape love, the love of Jesus Christ, the love of God.
Now I know this is kind of somewhat good timing, and be honest with you, I really didn't time
it out this way, but it landed great because it's Valentine's week, right?
Now this was a little warning shot for you guys.
Come on, raise your hands, guys.
All right, listen, this is Valentine's week.
Just in case you didn't know, you got about three shopping days left.
All right, get out there, get the card, get the flowers, get the gift, get whatever.
My wife's not here.
She's up at the East Shore this morning leading worship, but I warned myself this week.
All right, I talked to myself about this already.
So guys, it's a warning shot, and we know it's Valentine's week, right?
And that's a different kind of love.
You can look at the Greek term on that, and it's different, and that's a human to human
love, but I'm talking about agape love this morning.
I'm talking about God to human love.
I'm talking about the love of God working through us to other humans, kind of love.
Completely different.
You got to understand something about this non-negotiable, that anything that happens
in the community of Jesus Christ minus love, minus agape, equals nothing.
Got some more math for you this morning, right?
Anything that happens in Jesus' community minus love equals nothing.
No matter how impressive it looks on the surface, no matter how holy it might appear, no matter
how deeply spiritual it comes off, any action or activity minus the love of Christ in community
equals nothing.
We're going to 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
Let me pray quickly over the Word of God.
Lord, I thank you for this Word.
I thank you, God, what the Word means in our hearts and lives.
It is truth.
Lord, I pray, God, that you show us, Lord, what authentic community is in the body of
Christ, and Lord, that we not only hear it, but God, we live it, and Lord, we become it.
Lord, we just give you praise and glory in Jesus' name.
And everybody said together, amen.
1 Corinthians 13, one says this, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels
but have not love, I have become sounding brass or clanging 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, but I have not love, I am
nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Say nothing.
Come on.
Yeah, a little twang to it today.
A little bit of nothing, right?
Not only does it say that my actions and my attitudes become nothing, but if I'm not freely
giving the love of God in what I'm doing in that said action, I am nothing.
Verse 2 says this, and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and
all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but I have
not love, I am nothing.
That's what it says.
Ouch.
Yikes.
Right?
In the words of Scooby Doo and Shaggy, zoinks.
Okay?
Come on.
It profits me nothing.
Right?
Without love, it's nothing.
Without agape, right?
I have nothing.
Without agape, I am nothing.
And as a matter of fact, I just become sounding brass and clanging cymbals.
If the love of God is not in the middle of all that we do as a community and as an individual
in the community, I'm just making noise, and that's all.
That's all I'm doing.
There's deep gravity and seriousness to what's being said here.
There's a spiritual context if you start looking at this in every single level.
If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, that's a very spiritual reference, by the
way.
If I speak with the tongues of men, that's in my native language.
If I'm an eloquent speaker, if I can maybe pontificate in great ways and I can move people
with my speech and they hear what I'm saying, if I've got all that but I don't have love,
I've got nothing without agape.
That's what it says, right?
If I can speak with the tongues of angels, that is a heavenly language.
That is the prayer language.
That is baptized in the Spirit and speaking in the Spirit kind of language.
You can be that spiritual when you're speaking in tongues and you have all that.
It says, but if you lack agape, you've got nothing.
You've got nothing.
So much so that you're just making noise.
It's just obnoxious.
It's just clanging and banging.
That's all it is, right?
Irritating everyone around me.
We have a Toyota Highlander, it's one of the vehicles that we drive, and that car has the
most obnoxious seatbelt ringer in the entire world.
It's obnoxious.
If you get in, you don't put your seatbelt on.
How many of you, if you just wait it out sometimes, two minutes, it won't beep anymore, right?
Not this one.
It does.
It stays on.
And it's like, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh.
It's yelling at you all the time, put it on, put it on, put it on, put it on, right?
It drives you crazy.
It's just obnoxious.
And you will put your seatbelt on if you ride in my car, okay?
Whether you want to or not, you're going to put it on because you'll go insane if you
don't.
It's true.
It's obnoxious.
But that's what the Word of God's saying.
You can be as spiritual as you want.
It can appear holy.
It can appear right.
You can have all your spiritual ducks in a row, but if you do not have agape, you are
obnoxious.
You are noise.
You are clanging symbols.
You're banging on things.
Have you ever grabbed a pan and just bang on it with a ladle?
I used to wake up my kids like that once in a while just for fun, right?
Come on.
It's just obnoxious, right?
They think it was obnoxious at least, all right?
In this community, whatever we're doing, whatever we're saying, it better have Jesus at the
center.
It better have Holy Spirit fruit all around, right?
It better be me crucifying my flesh, putting down, you know, putting away my desires, my
fleshly desires and passions, right?
And it needs to have authentic, godly love, agape love in the middle of it.
You start to see why it's the greatest community on earth if it's done right, because it's
almost all God, right?
And none of us.
It's almost us putting us aside and it's all God because it's all Him.
It becomes this incredible thing that reaches people.
It becomes this incredible thing that reaches out into our community and people feel the
love of God.
They don't even know why, right?
No authentic Jesus love and not my weak, pathetic definition of love.
His love in action.
That's when this community becomes at its finest.
What it should look like, right?
The hand of God at work.
But man, when we get this wrong, right?
When we leave the Holy Spirit out of it, the fruits of the Spirit out of it, when the agape
isn't there, it's just some other form of love, right?
It becomes something entirely different, right?
It becomes people get disillusioned when it's not what it's supposed to be.
People get disappointed.
They get frustrated.
They start saying things like, if that's a Christian, no, thank you.
Right?
I'm peace out that kind of thing.
Right?
If that's what is, people get bitter.
They get hurt.
Can I tell you, listen, if you've experienced that kind of thing in a Christian fellowship
somewhere, it wasn't Jesus.
It wasn't the Holy Spirit.
It was some, some Christian who didn't really display the agape love of Christ.
They had something else going on, right?
You were hearing something.
They were dropping a whole different kind of fruit around you.
All right?
Not the fruit of the Spirit.
It's some carnal follower of Jesus, right?
Just started putting their fruit all over you.
And it began to mess you up.
How many know it's good to place blame where blame is due, right?
And it's not on Jesus.
It's not on the Holy Spirit.
It's people sometimes, right?
But when we get it right, when this community steps through, now listen, none of us are
perfect.
We all got mess in our lives.
We all get it wrong.
But I'm talking about when we generally walk in God's purpose, in His plan, in His love,
it's an amazing thing.
Right?
It's intensely fruitful in that kind of environment.
There's intense kind of love, so much so that sometimes it's hard for us to get it right.
Right?
Sometimes it is difficult to live this out.
Let me show you what I mean a little bit.
In Luke chapter 6, 27, it says this, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do
good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully
use you to Him who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also.
And from Him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either.
Speak to everyone who asks you, and from Him who takes away from your goods, do not ask
them back.
And just as you want men to do to you, you do likewise to them.
This was Jesus speaking.
And this could very well be my least favorite verses in all the Bible.
Right?
Come on.
Let's be honest.
Right?
Why?
Because our love doesn't always look like God's definition of love.
Right?
I like loving people who love me back.
How many enjoy that?
Right?
Somebody loves you.
Isn't it fun just to love them back a little?
Isn't that a good thing?
Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
I don't really want to love my enemies.
Why?
Because they're my enemy.
Right?
They're against me.
I don't want to really bless people who are cursing me.
I know some of you, when somebody curses you, you think, oh, blessing.
Why are you laughing?
You got some other words in mind, don't you?
Right?
When somebody come up and crack you on one cheek, I kind of like my cheek.
Do you really want to offer them the other one?
Come on, hit me again.
Right?
We got a different definition of love.
Somebody steals my coat.
Oh, here, have the rest of it too.
Right?
You give somebody something, you lend it to them.
And the word of God says, you lend it to them and don't ask for it back.
Right?
You borrow it and you never get back.
That rubs you the wrong way.
You're taught it makes you mad.
Come on, right?
Why is it so hard?
Because many times my definition of love does not align with Jesus' definition of love.
It doesn't line up.
Right?
But in the only scripture we like out of all those scriptures, the last one, it says, and
just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
That seems reasonable.
Right?
That seems like a good thing.
We can live with that one.
Right?
Fair enough.
But Jesus is not looking for my definition of reasonable love in the kingdom.
He really isn't.
He's looking for me to live out his definition of reasonable love in the community.
And that's what it is.
It's dying to me.
Thus, I got to take you back to crucifying the flesh.
Right?
Thus, it's going back to and putting my desires and my passions aside.
Thus, it's going back and saying no to me sometimes and yes to God.
Right?
Turn to someone right now, tell them, stop doing it your own way.
Tell them right now.
Somebody you want to do that all day.
Come on, tell them, stop doing it your own way.
Stop doing it your own way.
I'm telling you anything can happen in the power of God in Jesus community.
As long as we don't leave out agape, as long as we don't leave out what God said to do,
anything is possible.
And let me give you just a little more what Jesus told us in Luke chapter 632.
It says this, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
For even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?
For even sinners do the same.
If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you for
even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back?
Beloved your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return.
And your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high, for he is kind to
the unthankful and evil.
Therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful.
Do you catch the last part of that?
This is how the children of God do community, right?
Because this is how the father, the son and the Holy Spirit do community.
This is how the sons and the daughters of God are supposed to live in community.
This is the behavior that God says he'll reward one day and he'll reward it greatly when we
step into the throne room, when we get, when we leave this life and go to the next, right?
This is what brings great reward.
We love the unlovable, the people that use us, the people that won't send love back,
right?
They won't love us back.
We give them love anyway.
The people that take a swing at us, right?
The people that will take from you and will never give it back to you in any way, shape
or form.
This is God's love.
It's God's love.
It really is.
And last week I put an idea out to LHC community and I, and I've seen a bunch of you came in
with it on, right?
I said, get yourself a cross if you can, get a necklace, get a bracelet, get something
that you can place on and you can put on you every day.
You know why?
Because we need something to remind us what it is to be an authentic Christian community.
We need something to remind us that I got to put this flesh down and I got to care for
somebody like Jesus said to care for him.
You know, find that thing.
If you got, how many of you need a visual reminder sometimes?
You need something that you see every day.
And when you put that thing on and you place it on you, you got, it's a reminder I'm an
ambassador for Jesus Christ.
I am not my own.
That's what the word of God says, right?
I'm here representing him.
I got to go out there and do it different than what I'm even thinking, right?
Well how I'm normally acting, remind yourself why?
Because Jesus did it this way.
Because we can't help people if we're not going to authentically love them and engage
in agape.
We can't help them, right?
And anything less, right, anything minus agape is nothing.
It's nothing.
Anything in Christian community minus agape is nothing.
It's nothing.
I want to drive a final point home to why this is so incredibly important and why authentic
Christian community is, it's a non-negotiable.
And it's this, that this fellowship that we're in, this community that we're in, we have
a common enemy.
Satan takes aim at this fellowship.
I don't know if you realize it or not.
He wants to destroy this community.
We all have a common enemy, personally and as a community of believers.
We have a common nemesis who is out to take us down.
We have someone in the shadows who is lurking who wants to take us out, who wants to take
our children out, who wants to take our family out, right?
Who wants to take the people of God out as a whole?
And Jesus set up this agape community to keep the enemy out, to help keep the enemy at bay.
And lately I found myself in this portion of scripture and I've used it several times
over the last couple of months because I just can't get away from it because it has God's
plan in it.
And it really talks about God's protection in it.
It's in Matthew chapter 16 verse 13 and says this, when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea
Philippi, he asked the disciples, saying, who do men say that I, the son of man, am?
So he said, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets
and he said to them, but who do you say that I am?
Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
He gets it right.
Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you Simon, for flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you.
And my father who is in heaven, and I also say to you, that you are Peter and on this
rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will
be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
And these couple of verses, we see God's plan and protection for the community.
First the fellowship is built and I started with this and I'll say it again, is built
on Jesus Christ.
He is the foundation, he is the rock, he is the center of everything that we do and there's
no hope outside of him and him alone.
That's foundation, it is Christ.
But secondly it says that the gates of hell will not prevail against this community.
That's what it says against the church, against those who are authentic community.
Satan cannot and will not come against the church and prevail.
He can fight, he can bruise, he can try to throw anything he's got at us.
But when this functions as it should, when this society, when this community functions
like it ought to, the enemy cannot come in.
The enemy cannot overcome, he cannot prevail.
Right?
He can't.
That should get you excited.
All the power of hell can come out against the church and if we're living like we should
in an authentic community, it doesn't stand a chance.
It doesn't stand a chance.
You know what that should help us do?
That should help move us from the defense to the offense as Christian.
Right?
As community.
A lot of times we're on the defense.
Right?
Well the enemy's coming, I hope I survive, I hope I make it through, I'm just going to
stand my ground.
Man, if you understand that the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church, you know
what?
It'll all be the other way around.
Satan should say, oh no, here they come.
Right?
Uh oh.
I'm in trouble.
Right?
We should, instead of being on the defense, it should start to begin to put us on the offense.
Instead of just hunkering down and hanging on to what we got, we should be taking new
ground.
We should be taking the next hill.
We should be going over, right?
And say, victors.
Amen?
Anybody with me?
How many know there's victory in Jesus?
We used to sing it.
Right?
There's an old hymn like that.
I'm not going to try.
All right?
But there's an old hymn that you could sing.
Right?
We launch an offensive because we know as a community of believers that there's no way
that hell can prevail.
Hades can't do it.
The word of God says it.
There is power in these numbers in Christian community.
The enemy is toast if the church comes together and comes against.
Evil cannot stand up to it.
Amen?
I don't know if I got you convinced yet.
I might have to preach a little longer.
You're going to be late for lunch.
All right?
Jesus set it up in the fellowship for protection from the enemy.
From Satan and his schemes.
Jesus set it up this way.
He said, I'm going to give you in the same scripture, he said, I'm going to give you
keys to the kingdom of heaven.
In the same scripture, he said, what the church binds on earth will be bound in heaven and
what's bound in heaven will be bound on earth.
He said it, not me.
That's the word of God.
Man, that's powerful.
That's something we can move ahead with.
That's something we can start taking ground with.
Right?
But it takes the community.
There's protection, there's power and there's movement.
God understands something.
The wolf always wants to get the sheep separated from the flock.
Right?
Why?
Because you lose your protection.
Some of your protection goes away.
When the sheep begin to pull away from the flock, from the community, some of the protection
begins to drop.
The enemy wants nothing more than to get somebody aggravated inside of the fellowship and for
them to say, you know what?
I don't need that.
All I need is Jesus.
I'll just go get my, I get my earbuds on.
I'll just sing worship music, forget the church, forget the community believers.
Too much work.
I don't like those people.
Yada, yada, yada.
You can just, whatever you want to put in them, fill in the blank.
Right?
I've heard them all.
You can fill in the blank.
And that's what they, and you just out there.
You just out there in the woods all by yourself praising Jesus.
Right?
You know, nobody's got your six when that's happening.
You're looking this way and the enemy sneaking up behind you.
One of the reasons we're together, cause you can see when the enemy's coming up on someone
else.
You're there to help fight for someone else.
Right?
And I know some of you are thinking, well, I was in a community of believers like that
and I thought somebody had my six and instead they stabbed me in the back.
Yep.
Remember that fruit I talked about?
You just had somebody had rotten fruit.
It wasn't fruit of the spirit.
That's all it was.
You just put blame where blame is due.
But in the body of Christ, when it works right, somebody's got your six, somebody's got your
nine, somebody's got your three.
You got people all around you.
You're praying together.
You're walking through life together.
Right?
And the gates of hell can't prevail.
Cannot do it.
Can't.
You either believe God's word or you don't.
And I believe it.
It's true.
Amen?
Amen.
Let me read just a little more Corinthians and I'm going to close out first Corinthians
three and four.
I'm going to pick up where I started.
Right?
Love suffers long and is kind.
Love does not envy, does not parade itself.
It is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks
no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, belays
all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
And look what that next line says.
Love.
This is a gap.
It never fails.
I'm going to ask you to stand.
Thank you for tuning in to this message from LifeHouse Church.
We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.
If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with
us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.LifeHouseCSU.com.
Thank you for tuning in to this message from LifeHouse Church.