Mike, you come preach. I have a habit of doing this
at home. I want you to see something. The first song we sang was the
last that did my Savior bleed. And the last verse says, but
drops of grief can ne'er repay the debt of love I owe. Here, Lord, I give myself away,
tis all that I can do." And then in majestic sweetness, I don't
think I'd ever saw this, to him I owe my life and breath and
all the joys I have. He makes me triumph over death
and saves me from the grave. What a Savior, what a Savior. We have so looked forward to
being with you this evening and these next few days. My prayer
is that the Lord would be pleased to meet with us and that we could
see Him in His glory. I thank the world of your pastor.
He's been a blessing to me for many years. I met him several
years ago at Danville, Kentucky. That's when me and him both were
working. It wasn't that we just looked
to the same Lord, but we had to work to take care of a family,
and I've enjoyed it ever since that we met. Because sometimes,
I'll share this with you as a pastor or as a preacher, Sometimes it's
like if a man has to work, he's a second-rate preacher. That's
the way I felt. They might not have meant it
that way, but you know, the Lord never calls and sends any second-rate
preacher. If a man preaches the gospels
because God sent him, because God saved him, and God called
him, and he sent him to a people so that we would look to Christ,
And along those lines, I want to begin this evening, I want
to wind up in 1 Corinthians 13, but I thought I was sitting there
thinking in Ephesians chapter 5. We'll begin reading in verse
22. Wives, submit yourselves unto
your own husband, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the
head of the wife. Even as Christ is the head of
the church, of his body, and he is the savior of the body,
his church, his redeemed, his body, it's his body. Therefore,
verse 24, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives
be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives. And that's a command to husbands.
I know this picture is Christ. I understand that. But he's speaking
to believers. He's speaking to men that claim
to look to Christ, love your wives, even as Christ also loved
the church. And he gave himself for it. His bride. Why? That he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of the water by the word, that he may, when
everything is all wrapped up, I know that he's given us his
perfect righteousness, but in and of ourself, we're a long
ways from being perfect. But one day, you think about
this, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of the water by the word, that he may present it the church
to himself, a glorious church. And when he is done, she will
not have any spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she should
be holy and without blemish. And she's going to be. I know
she's in his sight. She's perfect now. I understand
that. But you don't have to look far to see sin in any of us.
Even tonight as we come together and as I try to stand before
you to try to preach, we're just sitting. Our minds are running
off somewhere, our motives are wrong, or whatever it is. But
if you would turn to 1 Corinthians, I want to get down to chapter
13, but I want to go back and begin reading in verse 12 of
chapter 12. The body of Christ like our body,
has many, many members. Just like in the family, he has
the husband, the head of the wife, that head of authority,
then you have the children, and the same way in a body of Christ,
the same way in a church, God designates and sends a preacher.
Someone told me one time, I remember the first church I tried to pastor
this, they had a church council. You know, everything had to go
through the church council. And the church council basically
told the preacher what to do. And I told the guy one day before
I left, I said, anything with two heads is a monster. It has
one head, and that's Christ. As the body hath many members,
and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body,
so also is Christ. For by the Spirit are all baptized
into one body, whether we be Jew or Gentile, whether we be
bond or free, and may have been made all to drink unto one Spirit. For the body is not one member,
but many. If the foot shall say, if your
foot could talk, because I'm not of the hand, I'm not of the
body. Is it therefore not of the body?
Now you can see my hand, my foot is hidden in my shoe, but I need
my foot. My foot needs my hand and vice
versa. If the whole body, let me find
where I was at. Verse 16, and if the ears shall
say, Because I am not of the eye, I'm not of the body, is
it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye,
where were the hearing? If the whole were a hearing,
where were the smelling? But now hath God set to members
every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him. He says that he saves everybody
on purpose and he saves them for a purpose. He didn't just
save them and just put them over here by themselves, no. In His
marvelous grace, He unites them as a body. And they need each other. And
that's the way He's made it. You know, I've just been so encouraged
just what little time we've had today to sit and talk to your
pastor. He's part of the body. And He identifies this part of
the body. Now He sent every member as it
pleased him. Let me give you an example. Drew
was telling me how your bank out here looks great, but you
used to have a hard time mowing it. Where we used to meet, it
was a small building in town, and we didn't have a lot of grass
to mow. And there was an older gentleman in our church. had
some physical issues, but he was always faithful, always faithful. And he's about in his 70s, and
how knew he was not physically able to mow that grass, but he
wanted to mow it. One day, I thought I'd outsmart
him. I got up earlier than he did, and I got down to the church,
and I got it mowed, and I thought, he wanted to mow it. You know,
that's, we didn't have cell phones, so I didn't even have a phone
to call him and tell him that I'd mowed it. And he showed up
the next day, and his heart was just broke. He was just crying. He said, he said, Preacher, I
can't do much. He said, don't take that moment.
Don't take the moment away from me. You said, well, that ain't
that ain't that important. Somebody's got to mow the grass.
You know, and that blessed my heart. And God, I think, taught
me a lesson through that. Here was this man. He wanted
to do it. And I said, Jay, you mow it as long as you want to
and as long as you're able. God puts the members in His body
as He sees fit, as it pleased Him. Andrew told me he'd been here
30 some years. It pleased the Lord to put him here. You think about that. It pleased
Him. He said, I'm going to raise that
boy up, I'm going to save him, I'm going to call him, and I'm
going to put him right here in Jackson, Missouri. Because it
pleased him to do so. If they were all one member,
where were the body? But now are there many members,
but yet one body. And the eye cannot say unto the
hand, I have no need of thee. Nor again, the head, the feet,
I have no need of thee. Nay, much more those members
of the body which seem to be more feeble are what? Necessary. Even feeble? Yeah. Let me give
you an example. See that arm right there? As
far as I can straighten it. That's as far as I can twist
my hand. It's feeble. But it's needful. I still use
it. That happened when I was 13 years
old. They were going to take my arm off. But I have it. It's feeble. But it sure serves
a purpose. At least I have something to
go through with it. Sure sleeve. But you see what I'm saying?
It's needful. It's feeble. It may be weak, and the Bible
talks about our feeble knees cast down, but all those things are needful or necessary. Something comes to my mind. When David, you remember, comes
to the Ziklag, and it was in ashes, he knew it was his fault. Everybody else knew it was his
fault. They were going to kill David. They was going to stone
him. And it says, David encouraged
himself in the Lord, and he told those men, we're going to go
get our family. It was a miracle that all the family were not
laying there dead. The Malachites didn't show mercy. And there
were 600 men. And they come to the edge of
the creek, and they're wore out. And 200 men say, David, we're
just too tired to go on. And you know what David said? You should stay here about this
stuff. Whose stuff is that? That's the
Lord's stuff. That's David's stuff. And he
said, me and the other 400, we're gonna go. And you know the story,
David went and recovered all. What a picture of our God in
his grace when he redeemed this church. Now they've got all this
spoil. They've got the families and
children and maybe some of the wives of these men that stayed
by the creek. And you know what, some of those
400 men said, well, we're not sharing anything with them, because
they just stayed right here by the creek. They didn't do anything.
They said, hold on now. We're going to divide a lot. I've been one of the 200 before,
laying there so feeble, yet pursuing, I just wore out. I said, it's
OK. It's okay. Verse 23 and those members of
the body, which we think to be less honorable upon these, we
bestow more abundant honor and our uncomely parts have more
abundant cumbliness for our comely parts have no need, but God has
tempered the body together. Having given more abundant honor
to that part. which lacketh." I think I didn't
have an opportunity to look up that word, tempereth together. I know I've seen, something comes
to my mind is a picture if you used to watch Forged in Fire. They would take three or four,
maybe several pieces of steel, Individual pieces of steel. And they're going to do what?
They're going to temper it. They're going to put it in the
fire and get it so hot that when it's done, it looks like one
piece. But it's made up of individual
pieces. They may use a chain. They may
use a lot of different things of steel. But when it got done,
you know what they did? Then they would put it in water
and they would temper it. God has tempered his body together. having giving more abundant honor
to the part, that part, which lacketh. Verse 25, that there should be
no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same
care, one for another. Whether it's this body of local
believers, whether it's the body that I pastor in Cottageville,
West Virginia, or wherever that body is, we're all one body. If we're believers, we're one
body. You know what the enemy wants to do? He wants to drive
schisms, divisions between believers. We're all believers. We're all
sinners. But that's his objective. His
objective. I'll give you a reading assignment.
Go and read about the first three or four chapters of the book
of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a man raised up. He goes down. The walls are laying in a mess.
There's rubbish everywhere. And he encourages those people.
He can't do it alone. And he gathers his people together.
And it said they had a mine to work. And in 52 days, they built
those walls. But even Judah, you know what
Judah said? There's too much rubbish. It's too hard. We can't do it. What do you think
it did to the rest of the party? Well, I guess if Judah said it,
he's right. But they all, he said, you fight
for your family. In one hand, they had a sword.
In the other hand, they had a trowel. And that's how our life is. Everything
was fine, except when Nehemiah shows up, when Christ showed
up, oh, it made the enemy mad. So what does he do? He said,
I'll just drive a wedge between them. Between them. Verse 26, and where the one members
suffer, all the members suffer with it. If one suffers, all the members suffer. It's just like Moose Parks, his
son, with cancer. One member suffers, all the rest
suffer with him. See that little place on my nail?
Man, I knocked a fart out of that the other day. It is so
hard, it was like a nail, it stuck and it just shot the blood
out. I mean, I guess that's probably
why it's not hurting me so bad right now. But that's just a
little thumbnail. But my whole body was affected
by it. You know why? Because we're one body. And when one member is honored,
All the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ
and members in particular. And God has set some in the church.
He sets them as he sees fit. Some were apostles and they were
only 12. Some were apostles. There's no more apostles. Some were prophets. I know that
now we have preachers, but we're not prophets the way they were.
We don't prophesy the future. Those were gifts. God gave it
to Samuel and other prophets. They were prophets that God raised
up. Isaiah, Ezekiel, they were prophets. God raised them up
and gave them to the church. He prophesied, a virgin shall
be born. I mean, a child shall be born
of a virgin, prophesied, and it came to pass. Just that chapter
you read, Isaiah 53, what a prophecy. God hath laid upon him the iniquity
of us all. God raised up prophets. Secondary
prophets, thirdly, teachers. After that, miracles. They did
miracles. They literally did miracles.
Peter said, walking into the temple, the man said, He asked,
begging for alms, he said, silver and gold have I none, but such
as I have, give I thee in the name of Christ, rise up and walk.
And I tell you, now he still does miracles. Anybody that believes
is a miracle. Miracle. Then gifts of healing. They had the gift of healing.
Helps. You ever think about it? Helps
being a gift. Some people have the gift to
help. Everybody wants to be the one to lead. What about the helping? helping. What about those on
that wall near my, you know, if you had, if you, if you had,
if they had, if they used the mortar, you wouldn't want to
be the one to mix the mortar and carry the mortar or to clean
up the stones. You'd want to do something else. God has sent some in the church
from apostles, second and early prophets, 30 teachers after that,
miracles and gifts of healing, helps governments, diversities
of tongues. They had the gift. to speak other
languages. That was not some unknown gibberish
that they preached on the day of Pentecost. How am I going
to witness to a man if he speaks in German and I don't speak German?
God give those men the ability. What a gift. It says everybody
heard them speak in their own language. What a gift. Why did he do that? For the edifying
of the body. He saved 3,000 members of the
body at one time. God gave these gifts. Now, these
gifts were, most of those gifts were temporary. Most of, you
know, we don't have apostles anymore. We're not going out
healing people and people want to say, well, if they're to have
the ability to heal them, well, I'd love to take them to any
hospital. And I'd say, okay. Proved to me. Okay, they could
raise the dead. Paul raised that boy. Remember,
he went to sleep when Paul was long preaching. Raised him from
the dead. I want to see them raise somebody
from the dead. They can't. Only God can. But he gave those
men the ability. Why? That proved their office.
That was their credentials. And see, what was happening,
you read the book of 1 Corinthians, you've read it, and you've read
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. You know what? It's not just
that Corinthians had problems. We all have problems. They were
even liking preachers. I like this preacher better than
that preacher. Really, you'd say, now come, they wasn't that
way. And then this one man had his father's wife. I mean, really? And they were glorying in their
gifts. They were even turning the Lord's table into some feast. And the people that were poor
were just pushed off to the side. Is that believers? Now it sure
doesn't act like it, no does it? I'll say this, we are saved
by the free sovereign grace of God. But we have a responsibility
to each other. to each other, and mainly to
our Lord to honor him, honor him. That's why you give these
gifts, have all the gifts of healing. Do all speak with tongues,
do all interpret. Some people had the ability to
interpret what the man was saying. I remember when we went to Mexico
years ago, I can't speak any Spanish, but Cody Groover was
excellent at it. He knew their language. And I'm
preaching to people, and you can imagine when they hear me
speak, they're going, what in the world is he saying? So I
needed an interpreter. And that interpreter interpreted
or told them what I said, and you know what it did? It edified
that body of believers. But covet earnestly the best
gifts. and yet I show unto you a more
excellent way. And the reason I did it, a lot
of times, you know, we've read and we've probably memorized
1 Corinthians 13. But when you see it in that light,
in the light of a body, now I want you to just go through 1 Corinthians
13. Though I speak with the tongues
of men and of angels, and have not charity, and you could take
the word charity and you could put love, or primarily you could
put Christ. Without Christ, I am become,
I am become as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. It is
nothing more than a noise. Be able to teach with such eloquence,
be able to speak and to explain things and have no love, have
not Christ, it's nothing. It's nothing. It's just dead. And though I have the gift of
prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though
I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and I have
not charity, I'm nothing. Our Lord said, if you have faith
of the grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,
be thou removed, and it be cast into the sea. He said, you can
have that much faith and have no love, and it's useless. And then he said, though I bestow
all my goods to feed the poor. Now that's what we think when
we hear the word charity. He's giving to charities. He's
giving to the poor. You know what this makes me think
of? When the woman with the alabaster
box brought that very precious ointment and poured it on the
head of our Lord, You know who it was among the 12 that knew
exactly how much that ointment was worth? Judas. Here's what he said. He said,
what she did was a waste. He said, she's come to anoint
my body for the burial. And Judas said, We could have
taken that and sold it for 300 pence. A pence was like a day's
wage. So it would have been whatever
your average of making for a whole year is what that was worth.
And he said, we could have took it and sold it and given it to
the poor. Doesn't that sound so good? He
had no love for the poor because the Bible says he loved what
was in the bag. And nobody ever suspected Judas. Give you goods to feed the poor?
And though I give my body to be burned as a martyr, and have
not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffers long,
now he describes it, and is kind. You don't see much kindness anymore. Charity vaunteth not itself.
I mean, charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself.
It's not puffed up. Knowledge, most of the time,
puffs up. Charity edifieth. Love builds. It suffers long. How long does
God suffer with you? Long time. A long time. The carrier of charity suffers
long and is kind. You can never, now listen to
me, you can never justify being unkind to anyone. Just being
rude and unkind. Let me give you an example. We want sinners to come hear
the gospel, don't we? We do. Which kind of sinners? Mediocre sinners or real, what
we would think, real bad sinners? I know a gentleman right now
who was in prison for 25 years, never had an opportunity for
parole. Would you want him to come to
your church? That's a question I've asked. See, now then when it gets to,
well, what did he do? He suffered for 25 years and
he's still suffering. He told me the day, he said,
I think I'm still in prison. He said, I was used to walking
down the hallway, taking a right and taking a left, being in my
cell. He said, you could not lay down on your bed during the
day. You had to sit on the edge of
the bed for eight hours. He said, it's hard for me to
walk across the grass because I'm so used to walking on concrete. You know what would do for that
man? A little kindness. Like you said in the book of
James, we've seen somebody come in and this is just how we are.
I'm just being honest with all of us. You see a man come in,
oh, he's dressed fine. He looks like he must have a
good job. We want you to come up here and sit on the front
row. Another man walks in, he's got a bag with him, look like
he may have been out on the street. You know what we'd say? Why don't
you stand up back on the back? Everything else is full. You
can stand up on the back. What we all do is tell the man
that we put on the front pew to get on the back and tell that
poor old man to sit on the front. And he's talking to a believer
who's earned the Book of James. He suffers long and he's kind.
He's not puffed up. Who makes us to differ? What
do you have that you didn't receive? Everything, the earth is the
Lord's and the fullness thereof. A man in our church read that
text the other day, and he read a thing from Brother Henry. And
he said, you know what? You're just a tenant of the Lord's. And he can evict you anytime
he wants to. And that's really it. The earth
is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. And whatever we have,
He's given it to us for His glory and for the good of His people. Doth not behave itself, verse
5, unseemingly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked. We can be provoked. I think about
provoking, I think about somebody backing you into the wall and
just lying and maybe even spitting in your face. Just daring you
to do so. I just dare, I double dog dare
you. It's not easily provoked. Not easily provoked. Let me find
where I was at. Thinketh no evil. You know, why
is it that, we'll get to the grace in just a minute, but why
is it we always think the worst? Like I said, the man we mentioned,
I mentioned that was in prison. You know, why do we always go
to the worst? Why don't we always think the worst? Evil surmising. Well, what did they mean by that? Thinketh no evil. You know, this book says the
thought of foolishness is sin. Thinketh no evil. Rejoices not in iniquity, but
rejoices in the truth. Beareth all things. We're to bear one another's burdens.
Sometimes they get real, real heavy. Paul said, pray for us. I want to challenge you, and
you do, and I think you do. You keep praying for your pastor.
You pray for him. He has burdens, and you have
burdens, and he prays for you. Because your burdens are his
burdens, and his burdens are yours. beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. He that endures to the end shall
be saved. Charity never faileth. Never faileth. Love shall cover
a multitude of sin. Whether they be prophecies, they
shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether
there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part
and we prophesy in part. And I want you to see there in
verse 10. He's talking about seeing things
in part. And that's all, that's how we see things. We just see
them in parts. We see just very little. There's
a lot of times I read this book and I have no clue what it's
saying. Really. Really. I'm just being honest.
We see in part. But Oh, thank goodness for that
little word, but. We were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others, but God who is rich in mercy. But
when that which is perfect is come, then that's it. That's
talking about one. There's only one that's perfect.
When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part
shall be done away with. When I was a child, I spake as
a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when
I become a man, I put away childish things. You know how we act?
Childish. We don't get our way, we pout.
We hold grudges. Children, children. I have four
granddaughters, and Lord willing, by February I'll have another
granddaughter, five. And I love it, you know, because they live
in North Carolina when they send pictures. I got some pictures
the other day. My youngest one, she's just over
a year old, and she's up there dancing. She's a child. She can't say much. She's a child. She don't understand much. She's
a child. She stumbles and falls. She's
just learning to walk. She's a child. I think sometimes
God gives grace to a sinner and opens their eyes and say, did
you hear what they said? Sure, they're a child. They act
like a child. We do too. God helped me to grow
up. God gave me grace to grow up.
When I was a child, I thought as a child, I speak as a child,
I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when
I become a man, I put away childish things. And we all could quote
this verse for now, now, but for now. we see through a glass darkly. Having not seen, you love, none
of us have ever seen Christ with physical eyes, but we see through
a glass, it's darkly. I like to deer hunt some. It
can be a ways off, and it's hard for me to picture out how many
horns there's on its head, or if it's a different thing, and
I take a telescope. or a scope on a gun, and it draws
it in. You know what some people do? They turn the scope around.
It makes everything look far off. But we see through a glass
darkly, but not one day. One day, we're gonna see face
to face. You know what we're gonna see?
We're gonna see perfection. We're gonna see him as he is,
and we're gonna be like him, because we're gonna see him as
he is. When He that is perfect is come.
Perfect. For now we see through the glass
darkly, but then face to face. No one has seen God's face in
live. And we see the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. Now I know in part But then shall
I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope,
and charity, these three. But the greatest of these is
charity. Our faith is not perfect. We believe God, and it's accounted
unto us for righteousness. But one day we won't need faith.
Our faith will give way to sight. Hope that is seen is not hope.
Because when it's seen, it's not hope anymore. He is our blessed
hope. And we hope, we hope, this is
a hope. It's bad to be without a hope.
That one day, we're gonna see Him. That's a hope. And when
we see Him, we won't need hope anymore. Because there is our
hope. But something that will last
forever is love. We will love Him with an unsinning
heart. The love of God constrains us
now. That's what motivates us. It's His love for us. You ever notice there in John
chapter 11 when Lazarus was sick and they were sending to get
our Lord to come because Lazarus was sick. They didn't say, now
Lord, the one that loves you want you to come and help him."
No, they knew better than that. They said, the one you love, that's part of his body. You
that you love is sick." And he waited four days. Why did he
wait four days? He said, because the sickness
is not unto death, but it's for the glory of God. And you can
imagine those that were his body, Mary and Martha and some of the
others, they believed because he raised Lazarus from the dead
and he's standing there. And he wept. That's part of his
body. And he said, you roll away the
stone. Well, you said, why did he do that? He could have rolled
it away. He could have just stalled it. No, he told you to move it.
And they rolled the stone under the mortar and said, Lord, by
this time he stinks. There's no hope. And he said,
Lazarus, come forth. I'm thankful our God still speaks
in love, and he speaks to dead sinners, and he says, live. And he come out, and everybody
kept, well, I thought he was dead. Yeah, that's what you thought. And you know, it said that even
the Pharisees and scribes, they even wanted to kill Lazarus.
Why? It's an evidence of our Lord's
work. That's what makes men mad. Why did he raise that man from
the dead? I'll tell you exactly why. He
loved him. If God ever saves you, it's because
He loves you. If He ever keeps working on you,
it's because He loves you. Those that He loves, He rebukes
and chastens. And those that He don't, He just
leaves them alone. And He works on them. And they
fit together. perfectly. When God put the pastor in a
church, he fits perfectly. I never thought I was in North
Carolina for 50 years. I would have never imagined being
in West Virginia. And I love it. We're going by
North Carolina. We're going home to West Virginia.
Because I love those people. And that's the way it's supposed
to be. We bear one another's burdens. We share our struggles
with each other. We need each other. All of us, we need each other
as believers. I think it was Gabe Stoniker
said, and it really made an impression on me, the closest thing we have
to Christ up on this earth is another believer. We embrace each other. It's just
so good to see you. And you know, nothing else doesn't
matter. That's my brother. That's my
sister. They're struggling. May God give
us grace to trust him. Amen.