It's my joy to be here. I have
to admit, I was excited when a week or so ago Brother Todd
called and asked me to come, and I'm grateful. I was here
Sunday evening when Brother Henry preached, and at that point I
was still unsure about the message, the portion of Scripture. We
know who we're going to preach, the Lord Jesus Christ. We just
don't know what portion of Scripture we're supposed to preach it from.
And Brother Todd had this article in your bulletin. It says, If
love is absent, so also is grace, no matter how sound in the faith
one appears to be. Now about it, faith, hope and
love. No doubt faith is of critical importance. One who does not
clearly understand who their hope is and why he is their hope
has no hope. But still the greatest of these
is love. Make love your aim. So the title
of my message is Love, is Love. And I want you to turn to Ephesians,
chapter 4, as I give you the introduction to this message. I have had the privilege and
the pleasure of seeing this church grow from infancy to a mature
work of the grace of God. I remember when you met in a
storefront downtown. There were just a handful there.
And now you meet in this fine facility, a vibrant congregation. And our Lord has richly blessed
you and your pastor. As maturity and growth occur
in a body of believers, and I use that term on purpose, body of
believers. I think you know where that came
from. Christ is the church. He's the head and we're the body. One day we'll be one with Him.
We'll be perfect. We'll be mature in Him. But until
that time, the body's being formed. And every congregation of believers
it meets is a body unto itself. And we may not look like much
at times, but He's forming that body and He's doing it over time.
And just like your children, You know, I've seen some babies,
some newborns. I know everybody's polite, but
some of them just aren't very pretty, are they? Honestly? Well, I'm afraid there's times
we're not very pretty either. We don't look much like our Lord,
but the Word says that he's conforming us to the image of Christ. And
I believe that's true. And I've seen the proof of that
through the years here. And these changes are clearly
a sign of the working of the Holy Spirit in a church. And
it should give you assurance if you recognize them in this
body as they occur. And these things are clearly
laid out in God's Word. Let me show you this in Ephesians
chapter 4. Do you see in verse 11? It says, ìAnd he gaveÖî Whoís
he? The Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he
gave something. And Iíll tell you what, if Christ
is given something, I want to be in line, don't you? Whatever
he's given, I want all of you to give. And it says, and he
gave. Now he gave, it doesn't say he
gave everybody this, but he gave some apostles. And those fellows
are all gone now. We don't have any more of those.
But then it says he gave some prophets. That's preachers. And
he gave some evangelists. That's missionaries. Not everybody's
a Walter Gruber, are they? I'm grateful there are Walter
Grubers. And it says, "...and some pastors and teachers." Now,
you may wonder, you know, what do I know about you and your
gifts? Well, I know what the Word says. And what it says here is that
the reason, the purpose he does that, he gives these gifts to
men, is in verse 12, "...for the perfecting of the saints."
And the better word there would be, for the maturity. of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ." There's that term again. And edifying, for you
young people, that means for the teaching. The reason you
children go to school is so that you're not ignorant all your
life. You learn things there. You go to school and you learn
your ABCs so that you can then learn to spell. And then you
can learn to write. God gives things to men for the
purpose of our learning, so that we mature. I wouldn't expect
these little ones over here to spell like you two fellows can,
to write like you can, to speak like you can, because you've
been in school a long time. And I tell you what, when He
gets a body of believers together, as they mature, He gives gifts.
Thank goodness He does. And it says in verse 13, He does
this, till we all come in the unity of faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God unto a perfect or a mature man, unto the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ." There comes a day,
there comes a day when a body of believers becomes mature.
They've been taught, God's given men, God's given you, Brother
Todd, to be your pastor. He's given you, Brother Todd,
to preach to you. He's giving you teachers now.
Boy, the first time y'all met down there, there wasn't a teacher
in the place. But I tell you what, I've heard
Brother Paul teach. Bless my heart on Sunday morning when
Brother Todd was gone, Brother Paul taught. Brother Clare, I
bet y'all are glad that the Lord raised up somebody to teach your
children the gospel. It's vital. But then again, you
say, well, what do you know about you and your gifts? Turn to 1
Corinthians 12. And I say again, I don't know necessarily the
particulars, but I know what the Word says. And in 1 Corinthians
chapter 12, you know, I know some of you really well, and
I know some of you fairly well. And some of you I don't know
very well at all. But I don't have to know you personally,
necessarily, to know something about you. I do know one thing
for sure about you, all of you, and you know the same thing about
me. You know what that is? There was a time, there was a
time when we all thought right much of ourselves. And then as
believers, there was a time when we found out pretty much what
we are. We found out we were sinners.
And I know that about you. And you know that about me, don't
you? And, you know, would it insult you not, you know, you
were talking about yourself in the men's meeting back there,
and you were saying, well, you know, there's not any sin I haven't
either committed or thought about or not capable of. Does that
summarize pretty much what you said? Well, you know what? I
think that makes you pretty vile. Now, I wouldn't advise you to
go out and say that to a man on the street, because he doesn't
know that about himself yet. It's only believers know that.
The truth of the matter is, you might take that as a compliment.
Because vile doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the iceberg,
does it? About what we are. You can call me vile all you
want, because that's not as bad as the whole story ought to be.
I'm worse than vile. When God sent His Spirit after
me, let me tell you, I was in the dunghill. I was in the pit
of sin. You may think you're the chief
of sinners. I know who is. Not like Brother Todd says, though,
but don't you tell me that. God's already told me that. I
believe it. And we don't need to be telling
each other that. But the truth is, we do know, don't we? We're
vile. We are sinners. And we all have
that in common. And when Christ saves us, it's
always the same way. And that's how it starts. We
find out we're sinners, that we're hopeless, helpless, we're
in trouble. And then we're all saved the same way. We find out
it's by the blood of Jesus Christ. Because the only thing that will
cover up all that violence, the only thing that covers the stench
of our sin is if it's covered by the blood of Christ, which
was shed at Calvary. That's what He was doing there,
we know, don't we? The reason His blood was shed
was so that when it flowed, And God looks at us. He doesn't see
us anymore. He sees that blood. There's no smell. There's no
violence anymore in us. Because that's what Christ was
doing for us. And you know what it means that
we're all the same. We're always saved by the same
means. That's by the Word of God. That's
by the righteousness of Christ. Why did He have to come here
and live 33 years? We know He could have just snapped
His fingers and said, You're not violent anymore. You're okay
now. And it would have been, I don't know how, but it would
have been all right that way. But the way he chose to do it
was to send the Lord Jesus Christ to live perfect his whole life. So that when they killed him
at Calvary, what he did with that righteousness, you know,
his blood flowed out and covered our sin. Well, that's a great
thing. But it's not enough for me to
go into the presence of God that way. I've got to have something
to take with me. I've got to be as righteous as
God is when I go there. That's why Christ lived down
here. When He gave us that, we can go before God. God doesn't
see us. He sees Christ. And that's why we're all one
body in Christ. And that's what God's doing here.
He's just conforming all of us into one body that looks just
like Christ. And it's always the same way,
done by the Spirit of God through the priest's Word. That's what
your pastor's doing. He's not doing anything but telling
you that story over and over, finding a different scripture
coming out a different way every time for the edification or the
learning of God's people. And we're all the same in many
ways, in all those ways. But God does make a difference
between believers. Now, I'm not saying that to elevate
anybody at all, because if You know, if I give you $5 and I
give your brother $10, boy, he's a lot better fellow than you,
isn't he? He's really something. I'll tell you, he's a $10 guy
and you're a $5 guy. Is that how it is? You feel like
a $5 guy? I think you feel more like a
$10, maybe a $20 guy. But the truth is, just because
I gave you that, that doesn't make either one of you any better
than the other, does it? Because you didn't do a thing
to earn it, did you? It was a gift. And that's what the gifts of
God are. They're not earned. If they were, they'd be a wage,
wouldn't they? They'd be what you deserve. But
no, they're gifts. That's what it says here. They're
gifts of God. And He gives them to His people,
and that makes them different. Now, in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians,
you see what it says. They're now concerning spiritual
gifts, brethren. I wouldn't have you be ignorant.
And that means I wouldn't have you misinformed. And we need
to understand this. As a body of believers matures
and grows, these things need to be understood. You see, believers are not all
alike in terms of their gifts or abilities. Now, all have gifts. Some have many, and some have
fewer. And the believer understands that no gift is deserved or merited. And therefore, there is no place
for pride in the recipient of the spiritual gifts, whether
there are few or many. You see in verse 11, it says,
God gave these gifts, all these worketh that one and selfsame
Spirit, divided to every man severally, because we want them,
because we deserve them? No. As he wills. I guarantee you that Matt doesn't
think he's the best singer in here. But I tell you what, God's ordained
that he's doing the singing. And it's a gift he gave. And
I tell you what, the minute you get proud about it, Matt, you
may find yourself hoarse. You may find yourself without
those vocal cords. And that goes for any of us.
Whatever gift we have, the minute we take any pride in it, boy,
it can evaporate right now. And for that reason, Brother
Henry says this, he says, let those who have few gifts be grateful
for them, and those who have many gifts be humbled by them. Do you want to hear that again?
Let those who have few gifts be thankful for them, and those
that have many gifts be humbled by them. But I tell you what,
you look at verse 4 here, it says, there are many gifts. It
says there are diversities, there are differences of gifts, but
it's the same spirit. You know, in a minute I'm going
to get to this part where it's only us who makes any difference
in these gifts. It's only us who thinks that
the fellow that gets up and preaches is more important than the one
who sits and hears. They're all, you know, God's
angels understand this. It doesn't matter whether God
told him to go and hurl thunderbolts at the Assyrian army, and he
told the other one to go sweep the streets of Jerusalem. They don't care, because they
know it's all for the glory of God, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And one day
we'll understand that, too. But right now, we've got this
little problem. You know what it is? It's that old man I'm
toting around in here. Boy, he can get puffed up, can't
he? Wow, he can get out of sorts
in a hurry. But look here, there's a reason, by the way, this portion
of Scripture in chapter 12 is where it is. Because what comes
in chapter 13 is all dependent on what it says here. God didn't
put this word down just elter-skelter. He put it in sequence as He intends
for us to learn from it. Alright. These differences in
the body of Christ are likened to a human body, as an example.
A foot and a hand, I mean, you kids know the difference between
your foot and your hand over there, don't you? You do. You
know that's not your foot, don't you? You know there's a difference
between your foot and your hand. Well, they aren't alike. Yet
in the same body, it is your hand and your foot, isn't it?
Your sister's hand is not your hand, is it? Or your foot? That's
right. And that's how the body of Christ
is. Look at verse 15 here. It says, If the foot shall say,
because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore
not of the body? It's ridiculous. And look at
verse 16. And if the ear shall say, because
I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not
of the body? No. Who makes the difference between
the gift of the preacher, the teacher, and the hearer? Why
does one have the gift of giving and another the gift of hospitality?
Why does one have only maybe one gift? And another has several. Well, the answer to that is,
God makes a difference. Look at verse 18. But now hath
God set to members every one of them in the body, as it has
pleased Him. Any gift we have, God gave it,
and He's pleased with it. And I tell you what, we should
be too. We should be too. And listen
to this. If everybody was a preacher,
oh my, you know what we'd be? Can you imagine if I had six
mouths instead of one? Buddy, we'd have some confusion
here tonight, wouldn't we? Or if everybody in here, we all
had three mouths. What a mess we'd have. And the
body of Christ has got one mouth at a time. And it's the mouth
He designates to be the mouth. Look at verse 17. It says, If
the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? And if
the whole body were hearing, where would the smelling be?
Verse 19. And if they were all one member,
where would the body be? But now are they many members,
but yet one body. And now look at verse 21. And
the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again
the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nope, no, nay,
much more, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble
are necessary. You know the biggest word in
that whole verse 22 there? S-E-E-M. The members of the body which
seem. You know why that's in there?
God doesn't think there's any unnecessary parts in the body. But I tell you what, that old
man, you and I, we go, well, I seem a little more important
than that one, don't we? It's just like we think that
my ear seems to be more important maybe than my toe. But the truth
of the matter is you take your big toe off and find out how
important it was, how much you miss it, how much you wish you
had it back. Here's an illustration of that.
Let's say that you went somewhere, maybe a tour of a factory or
something, and you're curious and you go in this freezer compartment
there and, you know, the door swings shut and it locks behind
you. And right, you know, the week before somebody came to
you and said, you know, you've got five, ten fingers there. I'm going to take two of them.
Let's just take two of them away. You don't seem to value them
very much. Well, which ones are you going to give up? Okay, take
my thumbs. Take my index finger. I suspect
most of us say, well, if you've got to take them, let's take
those two little ones. They don't seem to be very important to
me. It seems like I could get along without them. Well, you
know, you get into that freezer compartment there and you're
locked in. You're going to freeze to death. And you know what?
There's a way out. You know what it is? All you've
got to do is stick your finger through that little hole there
and the door pops open. Well, you know what you are?
You've got no little fingers. Now what seems to be the important
fingers? The thumbs won't go in it. I'll
tell you what, you see, there are no seeming necessary parts
to the body of Christ. Everyone's right where it's supposed
to be, and all the gifts are given severally as He will. Now look at verse 23 here. And
those members of the body which we think to be less honorable,
upon these we bestow the more abundant honor, and our uncomely
parts have more abundant comeliness." Here again, there are some important
words here. It says, those members of the
body which we think to be less honorable. Does it say God thinks
they are? No. There's no less honorable.
I tell you what, you folks in the back rows there, you know,
y'all aren't quite so honorable as he's sitting up front here,
you know. That's not how he thinks. That's
how we think, isn't it? We think there's... You know,
the one who never says a word, just comes faithfully and listens
to the gospel and speaks to the pastor going out and tells him
that's a good man. We may think that's less honorable than the
one who gets up here and leads the singing or does this or that
or whatever. That's not what God's saying
here. He's saying all the parts of the body, they're vital. He puts them where they're supposed
to be. Alright, now look at verse 24
here. And our comely parts have no need, but God hath tempered
the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part
which lacked." What it's saying there is the very fact that we
think some things are less honorable. In fact, God honors them more
than all the rest. In verse 25, here's what it's
coming down to now. Why is it this way? That there
should be no schism, and that word is division. That there
should be no division in the body, but that the members should
have the same care one for another. Oh, if the eye just knew, and
someday will, what a load the sole of the foot took in the
body of Christ. And oh, if the foot just knew
what the eye saw day after day after day. Boy, the foot would
value the eye a great deal more and vice versa. In verse 25 we
read, ìAnd whether one member suffer, all the members suffer
with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with
it.î I tell you, we weep with those who weep and we rejoice
with those that rejoice. But when it is all said and done,
verse 25 is the key, we are to care one for another. We need, and what that means
is that we ought to love one another. I tell you, when it's
all set aside, that's what the body, that's, love is the issue. If I could just care about you
as much as I cared about me, my, my, if I could just think
as much of you as I thought about myself, if I thought as well
of you, if I thought you were as important as I think I am,
Gee whiz. Boy, that's caring for one another. That's what this love is about.
You know, we just think that the foot's not important. Our problem is it's like the
ear. Where would the foot be if the ear didn't hear the rattle
of the snake? And where would the ear be if
the foot didn't jump out of the way of the snake? I tell you,
we need each other, folks. We need each other. God's put
us together. He's brought us together into
one body. And I tell you what, if I could
just get the right attitude about you, Steve, is I've got about
my left ear. I don't want anything bad to
happen to my ear. Somebody's smacking up a side of it, and
it's a problem. Gee, if I could just, when you
get smacked, if I could just care about you the way I do about
me. But I'll tell you what, that's
exactly what Christ does for his people when he conforms them
to the image of himself. You see, in verse 31 it says,
Covet, covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto you
a more excellent way. See, verse 27 says, Now you are
the body of Christ and members in particular. And if we're members
of the body of Christ, there's going to be gifts and they're
going to be different. I tell you, Rich, when you do
this, it astounds me. I couldn't do that. Should I
covet you for that? No, I should be grateful for
you in that. And the truth is that while there's all these
different gifts, listen to this now. Every believer in Christ
gets one gift that is the same. There's one gift I know you got.
I know you got it. Every believer in here, you got
this one gift, and it's all the same. And you know what it is? It's the love of God in Christ.
Love is the one consistent gift. You see here in chapter 13, what
it starts saying is that though I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels and I don't have love, I'm a sounding brass or
a tingling cymbal. And what that means is that I
could be so eloquent and I could speak with flowering words and
make you think I was educated eloquent and all this. But I
tell you what, if there's no love in it, I'm just an irritation. I'm nothing but a troublemaker.
And in time, that will show. Verse 2 says, And though I have
the gift of preaching, and understand a lot of things, and get a lot
of knowledge, and I have a lot of faith, and I can remove fountains,
if I don't have love, it says I'm nothing. Nothing. Even if
I appear to have all kinds of gifts, if there's no love, I'm
nothing. Christ is all. And all believers love God, love
Christ, and love one another. Let me tell you, everything else
is nothing. It's nothing. And verse 3 says, And though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my
body to be burned, and have not love, it's not going to profit
me anything. Do you remember the fellows who
came before our Lord in the judgment? And what is it they said? They
said, Lord, we preached in Your name. Lord, we did many wonderful
works in your name. We cast out devils in your name.
Isn't that what they said? Boy, they must have had some
gifts, didn't they, to do that? And you know what he said to
them? He said, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. He cast
them into outer darkness. You know what's the one thing
they couldn't say that they didn't say? All they had to say was,
poor old Peter. Poor old Peter. He denied the
Lord, didn't he? Boy, that's a gift I don't want.
Isn't it you? Boy, that's terrible to behave
like that, isn't it? Sounds like me. But boy, when
Peter met up with the Lord Jesus Christ, what's the one thing
he said to him? He wept and said, Lord, you know I love you. And listen, I don't love you.
I don't care about you like I ought to. I don't love you like I ought
to. But by God's grace, we do love one another, don't we? Huh? We do love one another. And you
know what that is? That's the gift. The gift. But those fellows couldn't say
that because they didn't love Him. They didn't have that gift. And if we're wondering, do I
love the Brethren? Well, He gave us a measuring
rod. You want to know if you love
one another? You know, turn Turn with me to John. Well, let's
do this first, and then we'll turn here. First, do this. Start
with verse 4 here. And we go through. God gives
some specific things, how we can say, well, do I love the
brethren? And look at verse 4. It says, Love suffers long. Love
is kind. Love envious not. Love vaunteth
not itself. Love is not puffed up. What that
means, condensed down, is that love is patient with the faults
of others. Love is not jealous or envious of the prosperity
of others. Love's not proud of ourselves
or puffed up with pride. Verse 5 says, Love doesn't behave
itself unseemly. Love seeks not a wrong. Love's
not easily provoked. Love thinks no evil. And that
means love's not rude, but rather humble and courteous. Love will
yield our way to your way, my way to your way. Love looks not
for the faults in you, but the best in others. Verse 6 says,
Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love
is not glad when things go wrong for others. Verse 7, Love bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things. I tell you, love is going to cover unfortunate news with
silence. Love believes and looks for the
best in our brethren. What love cannot see, it hopes
for in the brethren. Love will endure trials and sorrow
and sickness, disappointment, hurt feelings, and even great
offenses. Love will do that. Verse 8, love
never fails. Period. Love never fails. And it endures to the end. And Christ, you see, does not
exemplify these things that I just gave you there. Christ doesn't
exemplify those things. Christ is those things. You know, Christ is not loving. Christ is love. Whatever love
is, it's Christ. That's what it is. And listen, Christ didn't fail. He endured
the cross. Listen, we talk about us being
vile. Do we understand what the punishment
for being vile is? For being a sinner? Well, all
you have to do is go to Calvary and look. Everything they did
to the Lord Jesus Christ is what we deserve. And I tell you, why
did He endure that? Why would He go through that?
I looked up, there's 137 men on death row. I mean, Clarence, you want to
send one of your boys over with Saul 137 free? Just put one of
your boys on death row for him. You want to make that substitution?
Well, why did God send His Son to be the substitute for us?
Huh? What possible reason could there
be? You know the only one? He loved us. He loved us to the
end. And love never fails, just like
Christ didn't fail. He didn't fail to save us. It's
done, folks. He saved us. Salvation is complete. Now turn over to John 13 with
me real quick. John chapter 13. We cannot be in Christ, a part
of Christ, or a new person in Christ without love. The new person in us is like
Christ, is love. You see, in John 13, verse 34,
we read, A new commandment I give unto you, and this is our Lord
to his disciples, that you love one another. How? As I have loved
you. Oh, if we could do that. And
that you also love one another. Now listen to this. He says,
By this, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples,
if you have love one for another. I'll tell you, you can give any
way, you can give any criteria you want for, am I a believer? Am I in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Right there it is. That's the only place I can find
where it says, if you, then this. And I'll tell you what, that's
the reason this is a gift of God. If we love one another,
then I tell you, all men are going to know we're His disciples,
much less us. We're going to know that way.
That's how it is. And we're a new person in Christ.
You see here in... I mean, look around. Look around tonight. Do we see
anybody here that we love? I mean, let's exempt our spouses
and our children and our parents. Let's get them out of the way
and look around for a stranger or somebody who used to be a
stranger. And now is a brother or sister
in Christ. I tell you what, do we love anybody? Do we love everybody, no matter
what gifts they have? It's kind of, Tom's kind of easy
to love, isn't he? Huh? Yeah, Lynn's easy to love. She's the most easygoing, just
the sweetest, I don't mean to embarrass you, but it's just
the truth. She's easy to love, isn't she? Huh? Yeah, Todd's
easy to love. When there's a lot of grace,
it's easy to love. And, you know, I know some of
us are easy to love, and some of us are just flat out hard
to love. And I think of me most about that. It amazes me that
people are kind to me, and it really does. Because, you see,
I know me. I know me. I think I'm hard to love. Impossible.
If the Word didn't say it, I wouldn't believe it was even so. But Christ
loved us when we were nothing. I tell you what, surely we can
love one another despite our sin and our bad attitude and
our oneriness and whatever else there is. And you see, in Ephesians
4, look at verse 11 again. Turn back to Ephesians 4, and let me show you this. I should have had you hold that. You see, verse 11 says in Ephesians
4, ìAnd he gave some apostles,î this is where we started, you
remember, ìand some prophets, and some evangelists, and some
pastors, and some teachers,î why? ìfor the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God unto a mature man, unto the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ, that we henceforth
no more are children, tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men, and a cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking
the truth in love may grow up unto him in all things, which
is the head, even Christ. There is not going to be any
maturity without love. And then verse 16, From whom
the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every
joint supply, according to the effectual working and the measure
of every part, make an increase of the body unto the edifying
of itself," what? In love. You know what the glue
is that holds this whole thing together? It's love. It's not
doctrine, although we love doctrine, don't we? We love the truth.
I tell you what, it's not emotionalism. It's not singing happy songs. It's not getting all pumped up
and feeling good. It's not those kind of things.
It's love, folks. And I tell you what, love is
happy. Love is happy. But I tell you
what, love is, love's there when it's not so happy, too. Love's
there when it's sad, when it's tough, when it's hard. It's still
there. You know, salvation, here's,
listen to me about two more minutes and I'll be done. Salvation does
not require us to love one another. Do you know that? I don't have
to love you. You don't have to love me. You
don't. No. Because salvation is complete
in Christ. The work's done. Our salvation
is complete. But I'll tell you what, without
love, there is no salvation. Love is an evidence of salvation. If a person wants to know if
they're a believer, it's a real simple, real simple, real simple. And I read it a minute ago. By
this shall all men know you're my disciples. If you love one
another. If there's no love, there's no
salvation. But now listen to me. We don't love one another
so that we will be saved. No, we love one another because
we have been saved. That's the difference. I tell
you what, I can't act good enough to make you love me. I can't
do it. I can't sustain it. I might be
nice for a little while. I might fool you for a while.
But am I telling you the truth? I'm just not that nice, John.
I'm not. Luke can tell you I'm not. He
can tell you I'm just not. And I wish I were. I want to
be. But I'm not. And thank God my salvation is
not dependent on that. And I tell you what, if I ever
am nice, if I ever do make any expression of love, it's not
me, it's Christ in me. It's that glue pulling me in.
I get stuck on it and can't get away from it. Let me try to illustrate it this
way. Let's say I wanted to prove, Clare, that Eric is your son.
And someone would say, well, he looks like me. Thank you, my boy. How can we
prove it? Eric knows the answer to this.
We'd take a DNA test, wouldn't we? Wouldn't matter whether I
got you to give me a little piece of skin or pluck out one of your
hairs or poke you in the finger and let you bleed a little bit.
It wouldn't matter. DNA is the same. There's the same DNA in every
cell of your body. Everyone's the same. Sound familiar
to you? Everyone's the same. Every cell's
got that basic unit of those two double helix of genes wrapped
around it, and that's your DNA. And you can't change it. When
you die, it won't change. They can dig your bones up a
thousand years, and now the DNA's going to be the same. And I tell
you what, if we take the test, we're going to find out something.
You're his boy. You're his dad. You say, what are you talking
about here? Well, what unequivocally proves you're a child of God? You know what God's DNA is? It's love. It's in every cell
and every part of the body of Christ. It's going to be there.
It's going to be there. If you take the love test, you
find out if you want to hear it. Because He gives that gift
to every one of us. It's replicated generation through
generation down through time. And I don't always act like I
should, but you take the DNA, I pray it's got the love of Christ
in it. By this shall all men know you're my disciples, if
you love one another. And our Lord keeps pouring out
His gifts to His people. He keeps doing it. I tell you
what, if you all keep growing, keep growing, This body, you
know, one day there'll be a new gift. It's got to be given. You'll
need a new teacher. You'll need this or that or whatever.
God will provide. He'll give men the gifts. And
He'll raise up this one for that and another for whatever's needed,
that the body may grow. But the greatest thing here is
love. Every one of His people get that
gift. It's the greatest of all gifts. That's why Todd said,
Make love your aim. Well, I pray this will bless
you tonight.