“What Should We Do? – Part 2 – Acts 12:1-17

Have you ever heard a little child pray?  Is there anything so precious…or sometimes funny as hearing a child talk to God?  I found these real examples of children praying and thought I would share.

Dear God: Please send a new baby for Mommy. The baby you sent last week cries too much. Debbie, 7

Dear God: Who did you make smarter? Boys or girls? My sister and I want to know. Jimmy, 6

Dear God: How many angels are there in heaven? I would like to be the first kid in my class to know the answer. Norma, 8

Dear God: This is my prayer. Could you please give my brother some brains? So far he doesn't have any. Angela, 8

Dear Lord: Thank you for the nice day today. You even fooled the TV weather man. Hank, 7

Dear God: Please bring me a new brother. The one I got socks me all the time. Agnes, 6

Dear God: Please help me is school. I need help in spelling, adding, history, geography and writing. I don't need help in anything else. Lois, 9

Dear God: Do you have any helpers in Heaven? I would like to be one of Your helpers in Heaven when I have summer vacation. Natalie, 7

Dear Lord; Tomorrow is my birthday. Could you please put a rainbow in the sky? Susan, 9

Dear God: I need a raise in my allowance. Could you have one of your angels tell my father. Thank you. David, 7

Who do these kids think they are?  Who do they think they are to be able to ask such things of God?  Who do they think they are to have the right to come before holy God and ask for rainbows and babies and for help?  I’ll tell you who they are or I will tell you what the Bible says.  It says that children are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139)

They are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb - a reward. (Psalm 127) In Matthew 19:14, “Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."  They are precious to God and we should be more like them sometimes especially when we pray.  Does God hear and answer the prayers of little children?  Absolutely.  Does God hear and answer our prayers today?  Absolutely.

We have talked a lot about the difficult time that our church is going through lately.  We have all been attacked by Satan and we have all had some real issues happening with us and it sometimes makes trying to minister around here a little discouraging and difficult.  It just seems harder to do than it was for our parents and grandparents.  Does anybody else feel that way?

For some reason it seems that when we speak of power in the church it is always in the past tense. If that is the case (and it is) then the natural question would be: “what happened”?
i. Is it that the Lord has changed? Absolutely not! - Malachi 3:6 for I am the LORD, I change not…
ii. Is it the wicked society that we live in? - Elijah experienced God’s power during the reign of Ahab. So what is stopping us?

iii. Is it government oppression? - Peter, James & John had to deal with persecution from the Religious & Governmental leaders of their day and we read that “The Lord added unto the church daily”
iv. Is it the songs we sing? - No! Whether you like the beat or the melody the songs that we sing are biblical based songs that glorify Jesus.
v. Is it the sermons we preach? - If the sermons are biblical (and they are) then that is not the answer as to the lack of power in the church.  (Kevin L. Jones)

So, what is different?  I was reading a book a while back entitled Revival Fire that traced the great revivals of the early 19^th and 20^th centuries that spread from England to the United States to Australia and all over the world.  Chapter after chapter told about how revival broke out in So and So England when two people started praying. 

It spread to Such and Such Germany when this little church over there started praying.  On and on it went until it wasn’t all that interesting, to tell you the truth.  The story was the same everywhere.  People started praying and God started moving.  It was never the president or somebody famous who started the praying.  It was always one or two lay people would start and then the local church and then the community and it would just spread like fire.

Why don’t we see revival like that anymore?  Why don’t we see communities and countries changed like that?  Why don’t we see God move like that anymore?  It’s because the people don’t pray like that anymore.  It’s not “rocket surgery” but it’s not exactly easy either.  Let’s look at a good example of what James 5:16 says about how the fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 

Last week we looked at the prayer of the first church when Peter and John got in trouble by the religious leaders for preaching about Jesus.  Acts 4:31 sums it up by saying that when they were through praying, the place where they were meeting was shaken and they spoke the Word boldly.

This week we are in Acts 12 to see another instance of the first church praying and this time Peter is in trouble again but it’s even more serious.  King Herod was trying to make nice with the Jewish people, especially the Jewish religious leaders – the same people who had killed Jesus and had been persecuting the first church – and so Herod had James murdered.  Now he has Peter in jail and he is about to kill him but for now he has him chained up pretty tight so he doesn’t get away again.

Turn to Acts 12 and let’s read verses 1-17.

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. ² He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. ³ When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. ⁴ After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.  ⁵ So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.  ⁶ The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. ⁷ Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.  ⁸ Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. ⁹ Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. ¹⁰ They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.  ¹¹ Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”  ¹² When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. ¹³ Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. ¹⁴ When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”  ¹⁵ “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”  ¹⁶ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. ¹⁷ Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.

When I watch a movie on TV, I like to watch a show that is at least somewhat believable.  I’m not into sci-fi or cartoons or stuff like that so if they made this story into a regular movie, I would probably turn it off.  It’s just too much with angels and chains falling off and doors opening by themselves.  Nobody would believe that, right?  The first church evidently had a hard time believing it too.  It says they were astonished.  Peter himself thought it was a dream for the longest time.

When we read a passage like James 5:16 that says the fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective, I think most of us believe that but we don’t really think about just how powerful and how effective it really is and I think it is in part because we have never personally seen such a miracle happen as a result of prayer.  Have you?  Have you ever known someone who was in prison and just walked out with the help of an angel like Peter did?  Probably not.

So, since we have never seen a big, flashy miracle come through prayer, we relegate our prayers, or at least our faith in our prayers, to little requests of God.  “God, please give me a good day.”  Maybe the really faithful will ask God for wisdom or for patience but since we have read this passage or others like it and we have tried to get God to give us a big, flashy miracle and He hasn’t then it must mean that He doesn’t do that kind of thing anymore.

I’m gonna start preaching here in a minute but before I do I want you to realize that even in Bible days that big, flashy miracles like this were fairly rare.  We can point to dozens of them all through the Bible but, think about it.  From the miracle of creation to the parting of the Red Sea to Elisha making an axe head float to Peter getting his “get out of jail free” card was thousands of years.  Also, God performed those miracles before we had the whole canon of scripture and most were before the Holy Spirit came to live in all believers like He does now.  That doesn’t mean He is out of the miracle business.

That’s not a cop-out for God nor is it me saying that I don’t believe God still does miracles.  He absolutely does.  But do you know what God wants more than people believing in Him because they saw a miracle?  John 20:29 says, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  Like I said last week, I don’t need the building to shake.  I just want to see God at work in the life of this church and into this community.  If you also want to see that then I want you to see 3 quick things from this passage in Acts 12 today.

When you look at this passage you see the reason why the first church prayed.  The reason was they were being persecuted.  Herod was about to start picking them off like Troy does dove on September 1^st.  They were in fear for their lives and especially for the life of Peter who was in prison and we have every reason to believe he would have been killed the next morning.  It’s time to start praying.  They were helpless.  There was nothing they could do to help Peter.

To those who mistakenly say that God will never give you more than you can handle, how do you explain this?  This was way more than any of them could handle.  It’s time to start praying.  He was guarded by 16 men in rotating shifts, constantly shackled to two of them and behind at least 3 different walls and gates.  He is in a cell inside a cell inside a cell with 4 armed guards always with him.  Jesus Himself had told Peter that upon Peter’s faith Jesus would build His church.  The reason they prayed was not just for the life of Peter but what could very well have been the life of the first church.

Why should we pray?  What reasons do we have to pray?  First off, we are commanded to.  1 Thessalonians 5:17 says to pray without ceasing and that is just what the first church was doing.  So, that should be enough but if you want other reasons, how about the fact that without prayer the life our church may be in jeopardy as well?  Without prayer, the reputation of this church is in jeopardy.  Without prayer, this community could be completely without any corporate representative of Jesus.  Who is going to minister to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated around here if not us?  That’s just some of the reasons to pray for our church as a whole, not to mention the need to pray for us as individuals.

So, you see the reason why the first church prayed.  You see the reasons why we should pray.  Now see the responsibility they had to pray.  Look at verse 5.   ^“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”  The King James says they were praying without ceasing.  It is basically the same word as James used in James 5:16 about the fervent prayer of a righteous man. Fervently, earnestly, without ceasing.  It literally means to be hot or worked up, putting out effort and literally to be stretched out like a horse jumping over a fence or a ballplayer leaping horizontally for a ball.

While we are looking at the responsibility they had to pray we need to keep in mind the command to pray without ceasing but we also need to remember that prayer is conversation with God.  It’s not a monologue and do you know what keeps it from being a conversation?  Do you know what keeps God from hearing and your prayer and speaking back to you?  Too often it is sin in our lives that does it.  In John 9, Jesus healed a blind man and that man spoke truth when he told the Pharisees “We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.”

Now, we are all sinners but he is talking about someone with unconfessed sin in his life; someone who continued to live in that sin, maybe even justifying it to himself that it’s not all the bad.  Isa 59:1-2 says, “Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. “(KJV)

Are you praying and praying and still not hearing from God?  It could very well be that there is sin in your life that is putting up a wall between you and God.  You can’t expect God to hear and answer your prayers like you want or to bless you at all if you are being disobedient to Him.  It doesn’t work that way.  Driving down the road 100 mph and praying that God will protect you is not a good prayer.

I’ve quoted James 5:16 a couple of times and I love to because it is so powerful.  I love to say that the fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective but sometimes I forget how that verse starts.  It starts out by saying that we should confess our sins and then pray.  Without a confession of sins, we aren’t righteous at all therefore we shouldn’t expect to have powerful and effective prayers no matter how fervent we pray.

In his book Why Prayers Are Unanswered, John Lavender retells a story about Norman Vincent Peale.

When Peale was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped into an alley, and lit up. It didn't taste good, but it made him feel very grown up. . . until he saw his father coming. Quickly he put the cigar behind his back and tried to be casual. Desperate to divert his father's attention, Norman pointed to a billboard advertising the circus.  "Can I go, Dad? Please, let's go when it comes to town."  His father's reply taught Norman a lesson he never forgot. "Son”, he answered quietly but firmly, "never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience." 

This church, like the first church has reasons to pray.  We have a responsibility to pray and to pray without ceasing and to pray without a wall of sin blocking our petitions to God.  Now, let’s see the results of that church’s prayers.  Did God answer their prayers?  How do you know?  What do you think they were praying for?  I think they were praying specifically for Pete’s release. 

In Mark 10, Jesus meets another blind man.  The man is crying out louder and louder for Jesus to help him and Jesus walks over and says, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Then the man said, “Oh, Almighty Deity of Omnipotence.  Hallowed be thy name!”  NO, he didn’t say that.  He said, “I want to see!”  He was specific and he was passionate and he saw results.  He saw God’s power when Jesus healed him right then and there.

We are never guaranteed healing.  We are never guaranteed that God will answer any of our prayers like we want Him to but you will see God at work and you will see His power and His glory when you pray fervently and without ceasing, specifically asking Him your request.  We may not understand His answer since His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than ours but that’s okay.

This church will be a house of prayer and we will do what we are called to do and we will minister without losing heart and we will let Jesus be the builder of this church and if this place blows up or collapses in on itself tomorrow we will know that it was not because we didn’t pray.  We will do what we are supposed to do and trust Him to answer according to His good and perfect will and when we do that, we too, will see results.

Let’s do that right now.  If you would like to come forward to the altar, feel free.  Or if you want to pray right where you are, that’s fine too.  But pray!  Pray for forgiveness.  Pray fervently.  Pray specifically and pray expecting results.

“What Should We Do?” - Acts 4:23-31

Amazing Grace!  Somebody tell me what God’s grace means to you? One of the things I think of when I think of God’s grace is 2 Corinthians 4:1 that says, “¹Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.”  It is God’s grace that allows us to meet as a church.  It is God’s grace that we have this beautiful building.  It is God’s grace that has allowed us to minister to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated so we don’t lose hope.  Why should we lose hope?

You have been my models for what a church should be lately. Almost every day I see somebody do something that models the first church. I see compassion and giving, stepping up to do something that needs to be done instead of just expecting somebody else to do it. I see people teaching and cleaning and singing and leading and ministering, giving of themselves, their finances, time and resources and I’m just so proud to be a part of this church.

I’m so proud to be a part of a church that just wants to be obedient to what God would have us do; a church that’s not as concerned about their own comfort as they are going, doing and being what the Lord wants. I want to be a part of a church whose highest priority is not being entertained but instead leading people to have a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ-no matter what it takes.

As I have said lots of times, this church is very much like the first church in the New Testament. That church started out small with just a handful of people and prospered in a time when following Jesus was extremely unpopular. It was a time when the national leaders were corrupt and full of pride and it seemed like if they would just open their eyes and truly see what was going on they would understand but their pride and love of power blinded them to the truth. Maybe things haven’t changed much in 2000+ years.

We all knew that when we started this church that it was going to be difficult. We didn’t go into this with our eyes closed. We all knew the difficulties of starting a church like this and what I love is that nobody was interested in just “playing church”.  Nobody wanted a cookie-cutter, plain Jane, run of the mill church like is on every corner in most towns. We don’t have a lot of rules around here. The criteria for starting this church have always been that we wanted a place where we can worship in Spirit and truth and a place where we can minister to the community. There is really no other reason for us to be here and it is biblical and Godly and since we have been obedient in this we have seen God bless us, haven’t we?

The problem is we all know what comes next. When we are obedient then God blesses, right? And what always happens next? Satan attacks. Satan can’t stand it when a group of people get together and put themselves last and other people first. He is highly offended when people give of themselves to help people who will probably never be able to repay them. It ticks him off when people get together and truly worship when everyone else said, “You can’t do that. You don’t have enough people. You don’t have any talent or experience and you have too much debt and too much baggage.”

And all this church said was, “You’re right. We can’t do it but God can and it was His idea and His will for us to be here and so we will do it as long as He wants us to!” And when Satan hears talk like that he gets scared. He is scared of us here at Christ Fellowship. All 6 (or 10 or 12) of us! And when Satan gets scared he attacks. You see it all through the Old Testament to the New Testament and right on into our lives and in the life of this church. When the people are obedient God blesses and then Satan attacks.

It happened to the first church and it is happening to us. God has allowed us to get here and get started and get our legs under us and He continues to bless us as we worship and minister in the community. But now we are under attack and the way Satan likes to attack is to do so in ways that you don’t realize it’s him. He wants us to think that it is just sickness that’s going around, a bad economy and a spiritually apathetic world. He wants us to think that somebody is not doing us right and that we are being taken advantage of and we need to stand up for our individual rights instead of just talking about Jesus.

But, make no mistake, we are under attack. Our battle is not against flesh and blood and it never has been. Our battle is against the prince of the air, the father of lies and the roaring lion who wants to kill us dead. The question is, “What should we do?” Well, if you don’t know the answer to something you can always Google it or ask Siri. But I would like to see what the Bible has to say about this. In fact, there is a wonderful passage in the book of Acts that tells us what the first church did in a very similar situation.

In the first part of Acts we see that Jesus has left the disciples and ascended back to Heaven leaving them with the monumental task of spreading the Good News to the entire earth. The church officially starts up with just a few folks but grows quickly in spite of the difficulties and the disciples and all the church are obedient to what Jesus told them to do and so God blesses them with a time of peace and refreshment; a time that they can get their breath and prepare to do battle. And that is what we see happen here for the first time. The church is attacked.

When Jesus left He promised to send the Holy Spirit Who would give them power and in Acts chapter 3 we see that Peter and John are arrested for healing a crippled beggar. They are sent to the Sanhedrin who were some of the same people that tried Jesus just a few months before and sentenced Him to death. The Sanhedrin threatened Peter and John and warned them not to speak about Jesus ever again and then sent them on their way.  Let’s pick up the story in Acts chapter 4, verses 23-31 and we will see what the first church did in the face of Satan’s attack.

²³ On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them.²⁴ When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. ²⁵You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? ²⁶ The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.²⁷ Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. ²⁸They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.²⁹ Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. ³⁰Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”³¹ After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

A little boy was saying his bedtime prayers with his mother. “Lord bless mama and daddy, and God, GIVE ME A NEW BICYCLE!” Mom said, “Son, God’s not deaf.”  The little boy answered, “No but grandma is and she’s in the next room.”

So many of us know that we are to pray but we pray in a way that is not the best. We think if we say just the right words in just the right way that maybe, hopefully, possibly God will hear a little bit of it. But in this prayer of the disciples we see one of the most powerfully effective prayers in the entire Bible and there are really only 2 aspects of it. I want us to see the 2 aspects and they are:

1) Acknowledge God for Who He is

2) Ask God for what He wants

It says that the very first thing that Peter and John did was go back to their friends at their church and they prayed. That is the answer to the title of the message. What should we do when Satan attacks? We should pray. But there is more to it than just telling God what we want to happen. There is more to it than just naming off some names on the prayer list and some wishes off the wish list. Prayers like that show a misunderstanding of Who God is and how He works. The first church knew God to be sovereign and they said so in the first word of the prayer.

In verse 24 they pray, “Sovereign Lord…” That word, “sovereign”, is the same word from which we get our word “despot”. A despot is a ruler that exercises absolute authority and power. Simeon used the same word when he held baby Jesus in the temple in Luke 2. When we use the word today it is almost always used negatively but when used in reference to God, what a comfort it is, as Simeon felt, to know that God is in complete control of our circumstances.

It was knowing that God is sovereign that allowed Peter to later go to sleep in chains between 2 guards the night before his trial. It was the knowledge of God’s sovereignty that allowed Stephen’s last words to be, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them” as they stoned him for preaching the Gospel. It was because God is sovereign that Paul and Silas had the peace to be singing Amazing Grace at midnight in their jail cell. And it is because God is sovereign that we can get through whatever Satan throws at us. Maybe God will perform a miracle and our chains will drop off like they did for Paul and Silas and maybe we don’t make it out alive like Stephen. But whatever happens we know that God is in control and since we believe John 3:16 and know that God loves us it will not affect our peace or our obedience.

And it not only helps to know that God is sovereign but we also see here that the first church knew that God was the Creator. In verse 24 they tell God they know that He made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. In Nehemiah 9:6, Nehemiah prayed the same way. I bet Job wished he would have prayed that way because since he didn’t, God reminded him. When Job was whining for 37 chapters about why God had done this to him, finally God answers him with, “Where were you when I told the oceans where to stop? Where were you when I told the eagle where to fly? Where is the place where the lightning and the winds are kept?”

It’s not that we need to tell these things to God to flatter Him and hope that He shows us mercy based on that. We aren’t reminding God of Who He is and what He has done. We are acknowledging God for Who He is and reminding ourselves of our place in this world compared to Him. When we see Who God is and who we really are, our prayer life will change dramatically. The first church acknowledged God for Who He is and we should too when we pray.

The next thing we see the first church do is to ask God for what He wants. They got their minds right about their relationship with the Sovereign Creator and then asked for God to do a few things. Let’s look at it again in verses 29-30.

“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. ³⁰ Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

It’s very interesting to me what they did not pray for. They didn’t pray for the building to collapse on the Sanhedrin. They didn’t pray that they would not be persecuted or for God to even change the minds of the Sanhedrin. They simply asked for God to be mindful of their situation but they were asking so that they would be more effective witnesses for God. Do you think God will answer a prayer like that? Absolutely!

Oh, but I hear what you’re saying. “Yea, but they also prayed for healing.” Yes, they did but do you know why? They asked for miraculous signs and wonders. Do you know what signs are for? They point you in the right direction. A sign does not point to itself. It points to something else. These miracles that the apostles and others were able to do pointed to Jesus. They didn’t have the canon of scripture like we do to share with others so they used miracles to validate their testimony. They weren’t just praying for Aunt Bessie to feel better. They were praying for more opportunities to point others to Jesus. That’s a prayer God can’t wait to answer.

I want to close by looking again at that last verse.  Read verse 31.  “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”  I want that.  Oh, I don’t care about the building physically being shaken.  I want the power of God to be obvious in this church.  I want it to be obvious to people even as they drive past much less when they walk in that those people in that church could not have done that without supernatural help because that is absolutely the truth.

There was a little church in a community like this one time that caught fire.  Everybody in town went running toward the church to help put out the fire, even the town atheist.  As they got to the fire one guy turned to the atheist and laughingly said, “Well that’s the first time I ever saw you run toward the church.”  The atheist said, “Well, that’s the first time I ever saw the church on fire.”

I want a church so on fire for the Lord that even the atheists will come running and when they do, I know this church will welcome them just like the first church did.  And we will because we know that they need that same amazing grace that we found when we first met Jesus.  It is grace that says that we are all sinners (Romans 3:23) and what we deserve for that sin is eternal death (Romans 6:23) but that what we will get is eternal life in Heaven because of our belief in the risen Jesus.

In Acts 2, Peter preached his first sermon and it says that ^37” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" ³⁸Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Repent – turn away – from your sins and ask for and receive God’s forgiveness.  That’s grace and that’s amazing!

“A Changed Church” – 1 Cor. 15:50-58

So, the last couple of weeks I have started jogging again.  I know, it’s so obvious, right?  Now, when I say jogging, you might get the impression that I get up at 5 and get all stretched out, put on my high-dollar running shoes and my spandex pants and run for several miles.  That would be a mistake.  The picture you should get is more along the lines of what a baseball manager does when he leaves the dugout and jogs to the pitcher’s mound.

Have you seen this?  The guy is old and fat and so he jogs maybe 10 feet and then walks the rest of the way.  That’s the picture of me jogging.  But I’m trying and I have improved a little.  It just gets more and more difficult the older I get.  Most of you know what I’m talking about.  I remember when I was about 20, I looked down and noticed that I was a little too heavy.  I needed to lose about 10 pounds to get back down to high school graduation weight so I started jogging and practically the next day I had lost 10-15 pounds.

Those days are long gone.  My metabolism has gone way down and my cheeseburger count has gone way up and I just can’t do things like I used to.  I’m trying to make some healthier choices but I know I will never have my 20-year-old body back.  It is a fact of life that our bodies are going to get weaker and more decrepit the older we get and while we can make good choices and live healthier and longer if we do, we all know that at some point our bodies will finally just wear out.

Everything wears out, doesn’t it?  Your car wears out.  Your shoes wear out.  Your hair, well, my hair is completely worn out.  It’s just the way things are designed and while our bodies are incredibly designed and able to heal themselves and last an incredibly long time for what they have to endure, the honest truth is that someday, maybe someday soon, our bodies are going to die.

How’s that for an encouraging word from the pulpit today? James 4:14 says, “For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”  1 Peter 1:24 says, “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls.”  Job said, “Man, born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.” (14:1)

Now, you’re not going to believe this but this message is actually meant to give you great encouragement.  I know.  It’s not working too well so far, is it?  But it will.  It will if you are a believer in Jesus because, while all of this is true and maybe some bad news, I have some really good news for you from the book of 1 Corinthians.  This is the last message in our sermon series entitled, “Our Church” and I had planned on preaching from chapter 14 on orderly worship.  The title of that message was going to be, “Our Church Is An Orderly Church.”

How boring does that sound?  In chapter 15, though, we see Paul starting to close out his letter to that church in Corinth and one of the last things he tells them is about something really exciting.  I had a hard time trying to decide what the title should be because there is so much good stuff in here.  I finally decided on, “Our Church Is A Changed Church” because I couldn’t fit, “Our Church Is An Excited, Awake, Mysterious, Eye-Twinkling, Trumpet- Listening, Imperishable, Immortal, Unmoving and Victorious Church” on the heading of my paper.

So, if you want to leave here a changed church, please turn to 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 and let’s see what Paul has to say about our physical bodies. If you love your physical body, this may be some bad news for you.  If you love this old world, this may be some bad news for you.  But if you are looking forward to something better in the way of a body and a world, then you might accidently say “Amen!”

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” ⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  ⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

When I read that, especially verse 55, I think about my favorite boxer, Muhammed Ali.  If you were around back in the 70’s to see Ali fight then you know how he loved to taunt his opponent.  That’s what Paul is doing here.  “Hey, death!  That all you got?  Where’s your victory?  Where’s your sting.”  But we will get to that in a minute.

This is an exciting passage or it should be to us but Paul starts out with what sounds like bad news.  He says this flesh and blood body will never see the Kingdom of God.  It will never make it to Heaven.  This body won’t make it in Heaven for a similar reason as we can’t live under water.  This body is not designed for it.  This body is designed for this mortal world and it is designed to do well most of the time for an average of about, what, 70-something years?

We are all perishable.  We are perishable like a ripe banana.  One day we look good and feel good and are used for great things and then we start to get those age spots on us and before you know it, we are unrecognizable.  These bodies are perishing.  They are physical and mortal.  How could they possibly be able to work in imperishable, immortal Heaven?

But, look at what Paul says.  He says, “Lean in a little closer.  I want to tell you a mystery.”  When Paul says he wants to tell us a mystery he means to tell us something that had once been hidden, but now is revealed.  Don’t you love it when a great mystery is revealed? 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior, was a doctor. As such he was very interested in the use of ether. In order to know how his patients felt under its influence, he once had a dose administered to himself.

As he was going under, in a dreamy state, a profound thought came to him. He believed that he had suddenly grasped the key to all the mysteries of the universe. When he regained consciousness, however, he was unable to remember what the insight was.

Because of the great importance this thought would be to mankind, Holmes arranged to have himself given ether again. This time he had a stenographer present to take down the great thought. The ether was administered, and sure enough, just before passing out the insight reappeared. He mumbled the words, the stenographer took them down, and he went to sleep confident in the knowledge that he had succeeded.

Upon awakening, he turned eagerly to the stenographer and asked her to read what he had uttered. This is what she read: "The entire universe is permeated with a strong odor of turpentine."  (Bits & Pieces, November 12, 1992)

Aren’t you glad Paul has a real mystery to reveal?  He says that we are not all going to die but we will all be changed.  Now, if you have never heard this taught, this may sound strange to you and if you have heard it before I hope it gives you great encouragement.  Basically, what he is saying is that there are two ways to get to Heaven.  I will add that there are also two ways to get to Hell.

I know when I say there are two ways to get to Heaven that most of you cringe and you should.  Technically, there is only one way for our souls to get there and that is by grace and through faith in Jesus Christ.  But that being understood and assumed, you then have two ways to go from there.  Most of us are probably going to die.  Pretty much everybody up to this point has died.  Okay, Elijah and Enoch are exceptions but everybody else has.  But not everybody will.

Paul is referring to the rapture.  Verse 52 -in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye we will all be changed.  One of these days; maybe today; maybe before I finish this message or even this sentence, God the Father is going to say, “That’s enough!  Bring my children home” and we who are believers will be raptured.  That word “rapture” is not in the Bible.  It is what we call it when Jesus meets us in the air. 

1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 talks about this as well.  Listen to what it says.  “According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

One of these days, you will be talking to an unbelieving friend and in the middle of your sentence…you’re gone.  You will be driving your car, you will disappear and the car will crash.  You will be on an airplane and I hope you’re not the pilot because everybody is going to wonder what happened to you.  I hope it happens while I’m trying to jog so I don’t have to do that anymore but it may happen at any time. 

Are you ready?  Are you doing what you want to be doing when that happens because it says it will happen in the twinkling of an eye.  I heard a preacher not too long ago spend about 20 minutes explaining how fast that really is.  He got into so much detail about how fast a twinkle is and how fast light goes from the front of your eye to the back and blah, blah, blah…it’s gonna be fast.  That’s all we need to know and I hope it is today.

There is an old hymn from the early 1900’s that says, “Jesus is coming to earth again; what if it were today?
Coming in power and love to reign; what if it were today?
Coming to claim His chosen Bride, all the redeemed and purified,
Over this whole earth scattered wide; what if it were today?”  (Leila N. Morris)

Isaiah 62:5 says, “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”  What if it were today, my dear family?  Are you ready?

The rapture is one way to get to Heaven.  Death is another.  Now, there is no reason why the rapture couldn’t happen today.  It might happen at any second.  There are no prophecies that need to be fulfilled.  There is nothing else that has to happen.  We are just waiting on the Father’s good and perfect timing.  But in the meantime, we could also die at any time.  We are not guaranteed another breath.  I know it may sound morbid to some but it is just the truth.  Much crazier things have happened than for someone to be sitting peacefully in church and their heart just stop.  

For some people that would just ruin their day.  Don’t you just hate it when that happens?  I mean, you had plans.  You were going to go to Dos Chiles for lunch.  Then have a nice nap.  But, no, you had to go and die.  For some people, the thought of death…scares them to death.  But look at what Paul has to say in verse 54.  “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

In Revelation chapter one, Jesus says, “I was dead but now I’m alive and I hold the keys to death and hell.”  He says, “I am in control of death now, not the other way around.”  We no longer have to fear death.  Woody Allen once said, "I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens."  We don’t have to live like that anymore if we are believers in Jesus.

Now, look at how Paul taunts death as he quotes Hosea 13:14. “Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?”  What does he mean by that?  What is the sting of death?  He tells us in the next verse.  The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law.

Have you ever been to the funeral of a person who never claimed to be a believer of Jesus?  Somebody whom we have to assume was not a Christian?  Those funerals are the worst.  There is so much crying and so much grief.  Somebody is usually drunk.  I have seen family members fighting in the parking lot.  The songs are sad.  The eulogy is sad.  Everything is sad. 

Now, think about the funeral of somebody who was proud to call Jesus their Lord and Savior.  Those people put the fun back in funeral, right?  Sometimes it’s hard not to call it a party and it should be.  I want my funeral to be that way.  I’m not going to be there so y’all get together and have a good time.  I’m not kidding.  I will be mad at you when I see you in Heaven if you don’t have karaoke at my funeral.  I want you to play “Glorious Day” at the funeral and afterwards, please stick around for the karaoke party.  Maybe play some spoons, that way Jeff can finally win a game.

Paul says the sting of death is sin.  Those who don’t have God’s forgiveness of their sins have everything in the world to dread.  In fact, they have everything out of this world to dread too.  Even people who claim there is no God or who say that there is no afterlife all have this thought in the back of their minds that says, “But what if I’m wrong?”  That’s the sting.  That’s the dread.  That has to hurt.  That’s why they don’t want to die and why their loved ones feel so miserable.

“The power of sin is the law,” Paul says.  Even when somebody dies who doesn’t believe in the Bible, they still have the law of their conscience and they know they have done wrong and it makes the thought of death so horrible.  Romans 2 says, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵ They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.”

They have every reason to fear death but look at what Paul continues with in verse 57.  This is when the fireworks go off and the cheerleaders jump out with their pompoms and I’m pretty sure somebody might even say “Amen”.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Aren’t you glad that it doesn’t say, “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our good works”?  It doesn’t say that God gives us victory because our good deeds outweighed our bad deeds or because we are Baptists or because we did anything.

Our salvation, our forgiveness, our ability to spend eternity in Heaven has nothing to do with who we are or what we do.  It only depends on Jesus Christ and all we have to do is believe – fully trust – in Him as our Savior.  Yes, Paul, thanks be to God for that!

Paul ends this beautiful passage as he often does, with a word of motivation.  If all of this is true; if everything Paul has said is right and we don’t have to worry about where we are going to spend eternity and what our bodies are going to look like or how we are going to get there then we ought to be able to trust God that He is going to protect and provide for us while we are here.

“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”  Stand firm, he says, when you and your church are under attack.  Stand firm when your nation is morally crumbling.  Stand firm when your president declares that boys should be able to go into girls’ bathrooms.  Stand firm when abortion becomes law.  Stand firm when gay marriage is celebrated and affirmed.  Let nothing move you or your convictions.  We don’t answer to this world. Our reward is in Heaven and our labor is not in vain.

The only bad news I have today is for unbelievers.  As I said before, there are two ways to get to Heaven, rapture or death for the believer.  But for the unbeliever, there are two ways to hell.  You may make it all the way to the end of this world and it says that the sky will part – not the clouds, but the sky itself - and you will look up and see Jesus riding on a white horse with a sword in His hand.  The raptured church will be with Him and it will be too late for all those left behind.

The other way is the way everyone before us has gone and that is through death.  Either way, scripture tells of a Great White Throne judgment where unbelievers will face Almighty God and it is at that time that it says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord.  But it will be too late for you if you are seeing that throne.  Just like there is a real Heaven, there is also a real Hell.

2 Peter 3:9 says, “God is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”  Repentance means to turn away from your sin, ask for forgiveness of it and never do it again, asking Jesus to be Lord of your life and the Savior that you believe in and rely on.  Do that today.  We are not guaranteed another breath.

“A Loving Church” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-7

When I say the name “Stradivarius”, what do you think of?  You think of violins, of course.  How many violin experts do we have here today?  How many can even play the violin?  How many of you even know the difference between a violin and a fiddle?  Not many of us know very much about violins and yet most of us know the name “Stradivarius”.

The name Stradivarius is synonymous with fine violins. This is true because Antonius Stradivarius insisted that no instrument constructed in his shop be sold until it was as near perfection as human care and skill could make it. Stradivarius observed, "God needs violins to send His music into the world, and if any violins are defective God's music will be spoiled." His work philosophy was summed up in one sentence: "Other men will make other violins, but no man shall make a better one."  Our Daily Bread, January 25, 1993.

Now, let me ask you, (and don’t raise your hand or respond out loud) what do you do better than anybody else?  Are you the best athlete; the most intelligent, the best looking, the greatest cook or the best singer?  You might be good.  You might be really good but chances are, there is somebody, somewhere better than you.  It’s a lesson we usually start learning as kids and yet, some people may never really admit it.

The good news is that today we are going to learn how to do something in “the most excellent way”.  We have the opportunity as individuals and as a church to be the best and most excellent at something.  I remember as a kid wishing that I was the best at something, even if it was Tiddlywinks and here in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul tells us how to do that, not in Tiddlywinks, but in something vitally important.

Like anything of value, it is not going to be easy but it will be worth it if we follow Paul’s way.  Booker T. Washington once said, “Excellence is to do a common thing is an uncommon way” and what is more common today than love?  Right?  Love is everywhere.  People fall into it and out of it.  Turn on the TV and love is everywhere.

The salesman on TV said that if I buy his “MyPillow” that I will love it.  So, I looked it up online and for $50 that pillow better love me back!  Every advertiser says we will love their product. From peanut butter to toilet paper to online dating services, we are guaranteed love everywhere we look.  It is so common and yet, in reality, the world is starving for it and here in the love chapter of the Bible, Paul shows us how to do it the most excellent way.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes what may well be the most beautiful piece of literature in all of scripture.  I read one commentator who said to tear it apart in study is like tearing apart a beautiful flower to study it but it has to be done and it needs to be done if we are going to make a difference in this world for the sake of Jesus.

What we have to keep in mind, though, is that Paul is continuing his teaching to the church in Corinth about spiritual gifts.  Chapters 12, 13 and 14 are all pertaining to gifts; where they come from, why we have them and what they look like.  We looked at chapter 12 last week and we saw that God gives us each at least one gift when we become Christians and He gives it for the edification or building up of the church.  So, it’s hard to build up the church with our gifts if we are not going to church.

We saw that we all have different gifts and we have different ministries and we have different results and it is all for the glory of God and for the sake of His bride, the church.  So, if we are really going to be biblical and use our gifts to benefit the church, we want to strive for excellence, right?  Look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8.

And now I will show you the most excellent way.  If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

I am surprised as I read through chapters 12, 13 and 14 that Paul fails to say anything about the gifts that God gives…to dogs.  Anybody else surprised by that?  No?  Maybe he just forgot because my dog has a gift.  Most of you know I now have three dogs – because everybody needs three, right?  While they all three have some gifts, okay, while two of them have some gifts, Bo most definitely has the gift of administration.  It’s one of the gifts Paul talks about in chapter 12, verse 28.

The gift of administration is being able to bring order out of chaos and to be able to put people and things in their rightful place at the right time.  That’s Bo.  He is very effective at putting the new dog, Lola, in her place.  If she does something she shouldn’t be doing, he walks over and barks real loud.  If that doesn’t work – and it usually does – but if it doesn’t he then proceeds to bite her.  This also sounds just like a boss I used to work for.

But as effective as Bo is with his gift of administration, he is lacking in something.  Can you guess what?  Yes, love.  Now, he loves me.  He shows me he loves me.  I don’t doubt that at all but I’m the one who feeds him and walks him and gives him biscuits.  It’s easy for him to love me.  I’ll let you know when he starts to love Lola.

It will probably be about the same time that some of us start to show love to the people in our lives that are hard to love.  As we read through this list I bet that most of us are comparing ourselves to the list and we should be.  Most of us are checking off the boxes as we go saying, “Oh, yea, patient, kind, that’s me.  Not jealous, not proud.  Nailed it” …at least with some people.

We all have that one person or maybe a couple of people or maybe even most people that we can’t check those boxes for.  Well, I want you to think about those people and know and understand that it is those people that Paul is writing about here today.  You can’t check any box until you check it about everybody in every situation in your life.

Just like with all the gifts, Jesus is the perfect embodiment of every one of these descriptions.  You can put the name of Jesus in the place of every word “love”.  Jesus is patient.  Jesus is kind, etc.  The question is, can you put your name in the place of “love” in every situation and person in your life?  Are you patient?  The word literally means “long-tempered”.  It is the opposite of short-tempered.  Are you patient when somebody does you wrong?

Are you kind?  This doesn’t just mean are you having kind thoughts toward someone?  Every one of these is an active form of love.  It is only proved by doing something.  Are you kind?  Do you do kind things for people who use you and mistreat you?  Ouch!  That’s hard.  I know.

Now insert your name in each of these as we run through them really quickly.  (Your name) does not envy; is not jealous.  This isn’t talking about being jealous when your spouse is flirting with a member of the opposite sex.  You have every right to expect loyalty.  God is a jealous God.  This is talking about “I want what that person has.”  “I wish they didn’t have that and I did.”  This is common when we are talking about gifts especially when someone has good results from using their gifts.

But, like I said, these are all action words.  How can we show that we are not jealous of somebody else’s gifts?  How about supporting them with your presence or even your money if necessary?  That’s how you show that you are not jealous.

So, next is love (insert your name) is not boastful.  It does not brag.  Now we all hate this and yet so many of us struggle with doing what we can’t stand.  So, how can we show; how can we prove that we are not boastful or bragging?

Bragging is the other side of jealousy.  Jealousy is wanting what somebody else has.  Bragging is trying to make them want what you have.  How can we prove that we don’t brag?  Charles Trumbull once vowed: “God, if you will give me the strength, every time I have the opportunity to introduce the topic of conversation it will always be about Jesus Christ.”  You can’t make yourself look good at the same time you are making Jesus look good.

Next, moving quickly, love, is not proud or arrogant.  I have often thought that if I were a door-to-door salesman I would start my sales pitch by saying something like, “Now several of your neighbors told me you wouldn’t be able to afford this…”  I would say that because of this fault:  pride.

When it comes to gifts we need to remember that they are just that – gifts.  They are given to us by the Holy Spirit.  We have nothing to be proud about.  So, how do we prove that we are not proud?

A young woman asked for an appointment with her pastor to talk with him about a besetting sin about which she was worried. When she saw him, she said, "Pastor, I have become aware of a sin in my life which I cannot control. Every time I am at church I begin to look around at the other women, and I realize that I am the prettiest one in the whole congregation. None of the others can compare with my beauty. What can I do about this sin?"  The pastor replied, "Mary, that's not a sin, why that's just a mistake!"  (Source Unknown)

Love (your name) is not rude.  Love does not act unbecomingly.  My mother recently told me about when my Dad had just become the pastor at a new church and one of the deacons there introduced himself by saying that his gift was being able to keep the pastor in line and evidently he felt that criticizing everything the pastor did was keeping him in line.

I don’t have a problem with loving, constructive criticism but being rude is not a gift.  It’s just rude and it’s sinful.  If you say you have the gift of speaking the truth then it better be done in love or it is not a gift but a fault.  So, how do we prove we are not rude?  What actions can we take to show that?  The best way is to show grace, just like God has shown us grace.  Grace is not getting what we deserve.  Show grace and you show love.

Moving on in verse 5, love is not self-seeking.  Are you?  Okay, here’s the scenario.  A friend of yours has lied about you to make himself look better.  How do you handle it?  Do you make up a lie about him?  Scream at him?  Or do you allow the Lord to handle it, knowing that He knows the truth and will protect and provide for you?  I told you this was difficult.

Next, love is not easily angered.  It is not provoked.  It does not get into arguments easily.  Paul is talking about only getting angry at what angers God.  Sound like you?

How about this next one?  Married folks, listen up.  I know you love your spouse but the next time you are losing an argument, remember this.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.  I know it’s tempting to bring up that stupid thing they did to misuse their gift last year but true love forgets it.  It is similar to forgiveness.  It is actually a bookkeeper’s term that means there is no record of debt.  It has been erased, forgiven and forgotten.

Look at verse 6.  Almost done and going quickly.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.  You show that kind of love by not justifying sin.  Isaiah5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”  It’s not love when you mask over your loved one’s sin by saying it is not sin.  We all want the truth.  Speak it in love.

I love this next one.  I’m not saying I’m good at it.  It’s just that it says that love protects and what it really means is that love will show itself when you shield your loved one from something bad, even if they deserve it.  Isn’t that interesting?  I was at a high school baseball game a while back and the batter hit a ball way up in the air but back behind the fence.  I saw a young man in the stands, who obviously couldn’t see where the ball was, stand up and lean over an older woman sitting next to him.  The ball didn’t hit him but it was close.  That is a picture of showing you have love that always protects.

Love always trusts. How do we show that we love someone so much that we always trust them?  We trust them by allowing them to fail without judgment and then our first response is to heal and restore.  Galatians 6:1 says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.” 

Similarly, love always hopes.  Another way to say this is love shows itself by refusing to take repeated failure as final.  We all mess up.  Some of us are better at failure than others and what better way to prove your love than to always hope that this failure is not the end?

Love always perseveres.  It endures all things.  That’s a military term meaning to withstand against overwhelming opposition.  In Acts 7, Stephen is being stoned to death and his last words are, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  That is love that always perseveres.  That is love that just keeps on loving, no matter what.

So, there you go.  No problem.  Just use your gifts in love.  Should be easy enough, right?  Actually, no.  It’s not easy.  In fact, it is impossible.  There is no way you can do it, at least, not without the Spirit of God living inside you.  Even then, it’s not going to be our default setting.  We have to be so close to God that He is able to work in us His will and His plan.

Do these words describe you?  Unfortunately, they don’t describe the vast majority of people in churches today and, yet, we wonder why church membership is declining.  Why don’t more people come to church anymore?  Why should they when the church looks just like the world.

This agape love that Paul is talking about here is impossible without a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.  It is much easier to have right doctrine than it is to love like this.  It’s much easier to have great spiritual gifts than to agape love the unlovable.  It’s easier to be right and win an argument than it is to love biblically.  The question is, do you want to be right before men…or right before God?

In John 13, Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love (agape) one another."  If these words don’t describe you, especially when it comes to loving the unlovable, then you can’t be recognized as a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus was the perfect embodiment of all of these descriptions of agape love and He wants our church to look just like Him.

That starts with a relationship with Him.  We can have a relationship with God the Father through His Son Jesus and when we do the Spirit of God lives inside of us allowing us to love and to look like Him.  You can have that today.  Ask Him to be your Lord and Savior and to forgive you of your sins.  Then repent of those sins – turn away from them – and He is faithful and just to forgive you.

That is the ultimate, most excellent way!