Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Spiritual Life - Spiritual Fruit Pt.7

We received a nice E-mail last night from Charles. He said,

"Dear Pastor,

Greetings to you in the name and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. I just wanted to say thank you for all the love and care [he's saying that to me, but it's really to you]. Thank you for heeding to God's direction in leading you to extend the vision, the ministry of Calvary Temple to Africa. By God's grace and mercies we're now part of this family, and God is transforming our lives each day. Pastors Ron and Tony have been such a great blessing to us and to me in particular. They have taught us the Word of God and laid a strong foundation in our lives. God has greatly used them in ministering the love of God to us, and we're so thankful for them. They've been true spiritual parents to me. They've loved me with the truth and helped me to grow in the Lord. They've helped me in so many ways, and I'm very grateful to God, to you, and to them. Their wives, Mama Tera and Karen, have been such special mums to us. They've been godly models to our wives, and especially to my wife, Rachel. We thank God for them as we have observed their lives and desire to emulate their meekness and humility. We thank God for giving us a true apostle, a loving spiritual overseer, and Dad in the Lord [I'm glad he's not calling me Granddad anymore!]. Thank you for supporting me and my family and for taking good care of us in meeting all of our needs as the Lord has graciously directed you. Thank you for supporting the Kakamega ministry in every way. We truly thank God for you.

We love you and wish you a blessed New Year. We pray that the Lord may continue to strengthen you, and to guide you, and to protect you, and to provide all of your needs. Words cannot express accurately how grateful I am to God and to you for everything the Lord is doing in my life and home since I've joined Calvary Temple family. I'm blessed beyond measure, and my desire and prayer is to remain humble and to be faithful to God and to you. May God bless you.

Your son and servant,

Charles"

It's a blessing to see and to be a part of the excitement of what's going on in that ministry and in their lives. If you'll just take that and multiply it, you'll see what's been happening in the overseers' lives. These [Pastors Ron and Tony] are the overseers. Under them, many lives and many families are being touched because of your faithfulness, and we're just so thankful for that. So, be prayerful. We're at war, and there's a strong spirit there that's opposing the Word of God. They have their Simon the Sorcerers that are in operation, but we're not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God unto salvation--just the pure Word. We're not there to manipulate people; we're not there to build our own kingdom. We're there to see lives touched, people delivered from the powers of darkness, and, most importantly, to see the Lord exalted in His church to His glory. That's the only reason we're doing what we're doing. So, we just want to thank all of you for your faithfulness. These letters are to you. When you hear these letters that have been written, they're to you. When you hear the testimonies of the different things that are taking place in the oversight of the churches--whether they're in Nairobi, or in Kakamega, or in Eldoret--it's happening because of you, because of your prayers. Ron and Tony understand that these are not things that we do in our own strength. This is the anointing of God; it's the visitation of God. And unless we undergird them in prayer, it's not going to work. We can send all the money we want over there, and it will not work. It's the anointing that breaks the yoke. It's the power of God. It's our intercession. What we've seen over there is miraculous. It's beyond finance, and it's beyond the natural gifts that have been placed there to assist us. What we have seen begun is in the spirit, and it will continue in the spirit and not in the flesh. So, the most important thing we can do is our intercession.

Ron is going to be sharing with us tonight the vision and the work that God's been doing. So, we're excited about that! In his note, Charles made reference to being thankful for the ministry that's been contributed to us in Greer's life and for the companionship and the comfort that she's brought to us in this last year or so. He spoke in his E-mail about the affect that Janet had on their lives and of what magnitude that was. And he recognized that God has truly blessed and has given me a gift in this godly woman to continue to hold our hands up. I encourage you to also pray for Greer through these months that are ahead. We've been moving in a lot of directions, and a lot of things have been going on, and she has served faithfully. What she does is not an easy thing. I'm talking about just hanging around with me! That's not an easy thing to accomplish, and she's done a good job. I want to thank you for praying for her and for me. At this juncture where we find ourselves, I can say that I am refreshed in the spirit. I feel I'm in a place where I can hear from God, and I'm waiting and excited to see what Father has ahead for us in His kingdom. So, we ask you to be prayerful about that and that we'd be sensitive to hear.

Let's turn to the gospel of John. We want to continue along where we were last week and look at a couple of verses just to refresh our hearts as we were talking about the love of God. John 13:35 says, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye [cast out demons, raise the dead, walk on water, call fire out of heaven, drive a Mercedes, start your own evangelistic association, and let your face be seen on television from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo. Then men will know that My hand is upon you]." That's not what Jesus said. He said, "Men are going to know that you are My disciples, that you are true servants of God, that your lives are committed to living for the kingdom and not for yourselves--By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." It's the hardest thing there is to do. The fruit that evidences death to self is the capacity to love beyond ourselves.

The origin of sin is self-love. We can say it in another way: selfishness. We can say it in another way: pride. Beloved, when you're incapable of loving, you are bound by sin. When we can't look beyond ourselves, we're in the bondage of sin and selfishness. When we exalt and vaunt ourselves, when we think more highly of ourselves than we ought, we are worshipping sin. We've bowed our knee to Satan. We're still under the power of the forbidden fruit. We are still the sons of Adam, and not the sons of God, when we can't bring ourselves to love. And it is that love that causes people to realize, "There's a power in them that I don't have," because, frankly, without Jesus it is impossible to love. Without the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit, man is incapable of loving. Now, when we're talking about love, we're talking about divine love, agape love. We're not talking about the affection we have through association or through natural procreation. There's a natural affinity for those we have produced, our offspring. "Why, do I love them? Because they're so valuable. Why are they so valuable? They're of me!" Even our love for our children in the natural is selfish, because we are loving ourselves. We don't realize how deceptive that is. The only pure love is agape, and God is love. Love is not God, but God is love; because there are inferior forms of love, but infinite love, perfect love, proceeds only from the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Its source is God, and it loves unconditionally and eternally. Love never fails, the Scripture says. It never fails to express itself consistently, always the same way. It doesn't demand worth or any intrinsic value in the object being loved, but loves because it's the nature. It's the essence of Who God is--to be unselfish and to desire the good of others. So, by this men know that we are His disciples.

Look over a couple chapters to John 15, as we finish with the review here. We realize that it's by love that we're known. Therefore, the highest expression of representing God (Who is love) is in a life that exhibits preference of others through death to self. It's through freely giving that which we have freely received. We can't call ourselves Christians and not love. To fail to love is to fail to keep the commandments of God. To fail to love is rejecting the initial basic commandment that was given to us--that which you've heard from the beginning, 1 John says--that we're to love one another. This is the commandment that you received from the beginning: that you would love one another. To break the commandment is to live under the power of sin. To break the commandment to love one another is to be out of fellowship with God. Now, think about that for just a second. When we get into conflict with one another, we're not just crossways with a brother or a sister. "I'm just going to wait around, and I'm going to put a little pressure on them. I'm going to ignore them. I'm going to snub them. I'm going to reject them because they hurt my feelings. And maybe one of these days I'll grace them with my presence again." You're not just crossways with a brother or a sister in the body of Christ. To reject and fail to love your brothers and sisters is to reject the lordship of Jesus Christ and to be out of fellowship with God. And you need to see it for what it is.

John 15:12 says, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you" (emphasis added). How many of you want God to love you the way you love one another? Some of us get on a good roll, and we're moving in love pretty well. We're laying our lives down, and we're serving our husbands and our wives unselfishly, and we're serving our children unselfishly, and we're obeying Mom and Dad unselfishly, and we're doing it as unto the Lord. We get on a roll, and we do pretty well. But we all have those moments, don't we? That's when the real power of walking in the spirit and the real fruit of the spirit is needed, to where we love by obedience and not by feeling or emotion. We love by obedience and not by observable worth in the object being loved. Man is worthy of love because God has declared that they be loved. That's what puts the value on them--not their behavior, but the commandment to love one another.

We're not going to go this moment into all the different aspects of love. When I say "aspects," I don't just mean eros, phileo, and agape. I'm talking about the love that is given as I serve you in a way that you perceive as positive, or as I serve you in a way that you would perceive as negative. In other words, the Lord chastens those whom He loves. Not many of us like to be loved that way. How many of you prefer positive love? How many of you know, however, that negative love is necessary? I'm using the terms "positive" and "negative," not because love is positive or negative, but because that is how we perceive it. I use these terms only as a reference point, just to identify the different expressions of love. What we see to be negative love is just as positive as someone giving us what we think we need. They love us in giving us what we actually do need that will deliver us, preserve us, and mature us for the glory of God. Sometimes what we perceive to be negative love is the truest expression and the most positive thing that anybody could do in our lives.

Jesus said, "You're to love one another as I have loved you." We're to love unconditionally, eternally, out of the essence of renewed character, and not out of the works of obligation. Many of us try to work our obedience, and we call it obedience, but it's a works mentality. You're saying, "I don't feel like loving them, but I will make myself love them." We can express that action toward them, but it does us no good at all. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, "Though I give my body to be burned, it profits me nothing." Beloved, when the emotions are gone, our obedience is to the inward voice of the Holy Spirit saying, "Love because you've been loved." You respond, then, to the love of God coming to you and now going through you, rather than manufacturing an expression (or a feigned love, as Peter calls it) through just works. And the people that you're responding to can tell the difference.

Look over at 1 Peter, and let me show you what I'm talking about for just a second. What I'm saying is this: obedience is not loving by works; obedience is God's grace working in you beyond your own affection and your own ability. Let me say it another way. Loving by obedience (and not feeling) is loving by faith and not by works (a faith that works). "I will love them, not gritting my teeth. I will love them, even though I don't feel like it, because I've been loved by God. I believe that God loves me, and I believe that I love them. I believe that God is working in me to will and to do His good pleasure. And because I believe that, I will do this with rejoicing. I will do this in obedience--not feeling like it, but in obedience by faith; because God is working in me to will and to do His good pleasure." They'll know the difference, and you'll know the difference. It's loving by faith, not by works, and not by sheer grit.

So, Peter says it this way over in his first epistle, chapter 1. "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth...." (verse 22). It's the purifying of the realm of the soul, this purging of the water of the Word of God. I saturate myself with the Word, and I know what the Word requires of me at any given moment. I know what's expected of me, and I look to God and say, "Lord, it's not in me to do it. I don't feel like it, and I have no affection for this individual, but You do. So, I ask You to love through me, and let them feel Your love. Let my soul be purified, and bring my emotions under control. Bring the value of this person to my understanding as You see it so that You can be glorified. Purify my soul as I now obey the truth and do what Your Word says. I do it because the Word says it. I do it out of honor for the Word. I do it because I love the Word. Even though I can't say right now that I have any affection for that person, I love the Word, and I love You. And by obeying You, I am loving my brother. I'm denying myself by not requiring this person to meet some arbitrary standards that I might have (that the Word doesn't have) or by demanding that there be some type of intrinsic value in them." Why would you demand that when there is none in you?

Beloved, when you read 1 Corinthians 13, you're going to find out how ugly we are. We are not lovable, but God loves us. While we were yet sinners, He loved us and died for us. The purchase price of His blood is what puts the value on your life. What it cost God is what you're worth. Think about that. You're only worth what somebody is willing to pay for you, and we were bought by the precious blood of Jesus. Then how dare we treat anybody in a condescending or judgmental manner! How dare we think evil of their actions and their motives! How dare we usurp and try to rise above those that are around us to satisfy our own lusts and our own egos! How can we rejoice in iniquity when someone suffers? We say, "They just got their just deserts; they got what they deserved. It's sowing and reaping, bless God!"

I had to share that with Greer last night. I said, "That's sowing and reaping, man!" We were laughing because of something we saw on TV. She said, "You know, when I was in high school all the young girls thought, 'Oh, he is so cute!' [talking about that Banderas guy when he was in the Zorro movie]. I told them, 'Cute? He's old!'" You've got to watch what comes out of your mouth, man!

So, here we are thinking evil and rejoicing in iniquity. Somebody suffers and you say, "Yeah? Well, it's sowing and reaping. They got what they deserved." Love doesn't respond that way. Love doesn't rejoice in iniquity. It doesn't think evil. It doesn't behave itself unseemly. It's not puffed up. It doesn't demand its own way. How do we respond to one another? Do we rejoice? There is no envy in love. Do we rejoice in the success of our brothers and sisters--their monetary success, their social prosperity? "It seems like people gravitate toward them. They've got all these friends, but nobody likes me." Read the list. Sowing and reaping is probably working in your life. Do you want friends? Show yourself friendly. Now, I'm not rejoicing in your sowing and reaping, but I'm telling you that you're sowing discontentment and pride. It's amazing how many people demand how they're to be loved. "If you're going to love me, you'll do it this way, bless God! Now, love me! I can't understand why nobody loves me the way I demand it and when I demand it. I just don't understand that. What's wrong with these people is that they don't know how to love!" Read the chapter and find yourself. The main problem that we have with understanding love is this: we read 1 Corinthians 13 looking for everybody who doesn't love us. "I'm really desiring that the body could come to this type of a love and show it to me." Why don't you read Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians and look for yourself and find out how you can become an expression of God's love? "How can I so purely flow in the fruit of the spirit of love that men would know that I am one of His disciples and that I'm moving beyond my natural capacity?"

"Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit..." We talked about the love of obedience, obeying the truth, and loving by obedience in the spirit and not in the flesh. Beloved, obedience is never an expression or work of the flesh. Obedience, though it's done without feeling and by commandment, must still be done in the spirit or it's not of God. It's not acceptable, and it will not produce fruit in your life or in those that you are ministering to. So, we see that it's an obedience in the spirit. The Scripture also says that it's "...unto unfeigned love..." That word "unfeigned" means "undisguised." It's not fake. It's an unfeigned love of the brethren.

Now look at this; this is a powerful phrase: "...see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently." The fervency of love! We overuse the word "love." True love has a fervency with it, and you can see it. You're walking by, and you look in the window, and it's not, "Oh, I love chocolate eclairs" [without emotion]. No, man! You stop, your eyes light up, and you say, "Oh, I love those! The hot sign is on at Krispy Kreme!" It's not, " The hot sign's on; I love Krispy Kreme" [glumly]. Now, some of us are more excitable than others. I'm not even talking about the outward expression. We all know people that, for them to grin is like you doing a back flip! So, you have to know folks and be able to read that. Don't expect everybody to respond the way you respond, but I'm talking about a true fervency. You get to know that what causes their little grin is the same thing going off inside of you that causes you to do a back flip. There is life there; there is a fervency; there is a zeal. There is a positive lust, a strong affection, for whatever it is that is the object of our love. So, it says that it is to be done with a pure heart fervently.

The real issue here, then, for you and me is this. The process of purifying our hearts and making sure that our motives are right has only one right motive. I don't love them because they deserve it. I don't love them because of who they are (that's respect of persons). I don't love for my own feeling good about myself (that's selfishness). I love them for the glory of God, period. My obedience and my involvement in their edification is all for the glory of God--that He, the apostle said, would be all in all. To love your children, to love your spouse, or to love anybody or anything for any other reason than the glory of God is idolatry. So we begin to see, not only the source, but the purpose of love. It's all about God. It's all about God being glorified. The way He said He can most be glorified is when this unconditional, pure-hearted, and fervent love begins to express itself through a community like this. We all become strong, and God begins to be glorified. Through our holiness, our worship, our strength, and our edification, God is being glorified. So, what should be the end, what should be the product, of my love of anybody? The glory of God. If in the end God is not being glorified, it's not agape. It's not the God kind of love, and it's not what Father has called us to. It's so important that we understand that.

Let's look over at 1 Corinthians 13 for a moment and see a couple of those different aspects of love that we were referring to. We gave the biblical context of why Paul was writing this to the Corinthians. Because of their spiritual pride, they were puffed up in their gifts and in their own estimation of their spirituality and pursuit of God. "Nobody else loves God like I do! Nobody is as gifted as I am! Look at me! I'm the most spiritual among you. Listen to how much I talk in tongues. Listen to how fluent my oratory is, as I bring forth prophetic utterances. Look at my life of faith. Look at my commitment and my asceticism as I forsake all." There was a continual putting forth of self in the body of Christ. In the guise of holiness, in the guise of spiritual pursuit, and in the guise of spiritual service and ministry, men were seeking praise, position, and power. Paul speaks to put these things back in order, and he says, "You're missing the whole point of why the gospel was brought to you and what the true power of God is in a community of believers. It's not the projecting of self, and it's not the seeking of position, but it's seeking the servant's heart. The Head of the church said that the greatest among us is the servant of all. He's the one who is willing to be available to do whatever has to be done to edify the body and to bring glory to God. "Servant of all" doesn't mean that you run over 12 people, push them down, and push your way in front of them to be able to pour the cup of coffee down in the fellowship hall. What are you doing? You just injured 12 people on your way down here to humble yourself! It's just doing what needs to be done as you're asked and as God gives you opportunity. It's in the heart motive of not vaunting ourselves, of not needing to do anything. "I've got to serve; I've got to serve!" Listen. Some of your greatest service can be just doing nothing but being available, having a servant's heart. Wait on God. And God, by His Spirit and through the gifts He's placed in the church, will orchestrate the body to the glory of God as it needs to be. Humility is a readiness and a willingness to do whatever needs to be done to bring glory to God at this moment. Sometimes that humility and that servant's heart will have you scrubbing the bathroom floors. Sometimes it will have you teaching at the prison. Sometimes it will have you singing before the body and ministering to the Lord. It's multi-faceted, and it's an attitude. It's a submissive spirit to His headship and a willingness to flow in the body to wherever the need is.

Paul said that love is not puffed up; it's not inflated with its own sense of importance. And that also has to do with our secular jobs. We all know you've got to work. But you get some people who become workaholics (and most of us here don't have that problem). What drives these people? Well, there are a couple of different things. One is that they probably want to get away from their wives--any reason to stay out of the house. That'll keep you at work! You'd be surprised how that motivates many people. Another one is, "I get my sense of worth through what I'm able to produce. Whatever it is that I've produced here, that's where I get my sense of worth. If what I've produced that gives me a sense of worth is valuable to others, then now it begins to bring to my direction another aspect of worth. It elevates me into another realm administratively and economically. I move up through the company. I start the company. I'm the chairman of the board. I'm the president. I now roll in this area of power." And what that does to the unregenerate mind is this: it creates an overestimation of our importance, and we establish our value based upon what we perceive ourselves to be or what other people have said we are. We start living in that realm, and we forget that what we have we've received of the Lord. As a Christian, you have one way to approach anything and everything that you possess in life. And that is, "It's the gift of God. God has given me what I have. How can I boast in it? I can't boast in anything that I've accomplished, because the race is not to the swift. God has blessed me."

I was talking to someone about this just the other day. It's amazing that some of the best athletes are not the ones who are the stars; they're not the ones in the Hall of Fame. Some of the best athletes never made it. Some of the best entertainers have never made it. Now. some would call it fate (being in the right place at the right time). As believers, we understand that it's not fate, but it's God ordering our steps. God has chosen this path for us, and what we have (or do not have) is of the Lord. So, being puffed up is either thinking of ourselves more highly because of what we have, or thinking of ourselves more highly through discontentment ("I should have that!"). That creates another force in us that's called envy, and love does not envy. Love is not envious of others around them--what they have and what they've accomplished. "Why shouldn't I have received that? How come I don't get that recognition?" Love never manifests itself in those ways.

I was sharing with some pastors not too long ago. One of them had a little bit of a misconception of how God works, how He orders our steps, and how He blesses us. It wasn't said, and there were no demands that were being made. But this particular individual thought, "You know, to come here to do what I'm doing, I gave up a lot of stuff over there. Therefore, shouldn't that merit that I at least live over here without pressure of financials? Shouldn't I be compensated in some way to make this a little bit easier, since I gave up so much over here?" My response to that young man was, "Do you not understand that we are unprofitable servants? If you love God and believe the love that He has towards you, if you understand the debtors we are to Him--and not only the debtors we are for our own redemption, but for the privilege we have as the servants of God, for Him to have put His hand upon us, and to be able to preach the gospel--I'd pay Him to preach! Woe is me if I preach not the gospel!" In just trying to help this young man, I shared that he had a misunderstanding of the love our Father has for us. There's a desire to do the will of God and the works of God, but there's a misconception of what love is and how God's love would express itself.

Beloved, we don't understand Father's love toward us and the privilege of a relationship with our Father. There can't be any price put upon that. To think, then, that there should be some type of compensation is to be puffed up. It's to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. It's to think that somehow we have earned what we have, but everything that we have has been given to us. It's a gift; it's grace. Everything that we have, we don't deserve (I'm talking about that which is good.) When you understand the pure love of God, then truly you'll see everything you possess as the gift of His love. You don't deserve gifts; you don't earn gifts; you don't merit gifts. Gifts are the expression of someone's love. And if everything I have is a gift of God's love, then I can never be deceived by placing too much value upon myself. I never become puffed up. I'm a by-product of the love of God, and I know what my worth is without Him. When you've tasted the love of God, it totally devalues your life; you are void of any intrinsic worth without that love abiding in you. The only thing that makes us lovely is the love of God in us. When we realize that, we don't think of ourselves more highly than we ought. We know what we are, and we're able and free to share the love of God with others. That's why you don't have to try to justify anything, and you don't have to make excuses. This is what I've tried to share at many of the pastors' conferences. "If you've got 12 people, don't make excuses for that. That's what God has given you. If you've got 12,000 people, don't boast in that. That's what God has given you. And He loves you both the same. Neither of you is more precious than the other. Neither of you is more valuable to the eternal kingdom of God than the other." You see, beloved, we don't understand love, especially when it comes to receiving it from Father. I love that phrase in 1 John, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us..." Once we have been able to receive and believe how loved we are, we don't have to prove anything to anybody. I don't have to apologize for my blessings, and I don't have to make excuses for my apparent failures. God loves me, and I'm free to love those around me. You can think what you want.

I was sharing with Ron yesterday as he was counseling someone in our fellowship. They were in conflict, actually. I shared with him that whenever you start dealing with that kind of a response, I like what Paul said to the Corinthians. The Corinthians were responding haughtily and judging Paul. And Paul said, "Okay, you're right. I'm weak, and you're strong. You know everything, and I don't know anything. You're exalted; I'm abased." You see, the Corinthians wanted to win this argument. They wanted to prove how spiritual they were. And Paul said (if I can paraphrase this), "Okay, you're more spiritual than I am. It's obvious that you're more spiritual than I am, so do what you want to do." When you make that statement, do you know what happens to these people? They are compelled to try to get some kind of a response out of you to acknowledge the fact that they're right. It cracks me up! It's amazing how people who have left our fellowship have this compulsion. There's even a Calvary Temple hate group that meets systematically. The thing they have in common is their hatred for me. And some of you are privileged to be on the list, but it's primarily myself. They get together, and they still talk about it. They reminisce, and they talk about all the things that we do wrong and how we don't love properly. We're just so mean and harsh! The problem is usually not doctrinal. Of all the thousands of people who have left here, I don't think there are more than you can count on one hand who would say that our doctrine was not right. "It's the application," they say. "It's not the doctrine; it's not the teaching. It's just that you expect us to do it, and you never make exceptions!"

I was sharing with Ron that the response I've had over all the years is, "Okay; I say you're wrong; you say I'm wrong. Why can't you get over it? I haven't thought about you for years! Why is there no compulsion in my life to prove to you that I'm right? Because I know I'm right. And your problem is that you know I'm right, but you're choosing to obey your flesh. Until you can find something wrong in my life, you have no excuse for your disobedience, and you're going to be miserable. Now, get on with your life, repent, and go do what you need to do. But the one thing for sure is this: you're puffed up; you think of yourself a little more highly than you ought to think. Is that because you disagree with me? No. It's because you're not content in the love of God; you don't know the love that Father has for you. What's causing all that anxiety and fear in your life is the absence of love. There is no fear in love; love casts out all fear. The reason you're anxious and I'm at peace is that I believe the love God has for me. I believe and know that in keeping His commandments, I am in the favor of my Father. And in that, I don't have to try to prove to you that I'm right. I don't have to be a big shot in your eyes. I don't have to respond to your pressure because I'm free in the love of God."

Oh, beloved, it's a great place to be, having that confidence in knowing you are loved and don't have to prove anything! I don't have to prove anything to Father, and I don't have to prove anything to my brothers and sisters. I am accepted in the beloved.

Let's end with this for this morning. We talked about it last session a little bit, but I want to just share one other thing. Love never behaves itself unseemly. In other words, it never acts contrary to its natural character. Unseemly behavior is something that goes contrary to what my nature is. Love never acts contrary to the nature of God. It's always orderly. In our vernacular today, we could say it this way: love has class. Don't you like people who show class? I like a class act, man! Frankly, as brothers and sisters, sometimes we don't show a lot of class in the way we respond to one another's weaknesses and needs. Did you know that if God has blessed you to be in a position of strength, when you are ministering to others, the love of God never makes them feel less than yourself? A class act, true love never devalues another person. True love would never act with less than a true decorum of character, graciousness, and kindness. It's never rude or brutish. (Do you remember the phrase they used to use in the old movies? The little damsel in distress would say, "You brute!") You don't bully people; you don't try to come off as the hard guy. Love doesn't have to come off as the hard guy. That's why the anger of God is expressed in direct relationship to His love. That's why the orge of God is not the bully. It's just factual: "I'm going to get you." Truth is factual; love is factual. It doesn't have to be wrapped up in emotion, intimidation, or a coarse and bully-like persona. It just speaks factually about the consequences of living outside the grace of God, of living in disobedience, and of living contrary to the commandments. "Here's what's going to happen. If you continue, the consequence is going to be this. Here's how I'm going to respond to you. Here's how the body is going to respond to you." And it's the love of God. It lets truth and the Word of God be the standard, and not the natural manipulation of intimidation and flattery. Our confidence is in the truth and the love of God, and those who will hear the truth will be motivated by God's love to obedience.

Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning. We just ask, as we continue in this subject over the next sessions, that we would be able to love--not as Cain loved, but as Christ loved. Help us, Father, to be emptied even more of self, as we believe the love that You have to us. We are emptied of self in direct proportion to the belief that we have of Your love for us. The more we believe You love us, the more we can stop trying to promote ourselves. The more we believe You love us, the more we can cease trying to lay up for ourselves and protect ourselves. The more we believe You love us, the more we can give everything we possess and know we will never lack, but in fact multiply in Your virtue, in Your grace, and in Your power. Make it so, we ask, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand together. We'll be having probably our last meeting with Pastors Ron and Tony on this visit. We've spent many, many, many hours in preparation for the ministry in Africa, and we're excited about what God is doing! I believe the men are more prepared than they ever have been as they return, and we're believing for some great fruit for the kingdom in this session. Be prayerful, and believe God for that wisdom. Pray that they would be able to go and bring this kind of an understanding of the love of God to these people. They have not been loved over there. They've been lorded over. They've been beaten and manipulated. They've either been told that they're better than they are or that they're less than they are, and very few have ever heard the real truth. It's our desire to just love these people and let them be confident of the Lord Jesus in their lives. So, be prayerful and believe God that these men who go and represent the kingdom would do it in grace and in true biblical faith and that Father would be glorified in all of those areas.

As Gary plays for us, let's end this session with thanksgiving to Father in the worship of His name! We have a lot to rejoice in! I know that you perceive yourselves as just unprofitable servants, but I want you to know that your giving over these years has gone up as a memorial to God. It's not common, but it's good to the glory of God, and I thank God for your willingness. It's a visual expression of the work of grace in your hearts. And as God's servant in your midst, it causes in me a rejoicing to see the Word working in our hearts. Let's never take it for granted that He's here and that He is the Source of all that we do. Let's sing it together and worship Him. "You shall love the Lord with all your heart..."

Hallelujah! Lord, it is our hearts' desire. We ask that You would work in our hearts that we would love one another with pure hearts fervently. Be the Source of our love, be the object of our love. Jesus, be all in all, we ask, and we will give You the glory as Father is glorified in the Son. We thank You for it, and we give You the praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

Before you go, turn to somebody next to you and say, "Love never fails." Go in peace; God's love go with you.

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