I'm always pleased when some visitor to this congregation or some preacher that I invite to come and fill this pulpit compliments you on your loving and gracious spirit. It pleases me not only because I'm your pastor, and your brother in Christ. Now, I'm especially pleased if those assessments are true, and I trust that they are, that we are being what we must be as children of grace. Throughout this 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks of charity. And the word that he uses on every single occasion is the Greek word agape. Agape is a Greek word that represents the highest and the purest form of love that can be expressed towards others. It's love that's selfless. You know, you love people because they love you. You can love people because you hope to get something out of them. You can love people for something that they can provide to you. But the Word that Paul uses, and he uses it on purpose. Remember, the Word of God, every word is inspired of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit moved Paul to use this Word to indicate that this love is selfless. It's passionate love. Interestingly, the word comes from another word, a root word that means to be breathless. Have you ever loved somebody or someone or something so much that it just took your breath away? If you have it, you've missed out on something. I thank God that there have been people in my life that I just love them so much it made me almost breathless to be around them. This kind of love is essential in a gospel church. It's essential in our lives if our faith is genuine. It's essential if our service is to be beneficial to us or to others. And it's essential if our God is going to be glorified in our actions and in our affections. Now, there are a lot of things in the Christian life that are optional. Now, people have what I call regional sanctification, you know. In Kentucky you can't drink, and up north you can't smoke. Some places you can't watch television. And the Bible does tell us there are certain things we might be better off if we didn't do. But they don't tell us we can't do it. It's up to your conscience and your own ability. There are certain churches that practice celibacy. That's why there aren't any more shakers around, because they practiced it. They practice total separation of men and women, male and female. If you do that, you're going to run out of people sooner or later. The Bible doesn't tell us that. It says that for certain people it's a good thing that they remain single. Sometimes people are critical of people who never marry. But in God's wisdom and providence, there are some people that just do not need to, or they should not, or God just not, His providence doesn't work it out that way. One of the dearest Christian women that I know of, and I always couldn't figure out, I thought, some guy's missing the boat here. She's nearly 70 years old now, but somebody's still missing the boat. But she's always, she never married. She never needed to. But her faith is tremendously strong. The Bible doesn't say it's wrong for us to marry. In fact, Christian marriage is encouraged. We don't have to practice abstinence of certain things. I personally do not drink alcohol. And I know there's a lot of people that are on a bandwagon about that, but you cannot take the Bible and prove that it is wrong for a person to drink alcohol. You can prove that it's wrong to be drunk. You can prove that it's wrong to be setting a stumbling block for others. And if you feel that way, you shouldn't do it. But you should not be hateful and condemning of somebody who chooses to drink a glass of wine. You cannot prove that from the Bible. I'm sorry, you can't. It's not a matter of appearance. The Bible teaches us to dress modestly. It teaches us to look in a certain way. It says that long hair is a shame to a man. And a lot of preachers really like to ride that hobby horse. But if you're going to balance the books, there's also some scriptures about ladies cutting their hair off too. And I don't ride that hobby horse, but if you're going to do one, you ought to do the other one. About certain patterns of conduct. I know some folks that will condemn you to hell if you go to the picture show. But you won't find it in the Bible. Because picture shows aren't in the Bible. It's a matter of values. Those things are optional. If you go to the picture show or don't, that's between you and God. If you eat catfish, that's between you and God. If you eat pork chop, that's between you and God. If you drink a little small glass of wine, that's between you and God. That's optional. But this is not. He said, Now abideth faith, hope, and charity these three, but the greatest of these is charity. Love for God. And love for His church, and love for His children is an absolute necessity of life for every genuine believer. And I want to speak to you, if God will help me today, for a little while on that subject, the essentialness, I don't know if that's a word, if it isn't, I just made one up, the essentialness of Christian love. And I want to begin by looking at the negative side and tell you there's a danger of being diluted into a religion that is loveless. You know any religious people that are mean-spirited and hateful? If you've got a couple of hours, I can give you a long list of some I know. Here's what John said in 1 John chapter 4. Turn your Bibles over there to 1 John chapter 4. Let's start reading with verse 7. 1 John chapter 4 verse 7. He said, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knows God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation or the covering for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, or mature, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love, We love Him because He first loved us. If a man says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him that he who loveth God loveth his brother also. It sounds to me like John's telling us it's possible for folks to be real religious and not know God. He says, if you're not a loving person and you can't love people that you can see, how can you love God that you can't see? Such people confuse religious activity with genuine conversion. Jesus said this in Matthew 23, 13, But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. For you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you divide widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer. Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation. Well unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than you yourselves." You can go to church every time they open the doors. In fact, I can leave the doors unlocked and you can come sit in this building all day, every day, and not know God. You can study the Bible until you wear the ink off the pages. Wear those Bibles out. Just turn to where they're ragged and falling apart. You can pray until you've got calluses on your knees like the pads of a camel. They said Jesus' brother James that he prayed so much on his knees that that's the way he was. You can observe the ordinances. You can get baptized every day or dipped in water every day. You can celebrate the Lord's Supper on a daily occasion, the early church did. Those are all meaningless, however, without the presence of Christ's love in your heart. If God hadn't changed your heart, then all that stuff is useless. If your religion doesn't follow you outside the inner sanctum of the church, into your real life, then it can't be trusted on your deathbed. If the only time you're religious is on Sunday, you better plan on dying on Sunday. You might not. The odds are 6 to 1 against it. There are those people that depend so much on their doctrinal creeds rather than resting in Christ. In Ephesians 4, Paul said, There is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. People can have a zeal for truth. I know people who stand toe-to-toe and argue and spit in each other's face over some doctrinal issue. They have a head for the soundest doctrine in the world, but it's worthless if you've got an empty heart. I heard about a preacher one time. They said, he's straight as a gun barrel. Somebody said, yes, he's just as empty. God protect us from such a spirit. Sound doctrine without humility, sound doctrine without kindness, sound doctrine without an affection for others is as useless as an empty gun on a bear hunt. You see, grace is more than a doctrine. It's a life. The greatest thing God ever showed me other than His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was when He showed me That grace wasn't just a creed, just a code of ethics, just a volume of doctrine. It was about your attitude. It was about how you saw life. It was about how you saw people. It was about how you saw things. It was about how you saw experiences. You see, the moon reflects light, but it produces no heat. The moon reflects light. But in itself, it's as cold and dead as it can be. Hanging in the vestibule, is that what you call it, or the entry hall of this building, are two things that I say a lot of people walk through that door every time, week after week, and they never read it. Willem is a sign that's hanging over the door that says, welcome, here everybody is nobody because Christ is everything. The other one's a little prayer that's framed, it's in a little black framed A little black frame hanging on the wall. Here's what it says. I need constantly to remind myself that all things are of God. Let me not preach sovereignty and then complain of my lot in life. Let me not talk of divine purpose and then spend my days murmuring about my trials and troubles. It is totally inconsistent with faith in the sovereign Christ for me to question his good providence. Paul called covetousness idolatry and said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I pray for submission, for with it comes peace and rest. You have to read that little prayer every once in a while when you come through the door. If you haven't read it for a while, take the time to do it. Another thing people do, they are deluded by the fact that they rest in their feelings or their emotions, but they have no foundation for it. I've talked to so many people about the Lord and said, well, I feel like I'm okay. I feel like I'm okay. In Revelation 3 verse 1 it says, And to the angel of the church and the stardust like these things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know thy works, that thou hast the name that thou livest. And you're dead. You're dead. You can have all feelings in the world without having reality. You can cut coupons out of the newspaper and eat them, but it's not near as filling as a bowl of beans. And you can have all kinds of feelings and emotions. And if they're just flesh, they'll do you no good. Religious joy and religious sorrow, With a cold heart is nothing more than frivolous human emotion. That's all it is. Emptiness. Are you different at church than you are at Walmart? Are you different on Sunday than you are on Monday, or Thursday, or Friday, or some other day? Any emotion that does not produce appropriate action is just fresh and carnal. It's never spiritual and heavenly. If what you have in your heart, if the relationship you have with God does not change who you are and what you are and what you do, then you don't have anything. Your shotgun shells have no powder. If your love for God does not lead you to have a love for people, then that love is nothing but a counterfeit. These people also have an empty confidence in their zeal and the cause of religion. Well, I'm real religious. These people are always bragging about, well, I've been to Sunday school. I haven't missed Sunday school in 59 years. Look at all my pens. They look like somebody's come back from the war. They've got all these pens and stuff on them. I read my Bible through every year, they say. I wear one out every year. You know what Matthew 7 says? It says, Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name hath cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. You see, if you do what you call God's work in the energy of the flesh and in the spirit of the flesh, God calls it sin. The carnal heart will seek rest in a false peace that is rooted in a physical zeal. If you listen to most religious practitioners, they'll tell you to get out and do this, do that, do the other that you can do in the flesh without one bit of knowledge of God. In America, pulpits are full of dead men preaching dead sermons. Choir halls are full of choirs that sing out of empty hearts. And churches are run by deacons who serve with proud and depraved spirits, but know nothing of this Christ who loved enough to die. The flesh finds satisfaction and comfort in all its own efforts, in its own initiatives, By the spiritual heart, we'll humbly and meekly wait on God to guide and enable and move. That Pharisee went up to the temple and he said, Lord, I'm glad I'm not like everybody else. I'm glad I'm not like that publican over there. That old publican over there, he wouldn't even raise his head, he'd beat on his chest. He said, Oh God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And Jesus said, I tell you, that fellow went down to his house justified, not the other fellow. Now let me give you 8 or 10 things just real quickly that in the Scriptures demonstrate this love that Paul is talking about here. Now by the faith, hope, and charity or love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. First of all, this love is the object of God's eternal decree. In Ephesians 1 verse 4 it said, According as he hath chosen us and him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him, how? In love. God predestined before the world began that his people would be a loving people. They were loving people. We ought to be able to accept those people that look differently than we do, and smell differently than we do, and think differently than we do. If we can only love people that are just like us, then we're just cookie cutters. Chosen by free grace through no merit or worth. of our own. When God came down and gave me a new heart in 1967, He did so not because I deserved it, and not because I was worthy of it, and not because I sought it, and not because I had done anything to earn it. He did it because it pleased Him to do so. were vessels chosen for a purpose. And that purpose is to be made holy and innocent in Christ. And I know in eternity that we're going to be wrapped up in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. In fact, I am right now. But while I'm in this world, it is also God's revealed purpose that He is working on me to make me more like Christ than I was before I knew Christ. This is the end and the purpose of the moral law in Scripture. In Matthew 22, 37, Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. The greatest and deepest and most persistent object of our love must always be our God. I love my children. I love the saints of God in this church. God knows how much I love my dear wife and how much I miss her. But I love God more than any of them. for a lot of reasons that I won't go into right now. It's near equal to loving God, Jesus said, is to love your neighbor as yourselves. You don't have to love him better than you love yourself. You don't have to give away everything you have to him. But if you've got two coats and he doesn't have any, you ought to give him one of yours. After all, God gave you both of his. I tell you what we need to learn, we need to learn to do, when the Spirit of God speaks to our heart, we need to just do what God tells us. I wish I could tell you I do that perfectly. Yesterday I was standing in the line at the grocery store and I was paying for my groceries and there was a young woman behind me that obviously must have had a bunch of kids because she was buying a whole bunch of stuff that kids eat. And as I was paying for my groceries and I could see her going through stuff and I could tell she was wondering if I had enough money to pay for this. The Lord just laid on my heart and I reached in my pocket and I gave the cashier a couple $20 bills and I said here put this on that lady's groceries back there. I don't know who she is. I may never see her again. And I didn't give that money to that lady to help pay for that woman's groceries necessarily to help that woman. I did it because the Spirit of God told me to do it. I got more out of it than she did. If the word of glory moves on your heart to do something, you ought to do it. You ought to love people the way you'd want to be loved. If you were standing in line at the grocery store and you were just counting your Cheerios and cookies and bread up to wondering if you had enough money to pay it and feed your children, and somebody in front of you had more than they needed, wouldn't you want them to help you? This love is also the chief evidence of regeneration. As I read a while ago in 1 John 4, 7, John said, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knows God. This is the chief evidence of regeneration. You can tell me that you're a changed person because you don't have this bad habit or that bad habit. I don't smoke and I don't chew and I don't go with girls that do. I'll tell you, the evidence of regeneration in the Bible is love. If God changes your heart, He will invariably change your attitude towards others. I've told you this story before, I'll probably tell it again. The clearest evidence that I have in my life that God really changed me and did something for me in 1967 was the man who I had hated all my life and plotted for a way to murder him. that God made me start loving that man. And I prayed for him till the day he died. And only God could have done that. Because what I hated that man over had not changed one bit. Not his attitude towards me, nor the situation. But God took away my ability to hate. This is the essential operation and the effect of saving faith. In Galatians 5, 6 Paul said, For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Love tears down all barriers of acceptance. Grace always takes care of the race issue. Somebody not long ago accused me of being a racist. I don't get flabbergasted by many things. I was flabbergasted by that. Forgiveness will provoke mercy and tenderness. I have to admit to you, before God changed my heart, I used to walk down the street and see some poor beggar and I'd say, that sorry rascal, if he'd get up off his dead rear end and go to work, he wouldn't be sitting out on the street corner begging. But God's changed my heart. And I think, wonder what that poor fellow's going through. I wonder what trouble he's in. It might be his own fault. If you cut your own finger off, it don't hurt any one bit less than it does if somebody else cuts it off. This is the grace that promotes both personal and mutual edification. In Ephesians 4.16 Paul wrote, For whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part maketh increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love. Your whole body does not have to be in pain. If you've never had the gout, and you ever get the gout in your big toe, I will guarantee you, you will not notice that your nose is itching. You will be in so much pain, it will make you forget everything else that's going on in your world. You won't be concerned about the national debt. You won't be concerned about international relationships. You won't be concerned about the crabgrass in your yard. The only thing you're going to know is, my toe hurts. And if you're a child of God, and that your brothers and sisters in Christ are hurting, then it ought to make you hurt. And if they're joyous, it ought to make you joyous. One of the greatest blessings that I got out of Paddy passing was how many of the people in this church came by me And they were as broken hearted as I was. And that isn't just Mauldin's sentimentality, it's the love of the brethren for each other. It's the love of God's people for each other. The love of God will give you an acceptance of other people. 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 1 says, Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up! But love edifies, love builds up. Love will make us accept other people. There's a lot of people in this world I don't agree with. A whole bunch of them. One of the greatest lessons that God ever taught me was to disagree with people in an agreeable way. Just because I disagree with you about something doesn't mean I have to be hateful and mean. I mean, I'm even nice to Duke fans. Moose Parks has been my buddy for a long, long time. I know one of these days he'll get to heaven and God will teach him to not be a Duke fan anymore, but for right now I still love him in spite of that. This is the proof of God dwelling in us. And us dwelling in God. In 1 John 4, verse 12, he said, no man has seen God at any time. He has never seen God. And if you think you have, you're delusional. You can't see God. He's the Spirit. I hear these crazy goofball preachers on the radio having a tent meet and say, if you come down to the purple tent tonight, God's going to be there. Well, he might be, but you won't see him with your naked eye. He said, If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit, and we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. If Christ is in you, you're going to have a loving heart. And by the way, if you understand depravity, if you have a loving heart, it's going to be because Christ dwells in you. Because by nature, you don't have a loving heart. Sometimes people come up to me and say, oh, they're the loveliest people. She's the loveliest woman. He's the loveliest man. Listen to me. Without Christ, there's enough devils and rattlesnakes and black mambas and cobras and piranhas and whatever other evil thing you can think of in your heart to fill a cement pond. It is invigorating and challenging, however, to me to know that God dwells in my heart. It lifts my spirit to know that God lives in me. I was reading that song the other day that talks about, you ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart. It's also challenging because when my flesh gets in the way and I start thinking, mm-hmm, that Lord cut me off, I'll just run Him off the road. The Spirit of God says, don't not do that. Don't not do that. It's just absolutely amazing to me and encouraging to me to know that I dwell in God's heart. I'm sorry. I was watching a little boy the other day eat cotton candy. You ever watch a kid eat cotton candy? It's hilarious. I like it myself, but I don't eat it because it makes me sick. But I love to watch little kids eat cotton candy. They got it in their ears, they got it in their eyes, they got it up their nose, in their hair, everywhere. They got it all over them. But it's hilarious to watch a kid eat cotton candy. But I feel like a kid eating cotton candy when I stop to think about the fact that the Bible tells me that God Almighty delights in me. He delights in me. He's in me and I'm in Him. This is declared by God to be the greatest of all Christian virtues. The Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write these words. Now by its faith, hope, and charity, these three, but the greatest of them is charity. Colossians 3.14 tells us, Above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. This is the apex of faith. This is the peak of religion. Your religion is not quantified by what kind of clothes you wear, what kind of jewelry you wear, what habit you have. It's quantified by this. Do you love God? And do you love his people? But the greatest of these is charity. Right now, as I speak to you, there are millions of people that are rushing towards hell with a false sense of security that's rooted in their own accomplishments. You ask most people. Try it. I mean, don't just take me at face value. Try it. You ask most people, what's your hope? If you died right now, what's your hope of going to heaven? And I'll guarantee you that about 95% of them, if not more, will start off with, well, I've always tried to be honest. I've always tried to be a good wife or a good father, pay my taxes, don't kick the dog, don't beat my wife, don't spit on sidewalk. If that's the only security you've got, my friend, you don't have any security. But blessed comfort, what blessed consolation, however, is to be found in God's love for His people. And in the love He plants in our hearts for other people. I think there's always a sense of failure on our parts. in loving each other. I think about over my life about people that I've loved and I think how I feel like I failed them. You know, I look at my children and I think about how many times I failed them in one way or another. I think about my wife and I think how many times I failed her in one way or another. I think about my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my neighbors, you folks. And I realize just how often I have failed so much in loving you and loving them the way that I should have. But at the same time, I also rejoice that there's no lack of love towards me on his part. He loved me and his son. to the nth degree. I'm not sure what that is. I've always heard the nth degree is a whole lot. God loved me that much. If you're in Christ, He loves you that much. Love is required by God as an essential part of true religion. Without love, there can be no grace here. and no glory hereafter. In Christ alone there is love. And now abideth faith, hope, and charity. These three. But the greatest of these is love. Christian love is essential to the Christian experience. Amen.