TV 1739 | The Most Important Thing Part One

You know, we had a service, I think it was something like three weeks ago, three or four weeks ago anyway, about living a life worthy of the Lord. And I had some more thoughts that are related very much to that, but I think they're even more central to the subject than maybe what we were talking about then. In fact, I might title this the most important thing because, you know, when you boil it all down, it really, there's a simplicity to what God is doing in us. I certainly need Him to do a whole lot, but I, you know, it can get so complicated in our minds that it needs to be broken down into something that's very, very simple and easy to play hold of. You know, Paul spends the first three chapters of Ephesians laying out the amazing gospel and all that God has done for us and how awesome it is. And of course, he finishes, you know, now to him it was able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. So I mean, it goes beyond anything in our power to imagine, but thank God for all of that. But anyway, then he launches into, okay, now what? What did he do all this for? As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. All right, so what does that mean? Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love, make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who was over all and through all and in you all. So he kind of breaks it down into the issue of character. What kind of persons, what kind of people are we meant to be? And of course, you know, he's leading into this discussion of the body of Christ and how connected we are with one another. And so that is very central to what he's talking about.

My character needs to be humble and gentle and patient and I need to put up with people, but what's the ultimate word that is central to everything? It's love. When Jesus was about to go to the cross and he was giving some of his last instructions to the disciples, he gave them one command, didn't he? Just one. What was that one command? Love one another as I have loved you. Now that puts it in a whole different category because we have what we call love in human society and it's in keeping with human nature, which is entirely self-centered, it's basically what can you do for me and how do you make me feel and it all comes back to me. But I'll tell you, God's love is the very polar opposite of anything that you and I call love in this world. And you think about how it is that Jesus loved. You remember the passage we've so often used in the beginning of Philippians 2 when Paul is exhorting them to be of one mind and one heart and follow the example of Christ. And then he goes into what Christ was willing to do and that's amazing enough, but why did he do it? We know that in the end result he winds up being exalted above all, but does anybody here think that that was Jesus' motivation for doing it? Hey, look at where I'm going to be if I do this, I'm going to be on a throne, isn't that cool? No, it had nothing to do with that. It had everything to do with sacrificing everything that this world could possibly have offered to do whatever it took for you and me here this morning. That puts a whole new dimension on what he's asking of us. That takes it out of the realm of human ability completely. There's no way that I can love you or anybody in my own strength because it's always going to be wanting you to come back to me in some fashion. And so he immediately, the way Paul puts it, he tells you a little bit about what it takes

to do that because everything he mentions in here is totally contrary to human nature. If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to actually put this into practice and not just mentally assert that, yeah, this is how it ought to be, I need help. Anybody here with me on that? Yeah. We need help. We can't do it. That's why it's got to be Christ in us, the hope of glory, the life that I now live in the flesh. It's not me living it anymore, it's him living it. That's where he's going with this. But I'm going to have to humble myself. I mean, that's the thing. Make every effort to ... Wait a minute, back up. Be completely humble. This doesn't say be humble, be completely humble. Anybody here got that, got there yet? Oh, we need the Lord to help us to be willing to absolutely let go of all of the ... everything that just centers in self and pride. I'll tell you, it's amazing how much we get in the Lord's way, we get in the devil's way in a bad sense. Humble and gentle. Are we always gentle with one another? Be patient. Oh, how patient we are with one another. Now we sure want them to be patient with us, but patient with others, forget it. And bearing with one another in love. Right there you've got the sense, and Paul is well aware of the reality of the fact that while our sins have been forgiven, we're very much in a working process. During that time, we're going to have stuff that shows up in our lives that is not good.

What is my responsibility if something shows up in your life and it's a real need and it's a real problem? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to say, straighten up and fly right? What's the matter with you? And look down upon you? I have to have a spirit of patience and grace. Now if I understand who I am and what the reality is, all I have to do is look in the mirror and say, hey, you may not have that need, but you've got them. You have no business doing anything but being patient with one another because we will have real needs that will provoke human nature. And all of this factors into the reality of what God is trying to do is to bring us into a unity of the spirit. And he doesn't say achieve the unity of the spirit. He says keep it, guard it. In other words, if God works in a people, a group of people, and he brings them to the new birth and there's brand new life in us, that new life in us, that spirit within us makes us one. Now think about what you would do if you were the devil and you understood the power of unity when you have people who truly are not only inhabited by the same spirit, but they're working in harmony with that spirit. Oh, that's scary to the devil. You think about how the people came together after Pentecost. There was one heart and one mind and one spirit and they cried out to God together and boy, the power of God was there. I wonder what keeps the power of God from being at work in us. Do you think there's maybe some needs in this area? That God wants a people who are so one in their heart, but boy, it means learning how to be the kind of person that God wants us to be and reckoning on the fact that my brothers and my sisters are not perfect and God does not give me the right to react to that in

a negative way, and yet we all do. God give us the grace. If we're going to live a life worthy, it's not just about me and my own personal achievements or I can say, hey, look at me, I've overcome this, I've overcome that, I'm a good person. This has everything to do with how do I relate to other people? Because if the kingdom of God is real, if salvation is real, it has everything to do with how I treat you and how you treat me. That brings it down into real life because we are going to be interacting, we are interacting with people every day, in the home, on the job, in the store, in whatever. When people see us and how they perceive us, do they see Christ in us or do they see just another person who's like me? Yeah, do you see what a life worthy of the Lord comes down to? It gets into some very sticky subjects that are very, very real, that God help us. I follow so many scriptures and there's more than ... you could possibly use, but I don't know exactly, you know, everywhere I'm going to go with this, but this is, this matters, folks. What do you, how, how do you think the Lord looks down and he sees two people that are at odds with one another? Does that matter? Is that important? And particularly if each one of them thinks, well, I'm right, I'm doing everything right. It's them. But folks, if there is something in you that is against them, the problem is you, even if they never get right. That's scary. Am I telling you the truth? Think about how Jesus reacted. Did Jesus take everything that happened in his life personally? If there was anybody ever in the history of the world that had reasons to get mad at people and upset with them and unforgiving toward them and all the things that we'd go

through, it was him. And yet there was a steadfast, persevering love that continued to be concerned for their souls. God help us. Of course, 1 Corinthians 13, everybody knows about that one, but let's just kind of review some of this stuff and think about in relation to our lives. Because Paul, I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but Paul spends a whole chapter again showing the most important thing, because he's talking about the gifts of the spirit and all of that and the place that they hold. But now I'm going to get to what really matters here, and it's love. Because if I do all these other things, I don't have love, I'm nothing, basically is what he says in so many words. All right? So it doesn't matter how spiritual you are. If you don't have love towards other people, you don't have anything that matters. Anybody here need some grace? Yeah. Love is patient. Oh, I'm so glad God is love because he has to be patient with me. How many of you have gone along in your lives and the Lord's brought something to light that's not really nice, not really good? Maybe you didn't even know. You didn't even realize. All of a sudden God shines a light and you look and you say, God, you knew about that all along. How in the world have you put up with me? But he has. He's loving. He's patient. He understands the process.

He's more concerned with my welfare, my ultimate welfare than he is in just reacting to every little thing that's wrong in me like we do. Love is patient. So if there's anything in you, for example, if the devil, if this is a weakness, well, it is for all of us, but I mean to the degree that it's a weakness in you to look at somebody and see a fault and not be patient with them about it and allow it to affect how you feel about them and how you act toward them, something is wrong. That's not Christ. Cut and quiet. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. See, every one of these things has to do not just with some vague feeling. This is not just an emotion either, by the way. This is a choice as to how we act and interact with other people, even when they're wrong. And they may be. Maybe they're doing some of the same things, but somehow you feel like that justifies me feeling the way I do about them. When they get it right, I'll be okay. Boy, was that selfish. That is human nature. Pure and simple. Oh God, help us to be set free from those kinds of things. It's one thing to be set free from some personal habit, but now we're talking about how we act with other people because you could actually get to a place where you say, look, I've overcome this. I think I said this earlier, but I've overcome that. I've reached this spiritual pinnacle of achievement. But if you haven't got love in your interactions with other people, you haven't gotten anywhere. You might be just a Pharisee.

And you know how Jesus felt about the Pharisees. God help us. But He is, isn't He? It does not envy, now envy again is just part of my ... it's a natural human reaction to other people. Does not boast. Look at me, how loving I am. God help us. It is not proud. Not a single person here has anything to be proud about when you're getting down to the real issues that matter. We have every reason to just say, Lord, I stand by grace alone. There's not one quality in me that I can look and say, this is why you love me. He loves me in spite of everything that's wrong with me. He looked beyond my fault and saw my need. Thank God. All right. It does not dishonor others. How many different ways do we have of putting other people down with our attitudes, our words, our choices, our things we say about people to other people? God help us. All right. Does not dishonor others. Not self-seeking. It's not about me. If somebody doesn't pay attention to me, I'm going to pout. I'm going to be mad at them. They're wrong. They're leaving me out. Good gosh. We need the Lord, don't we? We need to find our comfort, our identity, everything in him to where we can be free from all of this stuff that just plagues the human race. Do you think any of these qualities, if you want to call them that, any of these characteristics are going to be in the new creation? When God gets through with us, there won't be anything left but love. All of our focus will be on the welfare of others and we'll get our greatest joy about being able to help somebody else and encourage them and give them joy and peace and all of that. Thank God there won't be the kind of needs we have here, but I mean, it was just giving somebody else joy, just like everything Jesus did was for us, nothing for himself. Boy, it takes the grace of God to become that kind of a person. But is not the plan of salvation meant to not just, like I say, deliver us from the guilt of sin, but it's to make us like Christ? Yeah. That's what the whole thing is about. Not self-seeking, not easily angered. Oh, how we react to this and that. God help us. It keeps no record of wrongs. Anybody here ever achieved that? Somebody did something and you didn't feel good about it and you didn't like it and it hurt you. I ain't forgetting that. Keeps no record of wrongs. Oh, I'll tell you the stuff we carry around in our hearts and our spirits and what it does to us

and how it breaks the unity of the Spirit. Every one of these human characteristics interferes with the operation of Christ and His body. I mean, suppose, you know, think about the human body. We are so interconnected. Our circulatory system supplies for the whole body, our nervous system. But suppose you started having little interruptions in that. It's not going to be good, is it? God has put the whole body together so that every one of us has a measure of the life of Christ in us so that we can help somebody else. But if any of these characteristics get in there, all they do is get in the way and we can pretend all we want to. We can put on a smile and say, hi, how are you doing? And in your heart, you've got something. Lord, help us. All right. Keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails and so forth. And it talks about the fact that prophecies and all of that, they have to do with this world of this age. We don't need prophecy when the new world comes. There's one thing that will prevail, and that's God's Spirit of love, and it will rule over everything. I need deliverance, don't you? Because stuff affects me. When I'm around people and they act a certain way, or I perceive them a certain way, there are reactions that happen in me. I need deliverance, but I thank God there's somebody I can look to who can help me when I start identifying these things, I say, wait a minute, that's not Jesus in me doing that. God, help me. You know, we've, so many other scriptures, like Galatians 5, we read that recently and it's, but seeing it in this light, I think is important. Let's see, Galatians, there it is. And he talks about freedom from the law and all of that. But listen to what he says about the rituals of the Jews and all that, it has no value, but in the middle of the end of verse 6, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, that's it. You want to break the Christian life down, that's it. Faith means I have to trust in him for all that I need to make this happen, so I'm looking to him, but I am expressing it out this way. It's faith that works through love, that expresses, expressing itself through love.

If there's anything short of that, we don't have it. We can come together and make beautiful music and talk about the wonderful doctrines and all of that, but if we don't have this, we don't have anything. May God pour out his love in a fresh new way, not just so I can feel love, but so that I can genuinely love other people. Praise the Lord. Okay, and down here in verse 13, you my brothers, we've read this again recently, you my brothers and sisters, we're called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather, serve one another humbly in love. Ah, see it's not just about what I don't do, it's what I do, okay? For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, love your neighbor as yourself. By nature, we all love ourselves, but loving our neighbor to the same degree, that's a challenge. In fact, it ain't happening without the new birth, without Christ coming in and doing it in and through us, all right? Love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. He's writing to Christians here, okay? So, I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. I need his Spirit to come in and empower me, and I need to be willing for him to empower me, and I need to make choices that are in tune with what he is after and what he wants, okay? Walk by the Spirit, okay, for the flesh desires what is contrary and so forth. Let's go down here and go through this again. The acts of the flesh, verse 19, are obvious. Now some of these are private, things you could, in a sense, do in a cave, or in a cave if you had internet access. But they're private, they're personal, they're things where I let Satan come in and he gains control in this area or that area. But notice how many of them have to do with human relationships, sexual immorality, impurity

and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, then he gets into hatred. How many of you have had a strong, violent reaction to somebody that's just, it's a dislike, call it what you want, but it rises up and you don't want to immediately recognize it and say, wait a minute. No matter what they have done or what they are, God has called me to love them. And I have the power to love them if I'm willing. This has been the Midnight Cry broadcast. If you would like a DVD or CD of today's message in its entirety, please request it by program number. While it is not required, a donation of $10 for DVDs and $5 for CDs is suggested to help with expenses. Also for those who request it, we will send you our quarterly publication, the Midnight Cry Messenger, free and postage paid. Send your requests to Midnight Cry Ministries, Post Office Box 685, Southern Pines, North Carolina, 28388. We invite you to join us again next week at the same time, and may God richly bless you until then.