Love Matters Most
First B Jackson
2011-10-02

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Go ahead and get started. Yes. Okay. Alright, good morning. Good to see you guys this morning.

I'm sure after this first song, all these seats will be filled. So, why don't you guys go ahead and stand with me? We'll say a word of prayer and get going. Dear God, thanks for today. Thank you for everyone who showed up this morning.

I pray that you just be with us. I pray that you just prepare our hearts for the message today and just give us hearts of worship as we praise you. Jesus name, amen.

Hope of a life spent with you so here I am to worship here I am to bow down here I am to say that you're my God you're all together lovely all together all together all for love's sake he came for so here I am to worship here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you're my God, you're all together lovely, all together worthy, all together wonderful to me. And I'll never know how much it sin it upon that cross. And I'll cost to see never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross. So here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you're my God, you're altogether lovely all together worthy all together wonderful to me so here I am to worship here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you're my God, you're all together lovely, all together worthy, all together wonderful to me.

Alright. Nice singing, guys. Why don't you take a second and greet one another? Give a handshake or a hug and we'll get back into it. Testing one.

Testing one. Come on. Okay.

In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my life, my strength, my song. This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and stone. To say till on that cross as Jesus died. The wrath of God was satisfied for every sin on him was laid.

Here in the death of Christ, I live. As he stands in victory since curse has fought its grip on me for Jesus commands my me from his hand till he returns and calls me home. Here in the power of Christ dies.

Let's give God a praise offering. Come on, may hear it.

You guys can have a seat.

Good morning. You may be seated. Wow, super. Alright. If you take out your information packet, there are a couple of things I want to bring to your attention.

I love that echo. Woah, woah, woah, it's cool. I love it. It's like the angels are talking. If you look at it, here it is, a number of quick things.

First of all, this Saturday, VeggieTale party, October 8 at 10AM in the Fellowship Hall. The name of the VeggieTale, Princess and the Pop Star. Hey, I might come see that one. Bring snacks and, everything they provide for you, so come and be a part of that at 10:00 in the fellowship hall this Saturday. Also pretty soon it's our harvest festival.

I know this whole place has turned over into a giant harvest game room and it's our alternative for Halloween. There's one holiday I hate of all the holidays in the world and that's Halloween because it it glorifies the enemy. It glorifies the devil. But it gives us an opportunity also to reach out to people who don't understand, don't know. And so what we're gonna do that day is like we always do is we chance for this whole thing, lots of games along the side, little cakewalk here, so we need your cakes, it's a huge task in setting up.

And so do we have a table back in the back, Nancy? Okay. So so, as soon as the service is over, go back out there and sign up what you can do, bring a cake or help with the setup and so forth. It's a great opportunity for us to minister to folks in our community. So please be a part of that with us, and you'll love it.

Also, you'll see in your in your information packet, our life groups. Some of them have already started, and some will start this week. Mine starts... Marlon and I starts Monday night. So if you don't have a a life group yet and you'd like to be a part of one, we start Monday night at 06:00 at the Parsonage.

So see me afterwards if you wanna be a part of that. We still have room for a couple more, and we'd love to have you be a part of it. There you can see all the ones that are starting. Many of them have people in... All of them have people in them and some of them are full, but not all of them.

And so if you see one you'd like to be a part of, just contact that leader and they'll love to have you be there. Also, because Carl is with our young people today at a youth retreat, There'll be no middle school or high school Sunday school at the break. There's an adult Sunday school class now, but there will not be one at 10:00. You can see a number of other things that are there and we wanna remind you of them just look at them. Oh, yeah.

It's gonna be pretty cool if you want to be a part of our choir practice begins 06:30 on Wednesday evening, 06:30 to 08:00. And, during that we're preparing for our Christmas cantata. So if you'd to be a part of that we'd love to have you do that with us. It's great having you with us this morning. How many of you are here for the first time?

Let me see your hands. We got some from, Baltimore Maryland. I'd love to go around and see where you are from. Anybody from the South? Anybody from, where?

Texas. Texas. That's real South. Nice and warm still there. Where?

North Carolina. North Carolina. Bless you. That's close to where I come from. I come from LA, that's Lower Alabama.

So that's good. Someplace else. Laramie. Laramie. That's that's real far away, Laramie.

Yeah. He jumped the mountain. Good guy. Alright. Where else?

Actually, you didn't. Anybody else? Yes. Well, Ecuador. I'm gonna introduce you guys in a second, but they come from the furthest.

They come all the way from Quito, Ecuador. The Borman family, will you stand up Borman? It's Ron and Esther Borman. They are from, Quito, Ecuador. Welcome them this morning.

Thank you. During the break time, one of the reasons why we have what we call connection time in the fellowship hall is to give, you opportunity to meet with one another and get to know people better. But also when we have missionaries come in, it's a great time for us to get to know them. Normally, just sit in and out. We don't get a chance to meet them.

And so during the break time, they'll have the little table set up, in the back and I think maybe even a laptop with pictures. But we wanna get you to get to meet them, and pray for them. Tremendous ministry among the Indians in near, Quito, Ecuador. Been there a number of times, not where they are, but in Quito and, tremendous place. God is working in unusual ways.

And so I want you to get to meet the Bormans and their family and praise God for them being with us this day. Alright. Well, welcome all of you that are here. We're glad that you do that. Before we take her off this morning, I I want us to meet...

Many of you know Ron Miller. Ron is one of our men who come to Wednesday morning at our Men of Integrity class at 06:00. Our... And and it's phenomenal what God's doing there. But Ron is also a missionary from Jackson to the ends of the earth.

And, he's heading out to Romania, in a couple of days, Thursday, to do a training. So Ron, will you come because we wanna pray for you this morning as you go, and would you share what God's gonna do, through you and through us as we partner with you?

For those of you who do not know me, I'm Ron Miller. I served in this church for six years teaching Sunday school to the teens and adults, and I had many great years at the First Baptist. But most importantly, through First Baptist and Don Young's leadership, he encouraged me to go into work in Romania and do four mission work with Peter Lukaccia, if you're familiar. Have... Has anybody here been to that particular ministry in the Bayish?

I will be in Bayish next week and I'll talk a little bit more about that. As at present, I serve as part of the Ukraine Team Of Evangelism Leadership schools in The Ukraine in 26 different Oblast and city of that country. The gift of evangelism like healing is often misunderstood and sometimes misdirected. When we think of evangelists and evangelism, we think of some of the successes of Billy Graham Crusades, and then often we think of the failures of the Jim Baker and Swaggart ministries. So we have a little bit of a distorted view of the gift of evangelism.

It is one of the gifts of the spirit. The opinion and percept... Perception of the gift drastically changed in my life in Yalta, Ukraine in 2005. I shared that with Don and Peter last year at this time. I find no particular fault in the other styles of this ministry, and they can be effective radio TV evangelism.

Often, we see the... We think of an evangelism as the curbside prophet with dreadlocks at the town square too, and that that is a style of ministry, but nothing like what we do with our evangelism leadership schools. I enrolled in a school for training and was quite surprised of what God's opinion was of the gift of evangelism. I thought in twenty years of teaching Sunday school sitting in the pews like you, I I kinda had a grasp of evangelism and what he wanted us to do with this gift, but he he showed me quite differently. I was doing...

I thought I was doing just fine with my approach to telling others about Jesus when I served in your church. I I was able to share and pray with a few people within your congregation, but nothing like what is happening in my life now. The gift of evangelism is an equipping ministry to train pastors, leaders, and the laity of the church to effectively share their faith one on one with people. It is not my job to evangelize the world, start crusades, set fires like that. My job is simply to go into cross cultural evangelism in Eastern Europe, take the pastors and mainly the leaders of the church and train them in an eighty hour week course where we go out into the highways and byways, hospitals, and and so forth, and I'll give you a couple testimonies of that.

I would like to ask just a few questions of you folks to... In in a little bit of a pop quiz. Does your church have such a ministry at this time? Yes. Yes.

This ministry is for ordinary Christians in practical situations to properly present the gospel. We use an outline form of the evangelism explosion that was written by James Kennedy in the eighties when he realized that his people were not... He he himself didn't feel like he was equipped for one zero one evangelism, and he wrote the material that we use, and we've translated it in cross cultural settings. How many of you have family, friends, and coworkers you know that are not Christians and you have desired to share your faith with them in the past week? Can you raise your hands?

Yeah. We we we work around these folks. We just... We're always looking for an opportunity to share with them and we just whether we just don't have the skill sets which I believe or we just don't have what it, you know, the right opportunity we feel we just can't do this. How many of you in the past week prayed with somebody to receive Jesus Christ as their personal savior?

Raise your hand. Anybody? No. Not not not to get technical with this, but that that's a good question. In in a one week period, next week in the town of Bayouj, we will probably have prayed with hundreds of people that we meet one on one to receive Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

It's a little bit tougher in The United States because people aren't as receptive here, but this past week I had the opportunity to share with one of my maintenance men and he received Christ as his personal savior. So it it's not a ministry that's not used here. Don asked me to share, in closing, just a couple of the testimonies that I have as I was training. I I would first like to take you to the city of Kharkov and talk to you a little bit about nation building. I was in the second year of my ministry there, and we...

I was reading in the Bible, the book of Acts. Remember where the sheet fell down and and... Over Peter and the four creatures, and God was telling Peter he needed to go to the Gentiles. So I was reading that particular chapter in my quiet time, and then we went out in our teams. We go out in teams to tell people about Jesus.

And my translator was a little gal that was quite a bold witness, but we walked up to a university and we saw a well dressed man actually in a suit and tie with a turban on. So we knew right away that he was a Muslim. We... I told my translator that I'd... With with my trainer trainee that week, I'd like to talk to this particular gentleman.

And my, both my trainer and my translator, were terrified. They did not wanna talk to him. They did not think we should talk to him because he's Muslim and he wouldn't listen. They they worked with me for about a minute as we stood there talking to each other, and I said, no. I I think we're supposed to talk to him.

So we went up, and I introduced myself as I did here today. I I told them that I was in the Ukraine doing different church work, and I'd like to share my faith with him. His name was Oman, and Oman answered the two questions. The first question we ask is, if you died today, do you know for sure you would go to heaven? And the second question is, why would God let anyone into heaven?

Well, he did identify very quickly that he was a Muslim, and he he wasn't quite sure if he knew he was going to go to heaven. I thought... I too thought he was going to reject my message real quick, but he let me share the whole gospel presentation with him. And and to much of our surprise, even to mine, when I got to the receive and reject part of the message, I said, would you like to receive Jesus as your savior today, Oman? And he says, yes, I'd like to do that.

So he prayed with us, very genuine prayer, tears coming out of his eyes, and young man too, about 30. And I asked him... Afterwards, I asked him, what are you doing here? Why are you here in Kharkov? And it turns out that they have a a special school for nuclear physicists, and he was from Iran working in the nuclear physicist program for Iran.

So that that caught our attention, and it it was so exciting to know that we were sending back to Iran nuclear scientist that was now a Christian. We encouraged him with his faith and and and I I saw a different way of nation building. I think we wanna go over and... With our armies and tell people that... About the great American way, but when I...

When when we sent Oman back, I thought now that's nation building. We need to to address this problem just a little bit differently. The next, testimony I wanna share is, about a wimpy time I had as an evangelist. I thought I had it together. We were in our third year.

I'm a great leader. I can I can help my teams out, and my? Our teams prayed that we would go to a specific place one day. And that place was stage one tuberculosis ward in Dapryzenysk. I'd heard a little bit about tuberculosis, we've taken it out of our country for the most part.

I I guess it's born through milk. It's it's a problem problem still in Eastern Europe. And I I agreed to go, but in my heart, I did not want to go to this particular ward. It's a hospital ward. The...

It was a nine story building. It was a dreary day, kinda like today in cold, but raining, and as I was walking about a mile to the ward with my team, I just didn't feel good about the whole thing. To be honest, I was arguing with God and I was... It felt... My feet just felt like Gladden.

It's like, Lord, I just do not wanna go in there. I'm praying for protection. They had given us our gloves and our mask and our hand wiping stuff, and I did... I just said if Laura knew that I was going to this place, she would just kill me right now. I just...

The the devil really just chimed in as on my little walk, and he was just whispering in my ear saying don't go to this place, don't go to this place. Well we got there and the first thing we do is we see three people standing at the front of this giant old communist looking hospital, terrible looking place, and don't you know the first thing they wanted to do was grab me and hug me? It's like, okay. Take the gloves off here now. You know, I guess I guess if I'm gonna get infected, I'm gonna get infected.

So we we talked to these three people. They all three pray with us and and encourage me a little bit, but I'm still pretty nervous about catching this stage one tuberculosis stuff. We go into the hospital, and folks, there are people that have been in that hospital for all of their lives. They were 70 and 80 year old people that have been in that hospital since they were two years old. Each room is like a little prison cell with four cots.

There... And they do lock them in. They treat tuberculosis like we used to treat leprosy. They they just lock them in this facility, and and they haven't seen Americans. This is not a popular tourist destination.

And of course, wants to hug you. We... The first room we went into, I I I was asking these people if they'd like to hear my let let me share my faith with them, of course, of course. And the... It was the first time that I had ever heard when I got to the Jesus part of our outline.

I said, who do you think Jesus is? And all four of the people in the room says, Jesus who? Folks, I've never heard of Jesus. Didn't even know who I was talking about. That's the first experience I ever had with that, and I explained to him who he was and what he did for us, how he died.

Of course, they all gladly received their hope level in those places are about as low as you can imagine. And and we ended up with our teams going through the 1st Floor of the hospital before we had to go back and make our reports, and hundreds of people received Jesus on the 1st Floor. The the... Thank you. The next day, I actually raised my hand in the prayer with all of the team leaders.

I said, can I go back to that place with my team? I I I didn't... I figured if I was infected by that time, it's like, I I... Well, let me go back. So each day, we we systematically went through each floor, and and I can tell you thousands of people came to know Jesus as a result of all these teams going through these wards.

Wonderful experience. The last one I wanna share, and I didn't mean to take so much time, was in Shatomar in a hospital visit. Again, was taking my trainee and he was very nervous. He he didn't wanna share his faith. He was he was shaking.

And I said, calm down. Don't be nervous. This is going to be alright. We're gonna walk into this hospital room. I'm going to take the take the lead here, and you just have to trust Jesus that he will help us with sharing with these ladies.

So we walk up to the first bed and calm, cool, and collected, I was gonna show my trainee how to lead this lady to to the Lord. She was sitting up in her bed. She said she'd like to... For me to share my testimony. And I said, well, can I ask you two questions?

And I looked at my trainee, I said, the first question is if you died today, do you know for sure you would go to heaven? She looked at me and after my translator translated that to her and she she jolted and she fell over into my arms and died. So so I'm trying to act calm, cool, and collected. Alright. My trainee is watching me.

He's a nervous wreck anyway. So I I knew she died. I I felt her pulse. I'm an EMT. I felt her pulse.

There's no pulse. Okay. So I gently laid her back into the bed and I told my translator, I whispered to her, I said, you need to go get the hospital administrator and doctor. So they they all rush in, rush in, that you know, she's dead. So my poor trainee gets to watch the first person we we witnessed to die on the first question.

So I thought, well, I better stay calm, cool, and collected. I said, Leonard, let's go over and talk to this lady that was in the same room. And she she literally right... Raised her hand and said, don't kill me. I saw what you did to her.

And I had to convince her I was not the angel of death. She actually did listen to our testimony and and received Christ that day. So I wanted to share with you. So those are just a few of the fun stories. So we actually do have a lot of fun with the on the job training and what we do.

We do ask for your prayers in Romania as many of you have served there. Pray especially that there's open hearts as we take eight pastors. We're going to train through those little bitty streets of Bayish and we'll be sharing the

and what love means. Love is giving. Love is sharing. Love is pouring your life into someone else. And and so as he goes, he he's gone where few would go and he's gonna minister to people that few would minister to.

And so we wanna join him. We wanna be there with him. We wanna pray for him as he goes. So will you join me as we pray for Ron this morning? Father God, we thank you in Jesus holy name for the privilege that we have at this church of being a part of what you're doing around the world.

And as Ron and his team goes to Beirut, and we've been there a number of occasions and know how open these gypsy people are to Jesus. And, so for the pastors that are gonna be trained, to be able to share the gospel in a very concise way and a very particular way where people can understand and be able to respond yes or no in receiving Jesus. We pray for a great harvest. We pray for protection upon them as they travel and we pray for a great harvest of souls as they're there. And that these pastors will be so ignited by the power of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit that the church would not only ignite but grow leaps and bounds more than they could ever dream or ask for.

We trust, Lord, that you're gonna do unusual things during these days. We pray for Peter and Anna as they're already there preparing and getting the pastors ready. And we ask, Lord, your blessing upon this trip in Jesus' holy name. Amen. God bless you, Ron.

Thank you. Hallelujah. Alright. I'll ask the ushers to come forward. We'll take our offering and then we'll move forward into the message this morning.

Will you guys stand with me for this lesson?

Is how much you love me. And I wanna say forever my love, forever my heart, life is yours. The nails in your hands, nails in your feet, tell me how much And forever they will say, because how much you love me. And I wanna say forever my love, forever my heart, forever my life is yours. Forever my love,

You guys may be seated.

Alright. Thank you very, very much. Open up your bibles or open up your your information package. You have the outline this morning, and we're gonna move right through this. We are in our second Sunday of the forty days of love campaign.

And and it's important for us to understand that we have been looking at this for a number of weeks. We just haven't called it that. Because because love is based on relationships. Love is about you falling so much in love with the Lord, allowing the Holy Spirit to teach you and to train you, and then to walk in that knowledge. Walk in that love.

Walk in that understanding. And see what extraordinary things that only God can do in your life. And so this morning, as we move in that, we're gonna talk about love matters most. And, really there there's three main things that you need to know. The first thing is that the best use of life is love, the best expression of love is time, and the best time to love is now is now.

So let's go there. The best use of love... Of life is love. Let... Let's make love our number one priority because Jesus did.

That's what he did. That's how he that's how he acted. That's how he lived. That's how he was motivated. That's what gave him energy day after day to love people.

And that's part of who we are here. We love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, body, and soul and as we love the Lord our God, that that's that's a great commandment and then we to love our neighbors and we love ourselves as we understand what love is. As we love God, then God so loves in us that we love others. It just automatic. It just comes.

It happens because we love the Lord so much, we have to love others. So let's talk about that this morning as we move forward. Let me give you a couple of quick things. First of all, love validates my faith. It validates my faith.

Let's look at first John chapter four verse eight. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. Will you say that with me? Let's say it out loud. Whoever.

That validates our faith. If we if we say that we that we know God and we don't love, we don't know God because God is love. To know God is to understand love and to begin to learn love in a powerful way. And so if I claim to know him with my head, but my heart is not engaged, then I don't really know him. Remember I've been telling you that the hardest journey in life, the 12 inches from our head to our heart.

And the battle that goes on between the head and the heart is torrential. It it's terrible. It it happens every day of our life. The struggles that we have from our head to our heart. It's unfathomable.

We can't even imagine the struggles that we go through day after day because it's difficult to take what we know in our head and move it to our heart and actually walk in it and love in it and and understand it and apply it to our lives where it means something to us and it makes a difference in what we do. I remember a number of years ago, we did the prayer day at Washington DC. And we were there at the Senate Building, and then the president was coming in and then all the congress and senator were coming in. And our organization organized it and helped fund it. And even though we were there a week ahead of time and planned it all, the day of the event...

And and we went there, didn't have to have any kind of security. The day of the event though, you'd have all kinds of security. And we had to have these special badges, and we went through four different security spots. And I remember one of the guys in our team who'd been there all week, worked hard, everybody knew who he was. He didn't have his badge.

And so because he didn't have his badge, even though they knew who he was, and even though they trusted him, and even though he'd gone back and forth, and there nothing wrong. Even though he was a man of integrity and well known without the badge, he couldn't get in. There there there was something that authenticity that gave him authenticity. That badge said, okay, you can come in to this particular event. That that's what love is.

That's what love is. When we have the love of God, let me read to you first John chapter four verse 20. If we say we love God but hate others, we are liars. For we can't love God whom we've not seen if we don't love others whom we have seen and so, how can we do that? The badge of our authenticity is our love.

Love validates our faith. Love also integrates my life. Colossians chapter three verse 14. Look at that for a minute. Read it with me.

And overall, let's read it out loud. And overall, these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity. Now, one version says, put on. It's an expression means that that that I put on love and in that particular context, Paul is talking about, well, put on righteousness, put on all the praise, put on these different things but put on love because when you put on love, all these things then bring unity together. Without love, there can be no unity and the expression of putting on in the Greek means that that that I'm actually taking off anything that would hinder love.

In order for me to put on love, I have to remove anything that would hinder it. And so putting on love and he said above all these virtues, put on love. Put on love. Clothe yourself with love is the expression that Paul uses. He wants us to understand that we put it on.

It becomes the center of our life. If it's not, we'll treat people so differently. If love is not our focus, if loving God is not our focus, if understanding love is not who we are, then we will treat people in a different way. We will say things in a different way. We will act in a different way.

But if love is that our purpose, if love is who we are, then what we say, how we say it, who we say it to, all is modified by our love for God. Everything that comes out of our mouth then comes out with that purpose and with that goal. We're loving God and we're loving people. So love integrates my life. It integrates my life.

It also compensates for my sin. First Peter chapter four verse eight. Let's look at that verse. Let's read it all. Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Say it with me. Alright. Let's try it one more time. You're doing really good, I know it's it's ten minutes at ten and some of you are just waking up. Let's try again.

Here we go. First Peter four, here we go. Above. Here we go. One, two, three.

Above all. Love covers over. What does that mean to cover over? What does that mean to cover over something? I I let...

Let me give you a verse here. I love this this expression. It's Colossians two fourteen. It says, God wipes out. God wipes out.

He forgave us all our sins having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us, that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. The version I have uses this way. He wipes it out. That's what canceled me.

He wipes it out. Covers means he covers over it. He wipes it out. It no longer exists. Can you imagine in your mind Ron Miller going into this tuberculosis ward sharing Jesus with people that had been there, some of them since childhood.

Couldn't see anything else but the walls of their building locked in, locked out. Whoever came were visitors, family, they never heard of Jesus. Hope was not in them. So even though Ron was struggling, should I should I go in or no? I don't want to go in there.

Why? Because he was thinking about what could happen to him if he went physically. At the point of going in, he wasn't thinking about what could happen to those people spiritually. It wasn't till he got in there and got there in extraordinary thing and he saw people come to Jesus. It didn't matter about the other because he said, you know, I can trust God for my healing.

These people need Jesus. It was an extraordinary love that came upon him. When he understood that God wiped away their sin also. They just hadn't heard about it yet. They didn't know yet.

These people in the in the tuberculosis ward were dying without Jesus and nobody was going to go there and nobody was going to tell them. But one day, God put it upon his heart to go. One day, God put it upon his heart to share. And the and the results were hundreds of people came to Jesus because the love of Christ was there. That's the whole point.

He wipes away our sin. It was nailed to the cross. Our sin, a person in tuberculosis ward, a Muslim on the street, their sin. Every person's sin wiped away. Do you see that?

Do you understand how important that is? When it happens to us, compensates for our sin. As I I look at the Old Testament, one of the steering the most stirring illustration for me is David. David is a man who lied, a man who committed adultery, a man who committed murder, and God says, he's a man after his own heart. So wait a minute, how can how can God love a man like this?

How can he be king? A man who lies, a man who murders, a man who commits adultery, man who's unfaithful, how can this happen? Because God knew his heart, and the heart of David was when he found himself in sin, like all of us, the human part took over, the flesh part took over. As soon as that happened, he confessed and he was then brought back in. Why?

Because his sins were covered up. His sins were taken away. His sins were wiped away. They were canceled on the cross. And David understood that even before Jesus died, God said, you're a man after my heart.

And because your heart is pure and you love me and you want to serve me, I'm looking beyond that. I'm seeing your heart. Love compensates for sin. God's love gives us power to forget... Forgive others.

Let them off the hook because we ourselves have been forgiven. This is a tough one for many people. In fact, I got a couple of things I want you to write down in the flight if of your Bible or else in the backside of the notes. Here is one of them. Love doesn't rub it in.

Love doesn't rub it in. It rubs it out. Love doesn't rub it in. It rubs it out. You know, we have a tendency to wanna rub it in, don't we?

When somebody does something wrong or we're offended or we just kinda wanna bury it in. And and when they come and and even sometimes when they say they're sorry, we wanna take a moment and rub it in. This is what you did. This is how you did it. This is how it affected me.

We wanna take that moment to rub it in. Could you imagine if the Lord did that to us when we confess our sin to him? Can you imagine how we would feel? So what the Lord does, he doesn't rub it in, he he rubs it out. He covers it over.

He he erases it. He nailed it to the cross. It's forgiven. So, does not rub it in, it rubs it out. Rubs it out.

You put that down. We'll bring it back to you later. Love liberates. It frees people from guilt, from grief, from grudges. It releases people from regrets.

Next thing, love reverberates forever. First Corinthians chapter 13 verse 13 and now these three remain, faith, hope, and love but the greatest of these is what? Love. Is what? Love.

Love. It lasts forever. It's last for... It's not something temporal. It stays with you eternally.

God's love in you. Love is there. That's really powerful. You want to leave a legacy? Leave love.

People will forget what you've done. They'll forget what you have, but they never forget the love you give to them. They never forget when you were there when they needed you most. Love lasts forever. Remember, I've done an awful lot of deathbed visits.

And you know when people are dying, they're not asking for their family to come and bring them their diplomas. They're not asking to see their checkbook one more time. They're not asking to see how are the stocks doing. They're not asking to see, to have all their accomplishments written... Read to them before they die.

They wanna look up and see the people who love them. Who pray for them, who care for them, who are there for them. They want to know that those people are there with them. That's why it's so important for a family to be together even in those last moments. A demonstration of love.

Because that's what's important. That's what lasts. That's what's there. It reverberates forever. So if that's the case then, why do we allow our relationships to to get the short end of the stick?

Why is it that we get so overloaded, we get hurried, and when we get hurried up and and all these things, we start to skim away relationships. We focus on what's urgent, but not what's most important. Nothing can take the place of love. Fame can't, wealth can't, nothing can take a place. When you get to heaven, God won't ask anything about your career, your bank account, or anything else.

He'll ask how you've loved people. Here's another thing I want you to write down. Life is not about achievement. Life is not about achievement. It's about relationships.

Life is not about achievement. It's about relationships. But busyness keeps coming in, and I lose sight of what matters most. So if that's the case, let me give you the second principle. The best expression of love is time.

The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. First John chapter three verse 18. Read it with me, will you? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.

How do you spell love? T I M E. Time. E and our men's group on Wednesday morning. And ladies, if you haven't kicked your husband, I mean, urge your husband out of bed to come and be with us Wednesday morning at 06:00, you need to do that.

One of the things that we're learning are the five languages of love. I I asked one guy, I said, what is your your, wife's love language? He said, English. I said, no, no, I mean I mean, what what is the language that that that inside when when it happens you know that she understands you love her? I don't know.

Well, how long have you been married? Forty years. And you still don't know your your wife's love language? No. I told her once I loved her and if I changed my mind, I'll let her know.

This is happening. I'm sitting to talk to this guy And I'm saying, okay. You got some things we have to learn, don't we? And so we're going through these five things, words of affection, quality time, gifts, acts of service, physical touch. And as we're working through this, I'm asking him again, what do you think your wife would say is her love language?

He said, I don't know. I've been with this gal for more than forty years and I don't know. I love her. She knows I love her and I... And she loves me.

I know she loves me, but I don't really know. So that day, his assignment was to take her out to lunch and ask her what her love language would be. And then the second question he was to ask her was, how am I doing in expressing that love language? Now for my wife, it's quality time. Now quality time to my wife and quality time to me, totally different.

Quality time for me is I... I'm gonna watch a football game. I bring my wife in. She can sit down and watch a football game with me. That's quality time.

And then I take event and I'm rubbing her feet together, know, and I'm rubbing around and I'm watching the game and she might wanna say something in the middle of our quality time. Honey, it's not now. I don't want to. I'm in the middle of this game but I'm giving her quality time. And so, after it's over and and the reason why I know that because when we get in little discussions about it, I'll say, I gave you quality time.

We spent all Sunday afternoon together on the couch. Was I rubbing your feet and watching the game together and it wasn't a wonderful time we had. She said, no. How can you say no? It was great.

My team won. That's great. It's always great when they win. Because you weren't talking to me and you weren't listening to me and you weren't hearing me. See quality time means that we give our wives quality time.

It doesn't mean we share with them our time. We call... It's like taking them hunting. They're sitting there freezing out while we shoot the deer and they can come clean to take the meat down. That's quality time.

No. That's our time. And so for my wife, I've had to learn over forty years what quality time is all about. And listen, when I give her quality time, oh, what tremendous, tremendous results. Jesus gives relation...

Essence of relationships. Let me give it to you as we're time running out of here. It's not what we do for each other. It's not what things we give each other, but how much of ourselves we give. Ephesians chapter five verse two.

You may have to zip down. Let's look at this one first. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. In other words, it's not what we're doing.

It's not the law. It's not activity. It's love. It's love. It's love.

Ephesians five two. Be intimator... Be into imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us, gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Here's another thing I want you to write down. We only have a few minutes here so I want you to take time to write it down.

If it isn't a sacrifice, it's not real love. If it isn't a sacrifice, it's not real love. If you're not giving of yourself, it's not real love. You're just going through the motions, you're just going through activities, it's not real love. You can give without loving but you can't love without Can't love without?

Giving. Giving. You can give without loving but you can't love without giving. And so that's what it is. If it's not a sacrifice for you, it's not real love.

It's a sacrifice for Ron as he goes to Romania and shares. It's a sacrifice for the Bormons as they give their lives in Ecuador. It's a sacrifice of love and they are giving their lives to people who respond to the love they give. And what amazing response happens when we do that. Jeff just finished an auction and I think you're...

Are you doing another one? An auction that the proceeds went to help. What was the money used for? Yeah. Muscular Dilsby.

And and they interpreted the same thing for epilepsy. It would... They were acts of love. Sacrifice is love where people gave things and they were sold and all of the benefits went then to help people. These are acts of love and sacrifice.

Alright. Last thing. The best time to love is now. Now. Not someday, not sometime, not tomorrow, not next week, not let me check my daytime or not let me check my calendar and let me put a...

One of the thing my wife does now and she's helping. She said, I want you to put because I'm just so... My mind is going a 100 miles an hour and I'm already thinking about what I'm gonna do next week, next Monday. It's already planned out for me, what I'm doing in my head. So okay, now I gotta I gotta put...

We are gonna have a date here. So she has to put it on the calendar so I can see, ah, this is my time for her. And then when I miss it, she said, did you check your calendar? I said, sure. Where is it?

Well, I mean I had it here. No, no. Why didn't you put it on your calendar? Why isn't it there? Why don't I see my name there?

Now it has to be that graphic with me. Now some of other guys is not a problem, but me I have to be able look, oh there it is, noon. Gotta gotta be with my wife at noon. I better be sure I'm there. So that it becomes part of who I am because we allow everything else to come in and take our time, don't we?

And so we must love now. Now. Now. The best time to love is now. How many empty nesters do we have here?

Oh, good number. Empty nesting is not fun. Especially when you spend all your time when you're taking care of the birds and and your little kitties in the nest when they're gone, it's almost like a whole different life comes in. You gotta readjust. You you gotta rethink life when you're an empty nester.

And the chief regret of most empty nesters, I can't say everyone but I haven't met one yet who hasn't had this but there probably are a few. The chief regret is I wish I would have spent more time with my children. I wish I would have spent more time with my family. I wish I would have given them more time. That's a chief regret.

Let me give you a quick illustration of that. Some of you know George McGovern. He was a one time presidential candidate. The reason why I bring him up, he has a book out. And in his book, talks about his daughter who was found frozen to death in a snowbank.

She collapsed from a drunken stupor, died there. He went back in in in... As he was cleaning up her room, and he read through her journals. You wanna know something very revealing? And we think on negative side, but no.

Very willing to go through your children's journals and see what they think. As he was reading the journals, the entries, he began to find out that she kept writing notes, my dad is too busy here, my dad's too busy there, my dad's out in the campaign trail here. My dad... I called my dad yesterday and he was... All I got was a busy signal.

He didn't respond over and over again. And what he... And when he thought he had a relationship with his daughter, he realized that he didn't. And these are his words and I quote them. I give everything I have, I mean everything, for one more afternoon with her.

Just to tell her how much I loved her and to have one more opportunity to be able to share good with her. The chief regret of empty nesters is not enough time. The chief regret of all of us one day could be that. So let's not have that. Let's not have that.

Let's begin now. And your homework is this. Your homework is this. I I I want you to take fifteen minutes a day. Fifteen minutes a day with your wife and with your children, each one.

Now you're okay, you only have one wife and one child, so you're okay buddy.

Thirty minutes.

You're you're alright. A day and you're done,

That's right. But

Dan and Dancy have 27 children and so it's gonna be a long day for Dan. Fifteen minutes a day with your children, fifteen minutes a day with your with your spouse. And and listen to them, pour into them, give them your time. Not like I said, I'd have my son come, come on son sit in my lap and we'll watch the game together. That that's not giving time to your children.

Fifteen minutes a day with your spouse and with your children, with your girlfriend, whoever you're with, and you're sitting down with them and you are looking into their eyes and your face and you're asking them. First of all, you're telling them that you love them. And then you're asking them, how are... What are some ways I can show that to you today? What are some ways I can demonstrate that...

The wives are going, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. What are some ways I can demonstrate that to you today?

How can I do that? And you will see over the course of this week how love becomes practical for you. Because love is who we are, and love is how we live our life, and the best way to do that is now. Let's do it. Father God, we thank you for each one of our friends today.

We thank you for your word. We thank you Lord for what you want us to do. You want us to demonstrate love. The best time to love is now. The best people to love are those who we are with.

The best opportunity to give to us now is to show genuine love to our spouses, to our children, to our friends. Because you loved us. You demonstrated that. So Lord, this week may we be instruments of love to all those we come in contact with and especially our families. In Jesus name.

Amen. Let's stand together and say.

Hold. No. This world is not my hold. No. Heaven is where I belong.

Heaven, oh heaven is where I belong. Heaven, oh heaven is where I belong. Heaven, oh heaven is where I belong. With Jesus, my Jesus is where I belong. With Jesus.

Oh, Jesus is where I belong.

Father God, thank you for this morning. Bless each one as we enjoy the rest of the day. May we be instruments of love for you in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright.

Before you go to forget 05:30 tonight at Awana, and let's enjoy, our friends at Bormons back there in our Connection room in the Fellowship Hall. Have a great, great day. God bless you.

So I think that room's really fun for him. If there's people in there,