Becoming Love pt. 3 | Pastor Dwain Wolfe

Thank you for your word, Thank you for your ministry

to us. We appreciate you coming right now with teaching, training, correction,

and reproof lead us into all that you've made us

to be in the new creation. We bless you for

it and for your living word, not only in the atmosphere,

not only coming from Holy Spirit, but alive within us.

We give you the praise in Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen,

you may be seated. Hallelujah.

Well, good to.

See you all, praise. The Lord's going to be seventy

seven tomorrow. What are you going to do with seventy

seven vitamin D? Here we come, hallelujah. What a blessing.

Amen.

Amen, Amen, I want to talk to you a little

more more today about becoming love. Becoming love. Everybody's say

becoming love. Now, the truth is at the tricky title.

The truth is you've already become love for Shawn for

seventeen says as he is, so also are we in

this world. So we've already become love essentially. But we

have to bring our heart, our mind, our emotions, our

behavior into agreement with what He's made us to be.

And I found that with my children as well, and

we are children of God. At the Wolf House, you know,

we had certain things that were characteristics of the Wolf Home.

And though they were wolf children, and it couldn't be

taken away that they were wolf children. They certainly had

our last name. They certainly popped out of Missus Wolfe,

so it couldn't be denied. But many times they didn't

carry forward our characteristics.

And so.

Part of the success of parenting is instilling in them

the values, the DNA values of your family. And then

when the children reflect those values, you will say things

like they make me proud you ever said that kind

of a thing, or you'll observe that, you know, And

I know that can come rarely sometimes when we look

at our kids, right, I'm teasing with you then, but

you know, yeah, all the time, all the time. But

they make me proud when we actually say that. What

we're saying is that the lifestyle they've chosen is reflecting

the lifestyle put in them, So therefore they must love me.

So when children carry forward, so you know, funny things

with us, you know.

And I was, you know, thinking of some.

Today, I was trying to think of some and I'm

not being braggadosius on my family by any means whatsoever.

But I was thinking, you know, trying to think of

some that we instilled in them for the sake of

this illustration. But you know, one was loading the dishwasher.

Wolf children, we have four of them. Wolf children load

the dishwasher, They do the dishes. Mom works hard on dinner.

So this is, you know, the way it was often

at our house. Not that Dad never helped. But you know, Mom,

it's okay, you really don't want me making you dinner

because every dinner I ever made taste exactly the same.

And Joel calls Joel calls that goulash. I'm like, how

is it, honey, She's like, that's just like the last

guulash we had.

How could that be?

I use different flavors and different spices and different It's

a good question.

How can that be?

I don't know, honey, all make the dinners, you so,

But the kids, the kids would do the dishes, you know,

the kids would load the dishwasher. And if you've heard

Joel talk about this, she will tell you it was

the sound of I love you when when the kids

were loading the dishwasher and doing the dishes, so she

would say that. Sometimes at the house, she would say, oh,

I hear the sound of my children loving me because

they were loading the dishwasher. Right, So that's one of

the things it was, you know, And so you know

carrying that forward. If you come to our house for

a big dinner, you'll find that even afterwards, all the

kids are loading the dishwasher and doing all the dishes.

It's carried forward.

So they make us proud, but they're actually saying that

they love what we instilled in them so much that

they carry it forward into their own homes. So one

of the ways that our children.

Love us.

Is by carrying our DNA forward as they walk, as

they live, you follow them time. Another one is I

got a revelation from it. But all of my children work.

No no, no, no, no no. This is twenty twenty six,

and all of my children work. You don't understand, like

all of my children have jobs. No no, no, you're

not getting this. All of my children actually they for income.

They actually have jobs. This is a big deal.

No no, no, no, this is this.

Is like Halujah ha lujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. This is the

Hallelujah chorus. You see what I'm saying. So, but this

is a this is a value that we instilled in

our children, is that they pay their way. They paid

their way through college, they paid their way through their training,

they paid their way through they bought their cars, they

paid their way, they paid they continue to pay their

way today and they continue to work today. It's a

value to them, right, and so as they carry that

forward and they instill that into.

The next generation.

Actually, as we observe that we see this impartation that

we put in them, as they carry it forward, is

a way that they love us. You know what I'm

saying now, I'm bringing this up because we have been

born of the spirit, and the imperishable seed of the

Word of God abides in us. And that word that

imperish will see to the Word of God has completely

transformed our spirit man and made us new creatures in Christ.

And now the Word is seeking to revolutionize not just

our spirit man, but our soul and our body. And

one of the things that one of the characteristics that

the indwelling Word of God carries, that the Holy Spirit carries.

We read a few weeks ago, I think it was

on Easter Sunday, Romans five seventeen, that we have received

the abundance of grace, that by the gift of righteousness

we have received the abundance of grace, that we might

reign in life, that we might be triumphant in life.

The abundance of grace we are partaking now. Abundance of

grace is the abundance of the enablement of God. And

one of the most important, maybe the most important characteristic.

Of God.

That has been made alive within us, is a gop

a love. A gop a love is already alive within you.

A gope the the enablement of a gopey love, the

anointing of a gop a love, the grace for a

gop ay love, the power for a gop a love,

the vision of a gope love is already alive within you,

who are born of the spirit, and who have received

the imperishable word of God. But do we carry that forward?

Do we do we imitate Him in that love? Have

we have we captured our on being to partner and

cooperate with that love? And John twenty one and John

twenty one he tells us something crazy and John twenty one,

John twenty one versus one through. Wait, there's a story there.

This is after the Resurrection. After the Resurrection, the disciples

go fishing and they're out on the water all night

and they didn't catch one fish. And so then as

they're coming into shore, Jesus is there. This is after

the Resurrection. Jesus encounters them and Jesus says, hey, have

you caught any He yells from the shore, hey have

you caught any fish? And they don't know who he is.

They don't know who this vagabond is on the shore right,

And they said no, and he said, cast your net

on the other side. Like, oh, it's Jesus, my word,

caught up with us again. I thought we were hiding out.

So they throw the net on the other side and

they catch all the fish and they come in and

they're like, oh, my word. And so he's there with

a fire and he's cooking fish. He's making breakfast for him, right,

and he he and they come in and he singles

out Peter, Peter with the loud mouth, with Peter with

the leader of the pack, Peter with the a class clown,

Peter with the onery one. And he singles out Peter,

and he says, Peter you love me more than you

love these fish, and he uses the word agape. He says,

do you a gope me more than these more than

you know you? And Peter answers, Lord, you know I

fialow you. Now remember in the New Testament when you

look in the strongs concordance, or you go to your

et sword, or how many of you have a stronges concordance,

Well you know you can load it on your phone.

Now you can get a strongs on your phone. Or

if you've got an es sword, how maybe have the

sword on your phone. You don't have to write that down.

You need esword. It's a free app. You need the

sword on your phone because if you get loaded sword

on your phone, you can get into commentaries, you can

get into studies, you can get into you can get

into the strongest concordance.

And the strongs concordance.

Gives you the original word on every word in the Bible,

every single word in the Bible. It gives you the

original word in Hebrew or Greek. So es sword you

can just I think it's free. So remember in the

New Testament, when you see the word love, it could

be one of three things. It could be eros, it

could be fi lao, it could be a gope. Right,

so it could be one of those three. So we

see Jesus, Jesus and Peter are interacting as like it's

kind of an interesting interaction, right, And so Jesus is saying,

do you a gop amy and Peter's saying I fullayo you,

But nonetheless Jesus still gives him specific instruction. Jesus says, okay, well,

that's good. I can work with that. Feed my sheep.

If you love me, feed my sheep. If you love me?

Do you really love me? Do you really love me, Peter?

I want to talk to you about your love Peter.

If you really love me, I'm calling you to feed

my sheep. So that's the first one. There's three times

he does this three times. The second time he says

it again, Peter, do you love me? And he says

do you God amy again and Peter says, Lord, you

know I fialayo you. God's trying to raise.

Our level of love and the Holy Spirit, the end

dwelling Holy Spirit.

That we've received in salvation is actually the love level raiser.

Like God has raised our level of love so that

we can live like him, we can act like him.

He wants us to carry his characteristics forward. When we do,

it's a way that we love him. Now, I know

there's all sorts of ways that we love him, and

we could. We usually think of those. One is Sunday

morning church attendance, and we're thinking, I'm going to go

to church because I love the Lord and that's valid.

And then the other time we're thinking, I'm going to

give financially because I love the Lord and that's valid.

And then you know, somebody else might think of something,

and you can come up with all of these ways.

But the emphasis of John twenty one is feed my

sheep and tend my flock. The second time he asks this,

the second time, do you agape me? Peter says, I

fillail you. Then the Lord he gives the same commandment.

He's like, okay, well I can work with that. But

here's what I'm asking you to do. Tend my flock.

The word there is a different word in the Greek

and it means govern, guide, lead, care for, bring order

and administration to the flock. So first he says tend

the flock or I mean feed the flock, and then

he says, tend the flock. And then he does it again.

There's a third time, and the third time Peter's like, Lord,

you know my heart? You know because he says do

you you?

God bay me?

A third time and Peter says, Lord, you know I

filayo you. Now, this is God working on Peter's heart.

All of us need our heartwork do on because Holy

Spirit was calling Peter to a greater level of love

and a cooperation and a partnership with Holy Spirit in love.

And honestly, Peter was resisting it. But God wasn't letting up.

Jesus wasn't letting up. God through the Son was not

letting up. And so he says it again. He says

it again. Feed my sheep, Feed my sheep. So this

is interesting, This is interesting. How do we show our love?

How do we show our love to Father. It's not

about the dishwasher, it's not about work. We're not talking

about the wolf family. We're talking about the family of God.

How do we show that we love God? We carry

forward his characteristics. Jesus was the chief shepherd. He cared

for the flock. He's not here anymore. You're here, He's

here through you. He's here through me. He says, I am.

The good shepherd.

By the way, this is John Tenn He says, I

am the good shepherd, and I lay down my life

for the sheep. Every other shepherd that came beforehand, they

were hilings because they were thinking only about them.

Oh.

Oh, that's filayo love. That's the problem with fialao love.

That's why Peter was in trouble. The problem with fialao

love is that it's mutual. It demands mutuality. Filao love

is relational love. It's the emotional love, it's friendship love,

it's companion love, and requires mutuality. And I'm afraid this

is the way a lot of us live in church

even today. Even though we're born of the spirit, we

haven't graduated up into a gop a love. A gop

a love is one way love. Filayo love is two

way love. If you ride a motorcycle like I do,

you know that two way highways are a lot more

dangerous than one way highways. On a two way highway,

you can get hit, so they can be on their phone,

and if you're on a motorbike, that's not a good day.

You don't have an airbag, it might not be a

good day. Two way love is more dangerous than one

way love. One way love is intentional love. It is

sacrificial love. It's investing love. It's love so that something

will bloom. It's love for the benefit of another. One

way love doesn't require love back. One way love a

god a love. Let me read to you the difference.

I've been holding my phone on purpose. You wondered if

I'd lost my mind, But here I am. My mind

is still working. But I had a definition here okay,

a gop a love unconditional, unconditional, you tick me off.

I'm still going to love you. You've got my parking spot.

I'm still going to love you. You're singing my song. I'm

still going to love you. You got first place on the

Harmony team. I'm still going to love you. I love somebody.

You got my Spanish girl zone. I'm still going to

love you. You cult in front of me in the

coffee line. I'm still going to love you. You took

my bathroom stall and I'm in trouble. I'm still going

to love you.

Let's just get real, folks, Let's get real right there, Maybe.

Unconditional sacrificial without constraint. It's voluntary. Nobody's making me do it.

It's volitional, sacrificial, unconditional, volitional, it's of my.

Right.

But you have to understand you can turn off the

agape or you can turn it on, because you have

the power in your soul to cooperate with the Holy

Spirit or to discooperate. I'm afraid that in the church,

and I'm not looking at anybody in particular, so I'm

just my eyes room everywhere because i don't want you

to feel funny. But I'm just afraid that in the

church mostly we operate in for layo love. I helped

them move. How come they're not helping me move. I

flagged down the parking team and got them a spot,

But when I needed one this week, they weren't there

for me. I went down volunteered at the church. Nobody

gave me a shower or of thanks. We had those

folks over for dinner five times. They've never called us once.

I served their kids so many times back in Nitro,

They've never served me one time. I'm sick of this garbage.

I'm never doing this again. I'm just burnt out. I

worked in the cafe. For three months, all I wanted

was a free coffee. I didn't have a dime on me.

All they gave me was water. Do you know how

long are you kidding me? I helped her do all

of her artistic paintings. I provided half of her paints.

Now when I want one, she wants to sell it

to me.

Flao. We're operating out of fialao love.

We're expecting reciprocation all of the time, and if we

don't get equal reciprocation, we're ticked off.

I thought they were a Christian, all right? How long

have they been serving the Lord? Anyway? We're ticked off.

We're upset.

Suddenly judging their level of love when we're not called

to live there. The Christian is not called to live

in falao. The Christian is called to live in a gope.

We build up one another. We care for one another,

we provide for one another, we esteem one another, we

honor one another. We help one another, and we don't

need it in return. We're not looking for a return.

Now.

Agape is so powerful, Remember I told you last week.

A gope is so powerful that it will resolve conflicts,

It will win every relationship it will break down every barrier.

A gope is.

There's nothing stronger than a gope, nothing in the universe

stronger than a gope love. And Jesus said, my love

demonstrated for you is so strong that when I'm lifted

up in a gope love, it will draw all men

to me. What's drawing us to Jesus is not the

holy spirit club of God, the cosmic club of God.

What's drawing us to Jesus is his life that he

that he forgives us, that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us and gave himself for us. No

greater love would one show than to lay down there.

They lay down their life for a friend, and he

calls us friends. How could he call us friends who

have flipped him off in customs, wore and let out

every kind of profanity of hatred against him, who wanted

nothing to do with him, who violated everything that he

ever stood for, And he calls us friends. He calls

us friends, and then he laid down his life for us.

That's a gopey love.

A godpe love is actually what we're supposed to This

is how the church will flourish. Frank talked about This

is family day and God's calling us to family.

This is this is how.

The church is called to actually grow and mature and flourish.

Is that we don't keep record of wrong suffered against us,

That we believe the best about one another, that our

love for one another never fails, that we desire the

best for one another.

This is love. This is First Corinthians thirteen.

Is the living, abiding, holy Spirit expression of God through us.

That we're patient. Why should I be patient? They were

so impatient with me. I want reciprocation. Nope, that's falleo.

Leave it behind, go to First Peter. Let's go to

First Peter one twenty two. Okay with me, Listen to

what fileo is. Falleo is brotherly love. It's friendship or affection,

and it's literally natural affection. Everybody say natural affection. Now,

I will submit to you that if you try to

live out of the flow of agape and you're not

born of the spirit, connected to the spirit, feeding on

the spirit, you will burn out. And this is why

there's so much burnout in churches, Why there's so much

burnout in the things of God, so much burnout in serving.

I had a small group and nobody cared about me. Well,

I had a small group. I fixed snacks every week.

I fix snacks. Do you have much money it costs

me to have those snacks? I mean like we had goldfish,

we had potato chips and dip, we had granola bars

and kool aid. I mean I was spending thousands of

dollars on snacks. Nobody gave a rip, nobody cared. Nobody

nobody ever asked if they could do snacks. So we

get all burnt out. Why are we burnt out? We're

disconnected from the head. The head is love. We're disconnected

from the spirit. Acting like every other Christian, and we're

comparing our actions with every other Christian, therefore justifying our

actions because every other small group leaders burnt out too.

The lords just calling us higher. Come up out of Fialao.

You don't need reciprocal love. You don't need anybody to

pat you on the back. You don't need to whine

and moan about your five dollars on kool aid and cheese.

It's God is more than enough for you. You're going to

reap from God. You don't need to reap from people.

You're going to reap from God, you're not going to

reap from You don't need to reap from people. You

never need to reap from the same people you sewed

into because you did it as unto the Lord. So

you're going to reap from the Lord. The Lord is

your reward. Watch him be your supply. All this grumbling

and complaining and moaning and counting the cost and nobody

sees it.

A bunch of garbage.

It's Falleoh, we're looking for recipitation from humans when God said,

let me be your source, let me be your supply,

let me be sufficient, Let me be enough for you,

Let me be your everything. Let me be your abundance

for you. Don't you know I've already chosen to put

in you the anointing of abundance first Peter one, Now

that you have purified yourselves, can you oh, okay, all right,

all right, I messed up on this.

It's my batter.

I gave you the NIV, and the NIV is just

not very good on this. And you know what, I

go to the Bible app right then, that says, are

you enjoying the Bible app It wants me to take

a survey, and I'm preaching, so I said no, and

I'm like, I know that's a mistake. As soon as

I say no, another thing pops up. Please tell us why. No,

I'm not telling you why I don't like the Bible.

App I do like it. I don't have time to

tell you.

Why give me a break and let me alone. Bible apse, lovely,

it's wonderful. Go get a life somewhere Verse twenty two. Okay,

so we have it in the out of you.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth.

So you've come to Christ. You've come to Christ. You've

given your heart to the Lord. Now that you've purified

yourselves by obeying the truth, so that you have a

sincere love for one another. The love there, that first

love is fialao. Now that you've come into Christ, you've

acknowledged you have a falao for one another. But I'm

calling you deeper, know a gope one another deeply from

the heart. Peter is calling now. This is a time

under great persecution the church. He's writing to a church

that's greatly distressed and under great persecution, and he's writing

to them. And we don't see this when we look

at the text. We don't see this, We just see

love twice. But what Peter is saying by the Holy

Spirit is that when you come into Christ, you come

in and you begin to relate to the body out

of fialao. But the Holy Spirit is calling you to

now begin to a gope one another. Thank you you

went forward, and thank you for going backwards, so that

you have a sincere love for each other. Now a

gope one another deeply from the heart. And it goes

on to say, why, because you've been born of imperishable seed.

Because you aren't who you are. You're thinking, I'm gonna

filayo these brothers and sisters. But because you've been born

of imperison vers. Twenty three place, because you've been born

of imperishable seed. No, you need to come higher. The

seed of God in you requires a gape with me.

We have to stand, we have to close.

The piano has been back there for a couple minutes,

and now I'm in big trouble. The beauty, the beauty

of us coming together, Wow, the beauty of us coming

together as a body is rich. Actually, us coming together

is telling Dad today, telling Papa, telling Abbo that we

love him because we value, we cherish the body. But

the other way that we cherish the body, and it

requires a gope and we recognize, Okay, I have a

goape in me. I'm going to intentionally, out of volition,

I'm going to serve. It means getting involved, getting involved

in somebody else's kids. Those aren't my kids. Why in

the world would I go back and serve in Nitro?

Those are not my kids. My kids grew up a

while back. I'm done with kids. Oh really, are you

done with God? Well, no, I'm not done with God.

Then you're not done with kids. Sorry, you're not done

with kids. If you're not done with God, you're not

done with kids. Because the way we show him that

we love him is we tend the flock. We feed

the flock, We care for the flock, we feed the flock.

This is a gope, a gope.

So when we think about outreach or hospitality, when we

think about these ministries, the Altar team, the Destiny tribe,

tribe needs you, tribe, the youth ministry needs you. What

am I gonna do with youth? Man, I don't know

what I'm gonna do with your ministry? Find out, ask

them how to support they need prayer teams that they

need prayer covering, they need food, they need they need drivers.

There's a host of things they need for Tribe youth,

and then for the Kingdom kids, and then for the

Nitro kids, and then over here we've got all sorts

of We've got the Trail Life Ministry, the Heritage Girls Ministry,

We've got all these ministries here right and we're gonna

ask you this morning, because we're closing our lead, to

run around and connect with three ministries. Don't leave the

room until you connect with three ministries. You're not signing

up for your life. You're not signing up. You're not

even signing up. You know you're signing up. You're signing

up to hear more about it. The leader is going

to reach out to you and let you know more

about it. We just had a big transition in the

Cafe team. We need a bunch of you in the cafe.

We've got transitions going on, We've got things happening. So

you're thinking, oh, there's no room for me in that ministry.

Oh there might be now because things are happening, and

there's transitions happening all the time in every ministry. And

you are the person that fits perfectly to make that

thing happen. So don't leave and get your Spanish calzone,

your l Salvatorian call zone until you stop by three

of these and say hi, and say hi the leader,

and then sign up, sign up, and in doing so

you're saying, hey, I'd like to know more about it.

We had over seven hundred on Easter Sunday and we

didn't have room for all the cars. We need people

on the parking team. All of this is caring for

the flock. All of this is tending the flock, and

all of it says to Father, I love you, I

love you, Father. We bless your people. Let's put her

hands on them.

Let's see this together. Father.

I agree that the seed of the Spirit, the seed

of the Word, the seed of God dwells in me,

that agape love is alive on the inside of me,

and that I come up higher, I leave Falo behind,

and I embrace the agpe that You've called me to

and enabled me with in Jesus' name, And everybody said, amen, Amen,

let's go, go, go, go, praise the Lord.