Love Transforms Lives

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Chukmanamui.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Which means happy New Year.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: You didn't know it was New Year's today, did you?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Yeah, in uh lunar new year.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So it was Sabbath day in much of Asia

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They were celebrating the lunar new year.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And so many of them went to church dressed in their national costumes.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So Cheryl and I decided to, since they were wearing theirs, that we should wear ours.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So we are celebrating with them.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So you are celebrating with them.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We've already had it mentioned a couple of times.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Today is what day?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Valentine's.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I see that we have lots of people missing today.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They must be on Valentine's weekend or something.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Taken their significant other and gone someplace special.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Cheryl and I like Valentine's Day.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Forty-four years ago, I decided that I should ask her to be my bride.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So it is an anniversary for us.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Thank you.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She said yes.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I'm so happy that she said yes.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It has been a blessing in my life.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: life.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I cannot imagine what it would be like if I did not have her.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We were young, also young

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Uh I'm not sure we knew exactly what we were doing.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I don't know if anybody else does, but I'm just telling you I don't know if I knew what I was doing.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But I'm gonna tell you God's grace.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Is good.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: God's grace is good.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: There were so many things that we did not know.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: There's so many things I did not know about love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That uh it has been quite a learning process.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I even learned more this week as I was studying for for for the message today, things that I had not realized

Pastor Dale Tunnell: before.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But something I did know before.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: People just want to be loved.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean if you love someone, if you just love someone, the dramatic change that can come in their

Pastor Dale Tunnell: life if some if you love somebody.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And if you love them, the dramatic change that comes into your life because you love them.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: This week I read a story about an Adventist church that was holding a depression.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: uh recovery seminar.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It wasn't the the the the special speaker that was there but was

Pastor Dale Tunnell: something that they had on the uh DVD being played at the front and then there was the the the expert talking to them.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: On the DVD, and then there was some discussion for those that were suffering with depression.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It had been advertised in the community, and as they were getting ready to start

Pastor Dale Tunnell: A little woman showed up and she sat in the back on the very last place there was to sit.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It was almost like she

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Didn't want to be there because she did not want to integrate with people, but she sat there and she sat through the presentation.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She sat back in the back during the discussion time.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And she got up to leave just as as things were being dismissed.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But she did stop and sign up for

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The seminar.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It was supposed to be an eight-week seminar, and then she came the next week and she

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Got there right on time, but she still sat in the back.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And just as it was over, she was gone.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But the third week, when she arrived, she sat.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Well, it was still behind everybody else, but it wasn't at the back.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She sat a little bit closer, but just behind everyone, and she still observed and she listened

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But by the end of the eight weeks, she was sitting on the front row and she was participating.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It was like she had been transformed.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It was like she was part of the group.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And after the eighth week after she had partaken of the

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The food and the things after everybody had been talking, she said, Pastor, and she asked the elder that had been helping, she says, Can I talk to you two privately?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They took her into one of the rooms that was there close, and she began to tell them a little bit of her story.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: How the first night she had actually driven past the church because she couldn't get herself to actually turn in.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And finally she got down the road a little bit and she turned around and

Pastor Dale Tunnell: came back and that was the reason that she was late.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She wasn't sure she really Well, she didn't like being depressed, but she wasn't sure she could do this.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But after eight weeks, she she was there and she told a little bit more of her story and the right it seemed like as she was telling her story, she just looked at them and she said.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Is it okay if I be a Seventh-day Adventist?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And the elder and the pastor were kind of taken back, and

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It's almost as if they looked at each other and they could read each other's thoughts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We haven't taught her anything from Daniel 2, Daniel 7,

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Daniel 8.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She doesn't know anything about Revelation 12, 13, 14.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She's asking

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She had told them that she did not have any any Christian background.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It's not like she was coming back to Christianity.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She had told them

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That she didn't really know Jesus.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then so they one of them just looked at her and blurted out, why do you want to be a Seventh-day Adventist?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And she said, well, you you guys just love me.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I like the way you love on people.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I like the way that you guys love each other.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I just I want to be part of this.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: How do you answer her question, can I be a Seventh-day Adventist?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They kind of looked at each other and said, Yeah, you can be a seventh day adventist.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We'd be happy to have you as part of the church family.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But one of them said, Uh, we'll sit down with you and we'll do a little studying so that you understand what Christianity

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Christianity is all about.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: You understand what you are getting yourself into, what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist, what it means to love people.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The last few weeks we have been talking about spiritual gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: You wondered how I was going to relate this, didn't you?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Open your Bible to Ephesians chapter 4, where we left off last week.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Ephesians Chapter Four

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Ephesians chapter four, there were talks about the spiritual gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Beginning with verse 11.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Says, and he gave himself some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of man and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: As we read that last week, I I told you that these gifts are going to be applicable all the way until we get to the place where we come to the fullness and the stature of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I told you last week that I feel like I have job security.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Maybe not job security as in the pastor of Mesa Palms, but I feel like I have job security, as that God has gifted me to be a pastor.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I know the pastors are going to be around either as long as I'm alive or until Jesus comes.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Because it's going to take a while because there's always going to be devils going to be around trying to trick men and using his cunning craftiness and deceitful plotting.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But notice what verse 15 says, 15 and 16, it says, but speaking the truth in what?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That love there is the word agape.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Speaking the the truth in love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That means wanting what is best for the other individual, not what is best for yourself.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Wanting what is best for the other end of it.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Speaking the truth in love

Pastor Dale Tunnell: may grow up into all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together, by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working, by which every part does its share.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That last word there love is agape as well.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: These spiritual gifts are supposed to be used in such a way that love continues to grow in the church.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: These spiritual gifts cannot be used without love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We've been looking at spiritual gifts there.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: You guys know where they are now.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Romans chapter.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Spiritual gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Romans chapter.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Okay, no one remembers.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I know the people that remember, they've gone on away for the bake the holiday weekend there.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Romans chapter twelve.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Again, you have spiritual gifts here.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Paul talking about these verse 4, but we have many members of one body and all the members don't have the same function.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We have different gifts, and he lists the gifts there.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: In verse 9, though, you come down to that.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He says, but let love be without hypocrisy.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He reminds them that these spiritual gifts are are are couched with with love, that agape love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now, here in Romans and here in Ephesians, he mentions this love, but when he talks about spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians,

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Turn your Bibles again, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where he talks about spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, chapter 12, I mean.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I should say first Corinthians, he talks about spiritual gifts in detail, fantastic detail for us.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: First Corinthians chapter twelve, he's talking about spiritual gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He's talking about them so that we can understand spiritual gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, come down to verse 26.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: 1 Corinthians 12, verse 26, it says, And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

1 Corinthians 12:26

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It reminds us, I mean, it tells us that if if we have a church family, if we're we're one body, if one of us is suffering, how many of us are suffering?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: All.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Have you ever been walking through the house and you stub your toe?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: What happens when you stub your toe?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Oh, don't say those bad things.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Yeah.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But you cry out in pain because your your toe is hurting.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But when your toe is hurting, what happens to the rest of your body?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It feels it because you begin to hop around.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Your head feels it because that's where the pain is.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That the whole body recognizes that that little toe that you just stubbed.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now you could just, little toe, what's wrong with you?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Straighten up

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But instead, we understand what it means when the body is in pain.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Conversely, it says, when one is honored.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: All of us rejoice with it.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We celebrate with it.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Sometimes we forget how to do that.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: that our our envy, our jealousy, when one is honored, we're like, why did they choose him?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Why did they get the scholarship?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I should have got the scholar.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I'm as bright as she is.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I don't understand.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It says when one re-w re is honored, all of us

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Should be rejoicing with that.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Come on down to verse 31.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It says, but earnestly desire the best gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And you may be thinking, which gift is the best gift?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Paul kind of puts them in his order there, just before that, 27 to 31.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He puts them in his order, what he understands as the best gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Not what the Corinthian church understands as the best gifts, but what he understands the the order of spiritual gifts kind of are in his mind.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Then he says, the second part of that verse 31, and yet I show you a more excellent way.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then he begins to go off into 1 Corinthians.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Chapter 13.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now, 1 Corinthians 13, we kind of like that chapter because it's the love chapter.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But we've taken this chapter and we have relegated this chapter to weddings.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We have relegated this chapter to marriage seminars.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We have relegated this chapter to engagement seminars.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Classes for premarriage counseling.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We have relegated this chapter to marriages that are struggling.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And we remind them what love means.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now, that's good.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They need to hear 1 Corinthians 13.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The premarried need to hear Corinthians 13.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Those that are in love and getting married need to hear 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But 1 Corinthians chapter 13, I want to remind you, it is smack dab in the middle of

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Spiritual gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: First Corinthians chapter twelve is talking about what?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Spiritual gifts

Pastor Dale Tunnell: First Corinthians chapter 13, that love chapter.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then 1 Corinthians chapter 14 is talking about the misuse that the Corinthian church has of spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So, right in the middle of this context of Paul talking about spiritual gifts, he puts that love chapter.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now, we shouldn't be pulling it out and using it for something else.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We should understand that it's right in the middle of this conversation about spiritual gifts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Notice what Paul says.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Verse 1, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clinging symbol.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He begins where the Corinthian church is, because if you read 1 Corinthians chapter 14, evidently the Corinthian church has taken that gift of tongues and put it as a top priority.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And Paul is starting there.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He says, hey, if you can speak with tongues, but you don't have love, you are a clanging bell.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Don't you like those clanging bells?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: No, we don't.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Then he goes on, verse 2, and he says, And though I have the gift of prophecy.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now he gets to what he he his explanation, the ones he just finished with in chapter twelve.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He said, Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So that I can remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Go ahead and look at that one more time.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The gift of prophecy

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, if somebody has the gift of prophecy and and you notice that and you look at them and you go, Wow, I wish I understood prophecy like they do.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They, it says, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, isn't it just you listen to some people talk and you think

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Oh man, when will I ever grow up and understand that?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I've been to college, I got a master's degree

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Oh wow.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Maybe a doctor's degree would I need so I can understand.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Because when they talk, it just sounds so beautiful.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Where it says, and have all faith so that I can remove mountains.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, if somebody had the faith like a George Mueller and can move the mountains or can can can cause

Pastor Dale Tunnell: God to to to to act in such a way that the people are provided for in oh dynamic ways

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Ways we can't understand.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They're able to move the mountains with their faith.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: How do you look at those kind of people?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, it's as if Paul should have should have quoted from Matthew chapter 7 where Jesus is talking there and he says, those people that they're saying going to say to me

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But we prophesied in your name, we cast out demons in your name, we worked miracles in your name.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I have to say to them, Jesus says, Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, because I don't know you.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It's as if Paul heard Jesus say that when he when he quotes here verse verse 2.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Verse 3, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, I think about that that rich young ruler that came to Jesus, and Jesus said, Go and sell all that you have.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And though I give my body to be burned.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That's the martyr, the one who dies for Jesus, Stephen who is stoned.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But have not love, it profit

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Profits me nothing.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Boy, when I read that, I just wow

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I thought martyrdom was was was okay to die for Jesus if I if I could just die for Jesus then

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Sometimes we have that mentality that that the that the Muslims have that if we just die for God, that we're going to make it to heaven.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Paul says that even if we die for God, if we don't have love, if we're not doing it for the right reasons, it profits us nothing.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I'm reminding A I'm reminding us of this

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Because even if we use our spiritual gifts that we've talked about in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and Ephesians 4, even if we're using our spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And it seems that we're working together as a family.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: If we're doing it for the wrong reasons, it profits us

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Using your spiritual gifts to share the doctrines taught in Scripture may produce baptisms, but it may

Pastor Dale Tunnell: not produce loving people if they do not know Jesus Christ.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Using your spiritual gifts to help the church grow.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Will not get you to heaven.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Having enough faith to move a mountain, but not doing it because you love people.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Why I circled that one.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Not doing it because I love people.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I thought faith was that one that it was important to get me to heaven.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I had to have faith to get to heaven

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But if I have enough face to to to move a mountain, surely I have enough face to to get me to heaven.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Paul says that that kind of faith is worthless without love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Love is what transforms.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Love is what changes

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Changes.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Love is the dynamic that we have to have in our lives

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I don't remember the young boy's name.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He came to the church there in Ulam

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Batar.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I'm gonna call him Dorge because that's a good Mongolian name.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He came to church and he was dirty.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And he stank.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And when I say he stink, he stinked bad.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Everybody began to scoot away from him.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The Mongolians began to to ask him to leave, but somehow he began to to move his way around the congregation, the small groups that were in the same

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Sanctuary and he found the English speaking Sabbath school class with all the foreigners.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now he knew a few words of English.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But he ended up sitting in that Sabbath school class, and then when he had opportunity, he began to look at each one of us, and he said

Pastor Dale Tunnell: m money and from that Sabbath school class he did get a little bit of money

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But the Mongolians then were quickly to see what was going on and quickly took him out of church.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But he noticed what had happened, and so a week or two later he was back.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And he knew where the English speaking group was and he was there asking for money again.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I encouraged the Mongolian church there to not

Pastor Dale Tunnell: ask him to leave, but to allow him to stay as long as he did not interrupt and cause too much of a problem.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But they couldn't stop him from going to every foreign.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: he saw and asking for money.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They tried to stop him, but they couldn't stop him from all of them

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So he would come to church from time to time.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I remember one time he he came to church and and after church we were getting in our vehicle to go home and we

Pastor Dale Tunnell: lived a few kilometers from the church and it was really, really cold outside and and because we lived a few kilometers, there were a few people that lived along the road and

Pastor Dale Tunnell: along the way and they all wanted to get into the vehicle to ride and the vehicle was rather full and then George came and said, Can I ride?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And they looked around and it was really full.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And our youngest daughter, Ashley, she said, Yes, you can rise.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Have my seat.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dad, I'm gonna ride in the luggage compartment at the back.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And she moved to the luggage compartment in the back just fast.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And Dorge slid in.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And the people that were sitting next to Dorge were not sure about this arrangement.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And after about thirty seconds, the rest of us in the car were not sure about this arrangement.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Because he still did not smell it.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Good.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We had found out why he was living in the streets.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He was living under the streets, down where the heating pipes are.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He was what they they they the underground children that they have there in Ulumbatar.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But he rode with us to where we lived.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Now he knew our house.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I tell you, he continued to show up at church, and he continued to show up to church during our time there.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We left the country in 2006.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: 2017, we went, Cheryl and I went back there for a mission trip.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And as we came into the Ulumbatar church, there was George.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He saw us and his face just lit up so big.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I looked at him like, I know you, I know you, who are you?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Who are you?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It wasn't registering fast enough.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He came comes running over to us and he just threw his arms around me

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And held on and held on

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Mongolians are not huggers.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: They are not normally demonstrative in this way

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I'm a hugger, but I know when to stop.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: 1001, 1002.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: 1003 tap tap tap that's enough.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Or you're hugging back, you know, 1001, 1002, 1003, release.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Isn't that kind of the way it works?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: You know, and when you release, you're expecting to be released.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It did not work that way.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He held on and held on.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Through translation he expressed to Cheryl and I that he was still coming to church.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Because of Ashley.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And because we had loved him.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I looked back on his time there when I was there.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I don't think I ever loved him.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I think I tolerated him.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I tried to treat him with with dignity and respect.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But love, that's a that's a that's a big word.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Let me tell you, he was still there in church because of something that had happened during his street

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Children's Days.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: A few weeks ago I told you another story about Mongolia.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I told you about ABA.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The one who woke up in prison that did not have any any any clothes on when he woke up, and his clothes had been stratag.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: scattered through town because of his the night before.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Two t twenty twenty four, two years ago, we went to ASI and we were sitting there in the the back.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We weren't sure about a this was Cheryl and my first

Pastor Dale Tunnell: first time to to be at ASI and we weren't sure about everything that happened there and so we were just watching what was happening there and during the towards the middle end of the program

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I saw a man walking out and Cheryl tapped me and says, Does that look like Abba?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And I looked and I said, Yeah, I think it is Abba.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And we we we talked to each other and he he kind of walked past and and I got up and out of my row and I I went and

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Tapped him on the are you Alba?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He heard my voice and he whipped around and he grabbed me in that death hug.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And he held on.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And he held on.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: One thousand one, one thousand two

Pastor Dale Tunnell: 1003 release.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean I was happy to see him, but he held on longer.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: This was somebody that that that that that we had baptized, somebody that that had had had grown up, somebody that had become a pastor, somebody that was should know when to release.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Then he released me and he he he kind of cast me aside and he grabs hold of Cheryl.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And begins to hug.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I'm thinking one thousand and one, one thousand

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Until it gets uncomfortable for someone to a grown man to be hugging my wife.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: There were people with him, Mongolians that we had not met or didn't know us

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Finally, he releases and he says, introduced us to the rest of the group.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then he says, I love these people.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Love changes people, it transforms their lives.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It makes a difference.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Turn to your Bibles again.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: First John chapter 4, look at verse 7.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: What's that say?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He who does not love what?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Does not know God.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: In this, the love of God was manifested toward

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: In this is love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Propitiation for our sins.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We also ought to love one another.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: This love thing is important.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I see I skipped something here.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I said read a quote.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I have a a quote I want to share with you.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Ellen White writes, a true, lovable Christian.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: is the most powerful argument that can be advanced in favor of Bible truth.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Such a man is Christ's representative

Pastor Dale Tunnell: His life is the most convincing evidence that can be born to the power of divine grace.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: When God's people bring the righteousness of Christ into the daily life.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Sinners will be converted and victories over the enemy will be gained.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Isn't that beautiful?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: In the Review and Herald, uh July twenty-one, nineteen

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Ellen White wrote, The Lord desires me to call the attention of his people to the 13th chapter of First Corinthians.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Read this chapter every day, and from it obtain comfort and strength.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Learn from it the value that God places on

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Sanctified heaven born love and let the lesson that it teaches come home to your hearts.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Learn that Christian love is of heavenly birth, and that without it all other qualifications.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Are worthless.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Those other qualifications

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The spiritual gifts, though I speak with the gift of tongues.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The gift of tongues are important.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The gift of tongues that need we are are needed in the church.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The three angels' messages need to go to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: How does it go to every tongue?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We need somebody speaking in those languages so that they can hear the messages from the three angels.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The gift of prophecy is important.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Paul has put it at his top priority in chapter 12.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Without the gift of prophecy, we we can't understand the books of Daniel and Revelation.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The prophecies of Jesus.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: We need the gift of prophecy so that we have this understanding.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But even if we are able to give the gift of prophecy, even if we have the gift of tongues, if we don't have love, we don't.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It profits us nothing.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Both have to work together

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Both have to work together.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That's why Paul spent so much time.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: in 1 Corinthians 13, he wanted them to understand about this this gift of love, the more excellent way.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It is gone

Pastor Dale Tunnell: love that transforms lives.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Lives are not transformed because I listen carefully

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Because I post on my Facebook page about how to keep the Sabbath.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Or because I hold evangelistic meetings, team

Pastor Dale Tunnell: About Revelation chapter 13, understanding who the beast power is and the image of the beast power

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Those things may be important.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: People may need to hear those things.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But it's God

Pastor Dale Tunnell: God's love that transforms lives.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: First John here reminds us it's because the Creator God

Pastor Dale Tunnell: God Jesus came down to to this earth.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean he gave up his his his his his godness

Pastor Dale Tunnell: To come in in human form.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, had a preacher one time, he says, That's the equivalent of you, of me.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Becoming a cockroach.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: You want to become a cockroach?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: To save the cockroaches?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I didn't

Pastor Dale Tunnell: figure you did.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And when I heard the preacher say that I didn't want to become a cockroach.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But maybe that's further.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Maybe God Jesus came further

Pastor Dale Tunnell: to come in human form, to take on our likeness

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Our depravity.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: He loves us so very, very much.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: So very, very, very much.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I think about this and I

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I shake my head sometimes and wonder if I even know anything about love.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: This week I read the story about a woman and her husband who had gotten a divorce.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Some of you know how painful that is.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: After the divorce, they were working through the co-parenting schedule.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: How difficult that is.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then she found out that her ex-husband was going to remarry.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And that was more painful.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Time

Pastor Dale Tunnell: went by.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She heard the news that the new wife was having kidney problems.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The only way for her to continue living was to have a kidney transplant.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Yes.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: is probably what Dale would have thought.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But she realized what was happening to

Pastor Dale Tunnell: her ex-husband.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: She realized what was happening to to her children.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And she went and had herself tested to see if she was a man.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Found out that she was a match.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then she went through the procedure to donate her one of her kidneys for her ex-husband's new wife.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: The new wife was intrigued.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Why would an ex-wife do something like that?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And she had the opportunity to share about Jesus.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And now the two go to church together.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I think about that and I th I'm

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I don't understand.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That doesn't come natural.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: That's not the the the first thing that I I think of

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, yeah, maybe a kidney for your for your your child.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: But

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Oh, I just how much does Jesus love us?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then Jesus tells the disciples, All men will know that you are my disciples because you love one another.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Love one another the way I have loved you.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Can't we do it?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Can we do it?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, I look in the mirror.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I look at 1 Corinthians 13.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Can I do it?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean some of you that got the quote this this morning.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: You know what I asked you to do today?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Did you try it?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It doesn't sound right.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Okay, I s turn to Second Corinthians thirteen.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: It doesn't sound right there.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Did you put your name there?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale suffers long and is kind.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale does not envy.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale does not parade himself.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale is not puffed up.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale does not behave rudely

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale does not seek his own.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale is not provoked.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale thinks no evil.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Dale bears all things, Dale believes all things, Dale hopes all things, Dale endures all things, Dale never fails.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean, when you read it like that, how do you come out?

Pastor Dale Tunnell: I mean when I read it like that I'm thinking that doesn't sound right something's wrong with this picture

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Friends, something's wrong with that picture.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Jesus loves me like this.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And then he asked me to

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Love others in the same way.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: And my response is

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Oh Father God, Father God, I have sinned.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Please forgive me

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Father God, we have sinned.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Please forgive us

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Father God, come teach us to love the way you love us.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: love because we can't do it by ourselves.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Thank you, God.

Pastor Dale Tunnell: Amen.