When Stretching Comes First 1 Peter 4:7-11

All right. Amen. Okay. Anybody else got something to share?

I have Google photos on my phone. Many of you, I have memories.

Memories pop up all the time and I love them.

Today, a memory popped up. Remember what happened four years ago today, Erin?

No.

Graduated high school.

What year did you graduate?

In the midst of COVID.

Erin's graduation was very unique.

Went to an auditorium and there were a couple administrators there and the whole thing set up.

Erin stood off to the side in her cap and gown and they announced his name.

Dan and I and Arjun and Ari had a cheer, but obviously, the only people there to witness this was COVID, right?

You walked across the stage and picked up your phone off the stand and took a picture and walked away.

About two or three weeks later, they released a video making it look like every graduate was there and walked one after the other.

It was very cool. It was memorable.

Anyway, that popped up today and it got me thinking. In the world today, we have a lot of rumbling and complaining and a lot of things that are sad that are wrong.

I think that Google photo saying, God said to me, Cheris, go.

Those photos come up. A lot of times I share them with my kids and my family.

I go, let's just keep pictures of Amalia on a carousel with Arjun, Ariana and Tyler.

Just cool things that happened in the past that I wouldn't even remember or think about,

because they pop up and show me and God is saying, remember those rumbling and complaining and all the struggling and all those amazing things.

I have something real quick.

There's just a me and a saying here that I thought about earlier in the week.

Wednesday, Clayton and I went to her brother's to help him build his wife's PC,

which I really basically did because nobody else knew what they were doing.

I told him, I built dozens and dozens of computers. I did it at work all the time.

We got in under an hour. We were getting it out.

Then we got there and it was one thing after another and there were so many problems.

I have never had so many problems building a computer.

It was like three hours and that night as I was laying down to go to sleep,

God basically said to me, that's why you don't make the plans more or less.

I am an exceptionally terrible planner.

My plans never go the way that they go in my head.

Even more so than the average person, I think anyway.

But God just said to me, I have a plan and that worked out the way that I wanted it to.

I don't know, but I know that God's got a reason and His plan is what I should be looking out for.

Anybody else got anything on their heart they want to share?

We're going to get back into worship at this time.

Michael Brister, would you pray for us as we go into offering and worship?

Father God, we do want to thank you for this time and this place.

Come together and worship for you. Thank you for your sake and for your share.

God, pray for us throughout this life's service.

The kid goes, the pastor comes, screaming what you're giving him.

You give to us, God, pray for you to offer us.

You put us to work. God, again, bless us. Time together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We didn't plan this this way, but we pulled this music on Tuesday for service today.

I'm kind of being a thief and I kind of feel like God might be speaking directly to me.

So if you feel that way, I'm with you.

There's a lot of times where we go about our lives and we're doing things and we're working together with other people, but are we really together?

You still can feel alone. You feel like you're doing it on your own, like you're carrying your burdens on your own.

And if you feel that way, and I have definitely felt that way this week even in a room full of people, realize whether you feel alone or not,

whether there's a physical person standing next to you or not, God is always there.

If you don't reach out to him, then you need to think about that the next time you feel alone.

Wait a minute. I'm not alone. God is right here with me, regardless of where I'm at and what I'm doing.

See within you, when the world ends, you have no luck like the end. So you soon lose it, you're afraid to start again. Right now I see your ashes where there was a flame.

Truth is that you're not forgotten, because grace knows your name. God's not done with you, even with your broken heart and your wounds and your scars.

God's not done with you, even when you're lost and it's hard and you're falling apart. God's not done with you. It's not over, it's only begun.

So don't hide, don't run, because God's not done with you.

And the light you don't notice until you're standing in the dark. There's a strength that's growing inside your shattered heart. God's not done with you, even with your broken heart and your wounds and your scars.

God's not done with you, even when you're lost and it's hard and you're falling apart. God's not done with you. It's not over, it's only begun.

So don't hide, don't run, because God's not done with you.

He's got a plan, this is part of it. He's got to finish what he started. He's got a plan, this is part of it. He's got to finish what he started.

He's not done. God's not done writing your story. No, he's not done. God's not done with you.

Even with your broken heart and your wounds and your scars. God's not done with you, even when you're lost and it's hard and you're falling apart. God's not done with you. It's not over, it's only begun.

So don't hide, don't run, because God's not done with you. God's not done writing your story. No, he's not done. God's not done with you.

We are right now in the midst of talking about softball again for 2024. And I got to thinking years ago, we pretty much stopped playing softball in 2020.

I thought about how pretty much every spring around May, it seemed like sermon illustrations would come up from playing softball.

Because amazingly enough, when you go out to do something as a team and you work together and you work hard at it, that kind of thing, there are quite a few sermon illustrations that come out of that experience.

And this one came up today before I really even thought about the fact that we were talking about softball. As of right now, there are quite a few of us that have said we want to play softball this year.

And it's one of the churches for sure and committed in and we have fields lined up and it's just a matter of the money and see if we can get a couple more teams and we'll play softball starting at the beginning of June.

I'm excited about that. But before that even entered into my mind, I got to thinking about this illustration.

Some years ago, gosh, a long time now, I can't remember what year it was, mid 2000s. We would go out to play softball and we would go out to play softball to practice.

And we practiced at that time, we were practicing on either Tuesday or Thursday night and Saturday morning. And that way, Deacon Tony, he was back at East Lido, he was the coach at that time.

We'd go out there and we got there in the morning and everybody just kind of out, we warmed up our arms and started practicing softball. And I, Carrie Brister was out there at that time.

I don't think she was old enough to play on the team. I can't remember for sure. Maybe she was. But anyway, she said, you know, really we should be stretching before we started playing softball.

And we didn't really do a lot of stretches just a few things before that. And I was thinking about that, you know, she's right about that. We really should be stretching because it's a very physical thing and you're going to go run and you're going to slide.

You're going to jump for the ball, dive for the ball, whatever. You really should be stretching before you do all that. So we started stretching.

And after that, and mostly we did just kind of like high impact stretching because it was like tension stretching like you do for gymnastics or running long distances, not really necessary, but we do like high stepping and stuff like that.

And I always felt more ready. Every time we would start practice, I felt more ready. I submit to you that if you're going to do something very physical, that stretching out the muscles that you're about to do something very physical with is a valuable step.

And so you see football players stretch, you soccer players stretch, you track star stretch, everybody stretches, right? In fact, if you don't stretch before you start, the truth is it's going to affect your performance.

Now, quickly enough, your body will generate enough heat, your muscles loosen up, you might pull a muscle if you go too far too fast, right?

But you'll get doing it. But that first period of time while your body's warming up and getting going is you're going to be less effective. Like if you think of Ron Mack at first base, and he puts his left foot back and puts his right foot out and he stretches his way down like that, like he used to do when he was a hockey goalie.

If he's not warmed up, he could tear something very important in that moment in time. Okay. If you think about all the professional careers that you can think of, nurses.

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but nurses work 12 hour shifts as their standard shift. And so they work one week, they work three 12 hour shifts, the next week they work four 12 hour shifts, then the next week they work three 12 hour shifts, the next week they work four 12 hour shifts.

And the idea behind that is continuity of care. Well, first of all, I'm going to say to you that 12 hour shifts are tough, right? 12 hour shifts are tough. They're tough no matter what you're doing. They're hard.

Okay, but when your shift is keeping track of every medicine, every stat, everything's on the chart in the computer, changing people's poopy bed sheets and cleaning them up when they're sweaty and stinky and taking care of them when they're delirious and listening to their ravings and listening to them cuss at you or yell at you because they're upset because they're not well.

All of those kinds of things. Listen to the doctor telling you what care the person is going to get when you don't necessarily agree, right? All of that, doing all of that for 12 hours and then getting up the next day and doing it for 12 hours is a tough career, right?

And nurses go through more than that. It's a lot worse than that to even become a nurse. They do all of that while they're doing schooling and they give up basically time with their family, time with their kids.

They give up finance because they don't get paid well while they're in training and they do all of that to become a nurse. And I submit to you, they really go through the wringer. So by the time they become a nurse, they already know what they're in for and they're well respected in their industry.

At least they well should be. Gymnasts do a routine on the floor that has dances and flips and they do a flip over five times, right?

Or they get down on the floor and do the splits and then they spin around and do ways that like if it was me, it would literally rip me in half, right?

But they don't do that without really paying their dues, without stretching and working out and toning those muscles. And listen, they don't eat cupcakes. You know what I mean?

I mean, they or if they do, sell them or they get half a cupcake. You know, they keep their body toned and trim and strong. And I'm not saying that everybody has to look like a gymnast. I think that's a falsehood, right?

But what I'm saying is they literally pay the price and stretch and work super hard and they go out and they can do that routine and people recognize them and they get recognition for what they can do.

In part because, yeah, they can do the boopadoopadoopadoop across the mat, but really because they really paid their dues to get where they're at.

What I'm saying to you is to be what it is that you're really supposed to be. To really be good at the thing that you're really, to be recognized as the top of your field or even good in the field.

Like you don't have to be the top nurse, just to be recognized as a nurse. You don't have to be the top race car driver, but the guy that drives NASCAR that comes in 20th has paid his dues to get there.

And you might like to be a NASCAR driver, but if you're not willing to pay those dues, you're not going to get there.

And so the bottom line is this is about stretching first. It's pushing yourself, going beyond what you think you're capable of first before you start doing what it is that you really are supposed to be doing.

So bear that illustration in mind then as we go to 1 Peter chapter 4.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

Amen.

Okay, so just I would just kind of clarify things. So during church, while we're singing the worship songs, we sing the worship songs.

While we're reading the word, we either read it ourselves or focus on it.

You get one opportunity to be loud, obnoxious, not rude, but loud, creative, say anything you want. This is your chance to mark that moment in time.

So when the pastor in our church, when the pastor or whoever's up here preaching calls out the scripture, that's your opportunity to say amen or whatever.

And if you sit there quietly then after talking during worship to your buddy about whatever you're going to do after or whatever was going on, just want to make sure you get your priorities screwed up.

Okay, that was your opportunity. We're not going to go back and repeat it, but we'll do it again next week.

1 Peter chapter 4 verse 7, here we go. The end of all things is at hand, therefore be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

1 Peter 4:7

Now I want to tell you that this verse alone, as I prayed about it, thought about it, broke it down, gave me enough material for the entire sermon.

Except this is not the focus. It's just one of the points.

Okay, so what he's saying is when he says the end of all things near, does anybody think that Peter was saying that Jesus was going to come back again in a day or two or a few weeks and claim the church?

And that was going to be it. I submit to you, he might have thought Jesus would come back again soon at an unknown time, but that's not what he means.

In other words, he is saying the conclusion is at hand. If you remember this from Tuesday night, those of you who were there,

we talked about how a certain eschatology bases what we're doing now on when Jesus comes again rather than on Jesus on the cross.

Okay, so yes, Jesus on the cross is super important, don't get me wrong, but we're not living for Jesus on the cross, we're living for the Jesus that's coming again for us.

Right, because he's not on the cross anymore. That's one of the major religions of the world. They show all of their symbols to have Jesus on the cross, and we don't do that.

So you can wear Jesus on the cross if you want to, that's called a crucifix, but our cross is empty. We know that because Jesus died on the cross, was buried, rose again on the third day, and is now at the right hand with the Father.

So really, if you want to wear something around your neck that shows Jesus, you should show Jesus, whatever you think he looks like, standing next to a throne, and that would be really accurate.

But not on the cross anymore, that's done. But he's coming again, and Peter was saying the end of all things is near, meaning it's settled now, it's done now,

and you're living now as if it's done, stop living as if it's far away, as if it's done for somebody else. The end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound judgment.

In other words, make good decisions. Make good decisions. And sober spirit.

In other words, you're going to have to say no to the many things in the world that people enjoy that want to take up residence in your life and pull you away from God, or pull you even away from your focus on the things that God has given you to do.

We'll come back to that. Above all, then it says in verse 8, above all, so by the way, whenever you see above all, that means it's like super important, right?

This is more important, not more important than Jesus himself, but like right there. So if Jesus would come in the room today, and he would say, out of this sermon today, I want to make one point, let me tell you what it is.

He says, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another. Now fervent is a word that we don't use much anymore, and in modern day English, it has become a word that basically means like passionate, or heated, or hot, or burning, like on fire.

And so it would say that our love should be passionate, or burning, or hot, or on fire. However, in the language, that's not what it means.

So in the Greek language, what it means is to stretch yourself. That's literally what it means. I mispronounce it if I try to say it in the Greek, but anyway, to stretch yourself in your love for one another.

This love is agape love. Agape love is a choice. It is a choice that you make. If you cannot choose to love someone, if you cannot choose to love someone, then you are not a follower of God.

If you cannot willfully choose to love someone, and this is the same word essentially that you would use then if your enemy was trying to hurt you, if you cannot love them while they're trying to hurt you, then you have a problem.

Because the point is, as we've been singing all this time, God is in control. It's okay to trust the Lord. God points a gun at your head. It's okay to trust the Lord as to whether the guy is going to pull the trigger or not.

So your job is just to love the guy. Now that doesn't mean you have to like, okay, go ahead and shoot me. It'll make you feel better. I'm fine with it. Beg for their destruction of your current earthly life.

So above all, keep fervent means stretch yourself in love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. So why are we supposed to stretch ourselves? Because love covers a multitude of sins.

We'll give you an illustration of this. There's a pastor, this is metaphorical, there's a pastor and he's going to demonstrate how love covers a multitude of sins.

And so to surprise the church, so that, you know, it's kind of fun to do these object lessons to surprise the church. He put a stand up front that had enough space underneath it and he covered it over with a cloth.

And he put the word sin on top of the cloth. And then throughout the sermon, as he was preaching about how love covers a multitude of sins, he kept putting another cloth, put another blanket, covering it over with a blanket and a blanket and a blanket.

Well, unbeknownst to the congregation, he had enlisted one of his grandchildren, who was pretty small still, to sit under the stand during the whole thing. And he had a placard that said the word sin very boldly on the placard.

And he's sitting in there. But as the blankets piled up and the blankets piled up and the blankets piled up, it started getting kind of hot under there, right?

About halfway through the sermon, he's still preaching how love covers a multitude of sins. And he says, I want you to see that love covers a multitude of sin. In a moment, I'm going to reveal. And at that moment in time, his grandson had had enough and he stood up and threw the stand off and he's holding the word sin and he soaked in sweat.

And the room got very quiet. I want you to understand that these sins that we're talking about love covering up, they are hard at work. We talked just recently about how hard sin can latch on to you.

Wolverines are one of the most vicious fighters as an animal, not because they're tough, because they are a little tough, but not like a wolf or not like a mountain lion, right?

Not because they're tough, but because once they latch their jaws on, they don't let go, even if they're dead. You literally can rip their bodies off their heads and their head will still be latched onto you after they're long dead, right?

Sin is like that. And this is what we're trying to cover up or overcome. Might be a better way of saying it for our purposes.

And it is revealed to be hard at work attempting to burst through these barriers of love that Peter was reminding us.

And so, keep fervent, stretch yourself in love. Why? Because love covers a multitude of sins. Verse 9. Be hospitable to one another without complaint.

And so basically, he says first, stretch yourself in love for one another, and then he's going to give us an example or an illustration to break it down a little bit. He says, be hospitable to one another without complaint.

So in other words, you should be inviting, period. Not inviting people to your house, that's fine if you want to do that. That is an example of hospitality, right?

But we think it's like the only example of hospitality, and it's not. You should be inviting. You should be welcoming people into your circle.

Find somebody that doesn't quite fit with you and bring them in. Find a way. And you should be doing that all the time.

The only way to be hospitable is to be inviting, to bring people in. But not just to bring them in once they're there, to care about that person, about their needs, what they're going through, the struggles that they have, what they might get.

So you and somebody else from your church comes to the door at the same time, it ought to definitely be on your mind to hold the door for them.

Now a perfect stranger, you and a perfect stranger at the gas station, it ought to be on your mind, but it's for a completely different reason, right?

But he says, be hospitable to one another without complaint. Boy, we don't want to leave that ending off.

Because it's so much work. The truth is, we're all a bunch of work, right? We disagree. We've got issues. We don't talk right. We don't act right. We don't think the same. Etc, etc.

And our tendency is to highlight the differences. We'll say, well, I'm not complaining, but he and I disagree on this or that or the other.

Listen, when you say, I'm not complaining, but we disagree, actually you're complaining, right?

Because if you have a disagreement with somebody, then you can go and work out your disagreement with them.

Because the truth is, if it matters enough to mention it, one of you is wrong. And if not, then it doesn't matter enough to mention it.

And so he says, be hospitable to one another without complaining. Just two verses left for the passage for the day.

Verse 10, it says, as each one of you has received a special gift.

And so now there's a little bit of a debate here, and we're going to be real clear about it.

There's a little bit of debate here as you're talking about spiritual gifts.

So every Christian has a Holy Spirit, spiritual gift given by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit decides what's best for you.

You have a minimum of one. You might have several. You might have them all, right?

You might have some that we don't even know what they are kind of thing.

But you always have one and it'll be corrected, set out, highlighted by scripture.

So it's going to be something that you can track in the Bible so you know how to use this. You can learn how to use it.

He's not going to give you a list with no instructions.

Right? So he's going to give you a gift with no instructions and give you a gift, show you how to use it.

So it's listed in the Bible. But this could be another special gift.

It could be a special gift that's not a spiritual gift.

And so the big debate is, is it only talking about spiritual gifts or is it talking about any good gift that God gives you?

Anything that's special, anything that stands out, that's out of the ordinary.

And I submit to you that those two things, I took a logic class and I got a D by the way at Bowling Green back in the day

because in the middle of that semester a lot of bad things happened and I just basically quit going to class.

Don't recommend taking that course. I actually like logic a lot.

But I learned that those two possibilities that the theologians are arguing are not contrary to one another.

So is it talking about your spiritual gift? Is it talking about a special gift that God gave you?

Is your spiritual gift a special gift that God gave you? Yes.

So they are not in contrast to one another. The truth is what he's saying is if God gives you something,

and I'm probably not talking about a dollar, although if it's really special to you,

if the dollar is really special to you, then there's that opportunity of sitting in church and an offering plate come around.

A little girl asks her sister and says, hey, can I give my dollar? I have one dollar. Can I give it?

Why did she want to give it? Because to her it was special and to her giving it was special.

And you think about how much you've given. She gave her a dollar.

The woman that gave the two mites, right? She gave more than those who gave everything. Why?

Because it was a special gift. It meant something to her.

So if you have something from God that means something to you, then he says, as each one of you has received a special gift, employ it.

Let's be very clear about what it means to employ something. It means put it to work.

It does not mean abandon it, leave it on the table, let somebody else do the work.

It doesn't mean highlight somebody else that has that same ability so you can push off the responsibility on them, whatever.

It doesn't mean do it and complain all about it all the while while you're doing it.

It means if you figure out there's something about you and there is something about you,

something about your stuff and there is something about your stuff, something about your time and there is something about your time,

when you figure out what that is, put it to work.

This is why it blows my mind that Christian parents would ever have to ask their children to take out the garbage.

You understand? And I was not a Christian when I was growing up. I became a Christian at 25 years old.

My parents had to ask me all the time to take out the garbage and I'd put it off and whatever.

Do you know how many times now as we live in our house right now, my wife and I,

do you know how many times I've ever had to ask my wife to take out the garbage or she's ever had to ask me to take out the garbage?

Do we ever even have to communicate to talk about taking out the garbage?

If we're the only ones there, the garbage always gets taken out. Always. Why?

Because you have the ability to do it. If there's something that needs to be done, why would you not do it?

Now I can go further than this and I'm not trying to step on everybody's toes today,

but it amazes me the number of times I would visit someone's house or stop by to help them and find their living room is messy.

And you're like, well, no, wait a minute. Now, wait a minute. Don't talk about that. That's my right.

Because it's your house that God gave you. That's God's living room and it's your living room.

And God ain't going to clean it up. He gave you life, gave you strength, gave you the ability to figure out, gave you the gift and gave you etc. etc.

God's not going to just go whoosh and whip it all away to hell. All the stuff that you ate last week.

He wants you to clean it up. He wouldn't give it to you if he didn't want you to have it cleaned.

Now you can go on with this, but the bottom line is, as any one of you has received a special gift,

employ it, put it into work, serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

Get busy and stop being busy searching after all these things that you think will fulfill you because the fact is none of them will.

The only thing that's going to fulfill you is serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

I'm going to break those phrases down just so that we understand. First of all, serving one another means in the church.

Let's be super, super clear about this passage of scripture. Peter wrote this letter to the church.

You want these things to be true in your family. You want these things to be true with your friends.

You want these things to be true in your friends' families, but this isn't written to them.

It's written to us. It's written to the church. So in the church, we are to be serving one another.

And that says, as good stewards. What's a steward? A steward is a person who's been given something to take care of and put to use.

And if the master comes and demands it of them, it better be in good condition and preferably multiplied.

So it should be more available than it was when the master gave it to you.

A good steward is a person who takes care of and puts into use that which his master gave him.

Manifold. Manifold is not like the exhaust manifold on your car. And it does not seem as manifest.

Manifest is something that's made obvious. Manifold means various. It means many or multiple ways.

You could even say all of the ways. And so in other words, we're going to be good stewards of the manifold or much various grace of God.

Do you understand that the grace of God that you received is different?

This will blow your mind. Is different than the grace of God that I received.

Salvation is the same. My soul saved, eternity, etc. Right? But the grace is different.

God's grace for me that provided salvation is different than God's grace for you.

My sin would send me to hell. Your sin would not. My sin would send me to hell.

Therefore, the grace that was provided for me is enough to wipe away my sin and it's just right. Right?

And it takes care of my sin. So my grace, your grace, it's all different. Each person's grace is different.

And not only that, after I got saved, God gave me a Holy Spirit gifts and they were given to me by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit chooses what and gives me exactly what is needed. What is going to be best.

Now that might be and probably is what is best for you. Or best for my wife or best for my kids. Right?

God knows how it all works together and the diverse grace of God, the various, myriad, many forms of the grace of God,

we must be good stewards of that, serving one another and employing it. That's what he's saying.

It's going to look like a special gift. There are many special gifts probably in your life and you're supposed to put them to work.

The last verse. Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God.

When I was first working at the life station, we used to have a Monday service there.

And so we would come in, people come in there and they would sit and we would preach the gospel.

We have like a couple songs of worship if we had a worship leader or we play some music on the CD if we didn't have a worship leader.

Or once I got to doing it and felt a little more comfortable because I was a young preacher. Right?

Once I got a little more comfortable, I would read the Psalms. I'd read the Psalms and expound a little bit and pray.

And then I would preach or a visiting pastor would preach and people were getting saved all the time.

I had this young man who was just becoming a pastor. He was just getting involved, being called to preach and just starting.

He came to me and he said, I want to ask you. And I said, okay, anything. And he said, I want to ask you about preaching.

And I said, okay, what about preaching? I said, I'm no expert. I had a couple of classes, I've been to seminary, whatever, you know.

But I'm no expert. But if I can help you in some way, I'll help you.

And he said, so when I get up to preach, he said, I don't want to preach like you.

I don't want to preach the way you preach, your style, anything like that.

He said, it is expository preaching. Expository preaching is where you explain what the word says and then you draw out of that.

Okay. And I said, I'm going to do that. But this is what I need to know.

I've preached at that time, he said, I think 15, 20 times. And he said, what I want to know how to do is how do I preach it like you preach it

that I actually believe everything I'm saying and I expect people to respond based on what it says.

He said, like you preach. I sat in your art. It was like two weeks.

So he was scheduled to preach, but he got there late and I had already started preaching. So I finished and he just sat in.

And there was another time he heard me preach and he goes, so how do I do that?

How do I preach it like it actually says what it says, means what it means. We're supposed to do something about it.

And I was taking it back because I'm like, I don't know. I don't know how to do that.

And he goes, no, that's what it's like when you preach.

Like I listen to you preach and you're preaching it like it says what it says. It means what it means.

We're supposed to do what we're supposed to do. And immediately, every time I hear you preach, I'm convicted and I'm thinking about that.

And I'm going like, well, first of all, I guarantee you it's not me. Right.

I shared my part of my testimony where I had to overcome like there was no way I could preach.

If you knew me at 25 years old, that 25 year old could not stand up here and preach on Sunday.

There's just no way. In fact, the truth is that 25 year old could not walk for these Toledo Baptist Church and say I'm living for Jesus.

There's no way except he did. Right.

Except he didn't because that 25 year old died and a new one was born in the same body and he walked forward.

And then he became a preacher. And so I wanted to say tritely, simply, well, you know, it's got to be a gifting.

It's got to be God. God's got to do it.

But based on this verse, what we're what we're seeing here and based on what scripture says in general on this topic, we are commanded.

You must choose to do these things this way.

Whoever speaks, you are to do it as one who is speaking the utterances of God.

These are the utterances of God. These are inspired scripture.

You have to listen. You have to absorb.

You have to be affected because if you don't, it's not me that you're saying no to.

I get it. Some of you go like there are things about me that drive you nuts or things about me that that I don't say it quite right.

Or I I speak something a little incorrectly. I ask a question.

I step on toes. I shouldn't have made that comment about my living room. Right.

The things you don't like. I get that.

But when it comes down to the fact that these are the utterances of God, at that point in time, there's a line drawn in the sand.

And I frankly don't care.

Once I start talking about God, I fully understand.

I preach the sermon, the sermon that I preached last week.

I thoroughly thought that I was going to get backlash from that because I that was harsh.

It was hard for me. It was hard for us.

This sermon is a similar way. It's harsh.

If you will not embrace what you are hearing in the preaching of the church, you better go get some candy church where it's not so hard.

Because this is tough stuff.

We're going to chew on steak until the juices come out.

And if you can't swallow, you spit it out.

We're reaching new heights in Jesus.

These are the utterances of God. Not what I say. Sorry.

Well, not what I say. But what's in this word is the utterances of God.

And we must take it at what it is.

But notice it's a command.

If I'm speaking on behalf of God, I must speak them as if they are utterances of God.

But it's not only the preacher on Sunday.

Do you think you know what God wants you to say?

Then when you go to say that, you better speak it as if you are speaking the utterances of God.

It goes further. It says, whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies.

We've got some real servants in our body.

We've got some people who have a real servant's heart.

There are quite a few of them in this room.

And some of them are better at serving than others.

But it's hard to discern whether they're better at serving than others because they're serving as if they are serving in the strength that God supplies.

Or if they're just better.

If tomorrow I won a lottery ticket and I was racing the NASCAR 500 this coming week,

while I was sitting at the starting line revving the engine with everybody else and the pit crews all lined up and everybody's ready to go at the beginning of the race,

most people would probably say, I don't think that guy deserves to be here right up front.

And then if I raced that race and I came in third, they'd be like, what? What just happened?

And if I got up on the podium and I said, well, you all thought I couldn't do it.

But the truth is I've been training for the last five years secretly.

And I went to and from Europe in a private jet and I raced on the tracks and I did all of this and I really stretched myself and I really got the skills.

And look, I took my shirt off. You see how ripped I am, my six pack and I'm pumping the iron.

You're like, oh, they're all like, yeah, he does deserve to be here.

But if I get up on the podium and I say, look, I had no clue how I did it either.

God just did this. This is just the thing that God did.

I think it all so I could be here right in this moment and tell you that if God does it in you, you can be anything.

There's a big difference there. But while you're sitting at the starting line, revving the engine, there's no difference.

There's no difference between a person who's serving in their own strength and a person who's serving in God's strength.

But there is a difference. This word is making clear that there is a difference, which I'll highlight for you in a moment.

Back to the beginning of 11 so we get this right.

Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God.

Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies, which again looks different than one who is serving by the strength that God built into them over time.

For example, or that the skill that they have figured out or the abilities that they have is different.

This is so that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

That's why we must do the things that we do, employing the gifts that we receive through God's diverse grace in a way that honors Jesus.

So that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

And it says, to whom belongs the glory.

That means all the lights should be shined on him.

All of the attention is shined on Jesus, not on me.

All of the focus is on Jesus, not on me.

And the dominion, dominion is reign, being in charge, the ruler, right?

The dominion, forever and ever, not just next Wednesday or not just from now until Jesus comes again or not just once Jesus comes again.

Now, as of now, all things, he has a right to rule over them forever and ever.

And then he ends it so beautifully by saying, amein, which in the Greek, amein means so let it be.

Let it be that way.

And the sermon could have been so let it be.

How do we let it be that way?

All right, so there are three things essentially that are in here that really were to me commanding or demanding.

And we're going to look at them briefly, each one.

And the middle one, not so briefly.

First one is this.

It says, gurgle your mind and make your choices for the purposes of prayers.

Now I paraphrased it, didn't I?

What it actually said was, the end of all things is near.

Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

In other words, make your choices in a good way, logical, following the law, following the wisdom of the Bible, the way the kingdom would say.

And control your passions and your thoughts and your desires, right?

So I said it this way, gurgle your mind and make your choices.

But don't forget why.

Gurgle your mind and make your choices for the purposes of prayers.

For the purpose of prayers.

For the purposes of prayer.

The interesting thing, the reason I'm saying it that way, because in the Greek, all three of those phrases are included.

What is prayer for?

It's for communicating with God.

It's for making requests.

It's for asking for forgiveness.

It's for confessing sin.

It's for adoring God.

It's a method of praise and worship and so on.

That's the purpose of prayer.

And you need to be of sound judgment and sober spirit for all of those purposes of prayer to be fulfilled in your life.

Then, what is prayer?

Prayer is a process.

It's the actual, when you and God get together and you're talking to God and listen to what he's got to say, right?

So that's prayer.

But it doesn't say prayer only.

It also means prayers, right?

So we pray and then we pray again, right?

So it's a prayer life.

We talk about prayer life.

I submit to you, if you're sitting here today, hang on, this will kick your butt if you're not careful.

If you're sitting here today and you have not set aside time to talk to God and listen to God consistently a number of times in a disciplined fashion,

which means you blocked out other distractions, not just while you're driving or while you're playing a game or something like that, in the last week, then you are not following this verse.

You are a sinner against God as a saved person, not recognizing the grace of God.

Do you not understand that when you kneel down or when you take time to cross your hands or when you close your eyes and put everything else out,

okay, well that's when all the thoughts come rushing in, right?

That's when you start thinking about, oh, I have to do this, I have to do that.

Oh, I meant to write that down so I wouldn't forget.

Oh, someone still said that and that hurt.

I've got to figure out what I'm going to say back to them.

Oh, and there's, oh, that's the missing ingredient in my bread recipe.

You've got a million things rushing into your head at the moment that you decide to just block it all out and just spend time with God.

It all comes rushing in. Why?

Because you're not willing to gird your mind and make your choices for the purpose of prayer.

Because the moment at which you're going to sit down and talk to God, do you understand?

In that moment, if you would sit down and talk to God and you could actually focus all that you are, you're a righteous man, the prayers avail us much,

sit down and actually say to God, okay, God, this is what I want, this is what I need.

Sorry for that. Forgiveness of sins.

Justify me, cleanse me, purify me for all I'm righteous.

Okay, now, God, this is what I want, this is what I need.

And you could agree with God on the thing that you could literally change the world.

Elijah was a man like us, prayed, didn't rain for three and a half years.

We looked at that on Tuesday night.

You're not any different from the next guy.

But there is a difference in the way that you approach prayer.

You've got to set aside time, you've got to discipline yourself, you've got to put aside distractions.

So, and I'm going to be completely transparent here, we, all of us, are going to have to stop watching so much TV, reading so many books,

playing so many games that invade our thoughts.

If the next time, if the next time you sit down and have a quiet time with God and you go to pray, the first thing that pops in your head is a game,

then you say, I will not play a game again until I can pray to God without that stuff popping in my head.

If the next time you sit down and go to pray to God, the thing that pops in your head is a movie,

then you say, I will not watch a movie again until I can sit down and pray to God without movies popping in my head.

If it's a vacation you took ten years ago, now listen, all three of those things happened to me this week, you hear me?

I sat down to pray and I said, okay God, let's take some time, let's just talk.

And all three of those things popped in my head.

It's not me making this stuff up, this is real stuff.

There is a battle for your mind going on.

You understand?

And you've got to decide what is it that's going to get between you and God.

And then as Peter said it very clearly, the end of all things is near.

Just understand, the end of all things.

How many TVs in heaven?

Shall we count them all?

Done. None.

No TVs, no airwaves, no transmitters, no streaming services, no computers, no Wi-Fi.

All gone. Why? Because there's no need.

There's absolutely no desire, no need.

How many sports in heaven, competitive sports, listen, if you go play football in heaven,

whoosh, boom, score a touchdown.

Who will score the most touchdowns?

The completely perfect body people who will never have to work out again,

never have to restrain diet again, never have to worry about pollutants in the air again,

never have to worry about hydration or anemia, right?

So I guess it will be the guy who has the perfect body,

who hasn't pumped iron for 10 more hours a day for the last 473,974 years,

and he's the guy who can score more touchdowns than the other guy.

No, we're talking about heaven.

The purpose of all of this that we are talking about is,

there is a purpose for sports, there's a purpose for games, there's a purpose for food,

there's a purpose for medicine, there's a purpose for all of it.

All of it is to come together to show us God.

And if that thing that was meant to be used to bring you close to God

instead interferes with your ability to spend time with God in earnest,

then you cut that thing out.

We have church essentially together in meetings maybe about four times a week.

Sunday morning, Tuesday night, game groups, Bible study, arts and crafts, youth group.

About four times a week we have somebody in this building and they're doing church.

We've got people that are here once a week, right?

And I'll include cleaning sometimes, right?

Sometimes you guys are cleaning, you're all up in here having church, right?

Or doing projects, sometimes that's that.

But you've got like four people coming together to do a project,

or four people cleaning the building, or ten people in the youth group, right?

Or ten people in a gaming group, at most it's never usually that many,

it's usually like four to six, right?

And church is going on.

And we've got people that cannot get in the church building one time a week in seven days.

There's too much in the world to be confused by, to desire the things of the world.

You can't.

You've got to draw a line and say, this mind of mine belongs to me and the God of heaven.

And I will gird it up, I will protect it, I will practice sound judgment,

I will make good decisions, and I will be of a sober spirit.

I will say that's got no place because my person belongs to the living God.

Gird your mind and make your choices for the purpose of prayers.

Distracted, burned out mind doesn't pray.

Or when they do pray, the prayers are worthless.

After they didn't honor God and they didn't do what God wanted,

God said, you fall on your knees and cry tears in the dirt,

you're begging me and praying and your prayers are worthless

because you chose the things of this world over me.

Now you pray and you expect me to do something about it.

That's scripture.

God's chosen people, chose the world.

That's the story.

After people chose the world, God bought them back.

Computer illustration, I understand fully that I am now going into a region

I do not know as much about as maybe somebody could or should

who really wants to do a good computer illustration.

But in the process of doing something inside a computer,

we run into this sum in the back.

For example, bring up the PowerPoint or things like that.

You got what's on the hard drive, that's a little disk in there.

Now they got SD drives, really aren't even a little disk anymore.

It's just like a microchip that things are written on.

You got the processor, you got the memory,

and that whole thing is driven by power, power supply.

The power supply goes to those parts and the parts try to do

whatever it is you've asked the computer to do.

Which means if you click on the window and try to open it eight times,

and it's trying to actually open it eight times,

it's going to take longer to open all eight of them

than if you had just hit it once and patiently waited for it to open.

It also means that if your computer is operating under the effect of a virus,

and in the background many processes are running,

consuming the power of your processor to be able to do

what it is that you've asked your computer to do,

it's not going to be able to do what you've asked it to do.

If your hard drive can only spin so fast,

and you've asked it to do so many things,

that the hard drive capabilities are constantly being consumed all the while,

then your hard drive is not going to be able to give you the information you need

to do what it is that you need to do.

What am I getting at?

Your hard drive in this analogy is where the information is stored

and processed, essentially released from, if you will,

put into play as your body.

So they're now calling, and I'm not trying to be medical,

but they're now calling dementia, like you get when you have Alzheimer's,

diabetes three, now it's nothing truly scientific,

but what they're saying is people eat so much sugar as they get older,

and after people get dementia and then die from Alzheimer's,

they check their brain and guess what they find?

They find inflammation.

Well, what's the number one cause of inflammation in the body?

Sugar.

So they examine the person's life, and they find out that the person

was eating sugar right up until they died,

and their processor was inflamed and could no longer process.

Now, I'm not trying to be a doctor.

What I'm saying to you is you've got parts,

and you take care of your parts in order to make your parts work together,

do the thing you want to do, and what he's saying is be sober-minded,

sober-spirited, get you a person of a sober spirit

and a person of a sound judgment for the purpose of prayer,

for the purpose of prayer.

Not for the purpose of praising, although that's good too.

Not for the purpose of giving, although that's good too.

Not for the purpose of serving, although that's good too,

for the purpose of prayer.

Now, you might think that's not that big of a deal,

except that I have been present at the bedside of the saints

and also of non-saints, so those who are sinners dying.

I've seen it both ways, and in the last moment,

the saint has one thing left.

They got a little breath, breathe in a little rough,

about to give out, about to go home.

They got one thing left, and it's prayer.

And they pray for the people around them, pray for themselves.

They'll talk to God right up until the last second, usually.

If you don't take care of yourself and govern yourself for the purpose of prayer,

what will you do when prayer is the only thing you have?

And you can't.

You can't bring yourself to pray.

I can't tell you how many times I just can't pray.

I'm so distant from God.

I pray and I don't hear anything.

What will you do when it's like that?

What will you do when you need a miracle and you need God to intervene with power

and you can't ask Him to?

Or you ask Him to and can't believe that He'll do it, even after He does it?

I had a woman call me this week that I haven't talked to in 10 years

because her husband said, don't you ever talk to me or my wife ever again.

So I didn't.

She called me yesterday, left me a voicemail asking me to pray for her

and to pray for him because he's in the hospital.

He's probably going to die.

Why call me? Why call me? What am I?

I'm just a person.

Because I guess she figured I can still pray.

The end of all things is near.

Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

The second one is about stretching yourself to love the brethren.

Boy, this will kick your butt.

This really was hard for me to think about how badly I have fallen short in these areas over the years.

Stretch yourself to love others in the body.

The truth is, if you're not trying hard, if it's not hard for you to love the people that you're loving in the body,

then you're not following this verse.

Now it's not about whether you're loving them or not.

And by the way, again, this love is a choice and action. It is not an emotion.

Most people want to get married. They want to get married because they love.

They want to touch their significant other, their boyfriend, their girlfriend, whatever, because they love them.

And I submit to you that those can be sometimes practical expressions of love,

but most often they're practical expressions of something else, a physical need.

I don't feel whole unless I'm holding on to that person.

I don't feel whole unless I'm touching them.

That's not love. I'm sorry. It's not.

If you love somebody, your whole desire is for them to be closer to God.

And if you are personally standing in the way of somebody while they're supposed to be getting closer to God,

then you better know a few things.

The first one is you are not getting closer to God yourself. You're in sin.

The second one is you will answer for God.

One day God will say to you, why didn't you let so-and-so, your husband, your wife, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever, get closer to me?

I was trying to draw them in and you were just standing in the way, and you're not going to have any answer whatsoever,

because there is no answer to that question. No good one anyway.

And the third thing is I learned a long time ago from a man's point of view, and I'm not saying this,

but men have a certain effect on women and women have a certain effect on men.

So when you have that effect on them and the fact that you're having on them messes with their mind,

you're interfering with their prayers. That's what the Bible says.

Worse, you're interfering with your own prayers.

Now, if you've been married for 25 years and you're all wrapped up, frustrated by what your wife is doing

or things aren't working out the way you want it, you're interfering with your prayers.

You're interfering with your wife's prayers. Come on.

Stretch yourself to love that person means to stretch first, to push hard, to get there.

If you're there, I love them, yeah, I love them, it's easy.

That marriage ends in divorce, or worse.

There's a good probability because I was really not a good person and I was violent as a teenager.

I wasn't violent in my marriage ever, thank God.

My wife was a good soul, sweet soul, when we got married even though she wasn't saved.

But if we'd have stayed married long enough, there's a good probability that I would have become violent toward her,

maybe even killed her. We were fighting all the time.

That's not good to know that.

But God saved me, called me out of that, made me a new person, and a few weeks later,

two weeks later He made her a new person, and about a week after that we realized that our marriage would be completely different.

It's not the same thing anymore.

What He's saying is, you must do whatever is within your power to express love to others,

and I submit to you that when necessary, that means you must increase your power.

You must become more powerful so that you can stretch even further.

How do the professional players do it in baseball again?

They start out playing like T-ball, and they go up, and they go up, and they go up,

and that first baseman stretch becomes about junior high, high school becomes really good.

He can hit the ball over the fence, he can hit the gaps, he's running faster, and he's faster, and he's faster, and he's faster,

until he hits the height of his manhood, and all of his testosterone is geared toward making his body do what it can do,

and then every day he can use the work to live.

He gets to the point where maybe he can shave off a thousandth of a second on his run,

coming around first base to second base, and now he's trying to shave off a thousandth of a second.

I submit to you that this includes increasing our power, our ability to love, as much as we need to love.

So every time somebody does something, and you love that person, they do something you don't like,

that's just an opportunity for you to increase your love.

That's all it is. That's the throw to first, and you've got to reach further for it this time.

That's a hit to the outfield that barely you might make second, and the team really needs a double right now.

And so you come around first base heading toward second, and you push yourself, and you dive and slide,

even though you're wearing shorts.

That's that opportunity to push yourself to love that person.

But what do we think of it as? It's our opportunity to complain, our opportunity to judge.

We say, well, see, I knew they really didn't love me. See, they're supposed to love me.

We judge them as not loving us the way they're supposed to, and so on.

But also it includes doing what is within our power to allow them to love us.

See, they have the command to stretch, to love us.

And if we do things that make it harder for them to love us, you can look at that from two ways.

One, you can say, well, I'm only doing that because I want them to get better at loving.

Yeah, that ends a certain way.

They get better at loving, and you wind up out of the picture. That's what happens.

Because you will have sinned too much, done too much, gone too far, and you won't, in your own mind,

I can't tell you how many people feel, I can't believe that you could still love me,

or you still care about me, or why are you even still talking to me?

I had somebody say that to me just last week. Why do you still even talk to me after all this time?

And that's how it gets to be when you keep doing that.

So your job is to love others, and I submit to you, increase your power as necessary to do so,

and also to allow them to love you, and I submit to you, increase your power as necessary to do so.

This is talking about intentional charitable acts.

So you do something for them because you want to. Why do you want to?

Because of who God has made you. Not because you're better than them,

not because you want a certain result, not just because you can,

but because this is what God says will get the job done.

This is what the kingdom is about. This is what the church is about.

Loving in these kind of charitable acts means defending somebody.

It means that if right now a man with a gun came in our church building,

the men in this room who understand this verse have to get up and go at him.

They're like, no, I'm ducking down. I'm hiding. We're fleeing. We're running out of here.

Nobody has to get shot. Yeah, somebody's going to get shot because there's 30 of us,

and he's in the hall over the gun, and he starts shooting. Somebody's going to get hit.

So those of us that understand this verse go at him to stop him so that me and a few others,

and I hope it's me, are the only people to get shot instead of he just kills everybody.

And somebody is interposing themselves first off in front of the children,

which I hope our children's workers would do that.

Defense. Somebody bad-mouths your friend. Somebody bad-mouths your pastor.

Somebody bad-mouths your church. You come to defense. Hang on, even if they're right.

An outsider says, well, New Heights Fellowship is this that or the other thing,

and they say something bad? You say, no, I'm not going to listen to that.

Our church is godly, and we may have issues, but if we have issues, we'll work them out internally.

We'll find peace with one another. We'll love each other beyond it. We'll grow beyond it.

And even if somebody made a mistake, you telling me is not appropriate.

And then if you know that person made a mistake, then you go to that person separately,

and you say, I'm not judging. I'm not by gossip. I'm not responding to the gossip.

I'm just asking you. So-and-so who's outside the church said this about you.

Is it true that there's nothing wrong with asking? And they say, no, it's not true.

Okay, good. What a relief.

Well, yeah, it's kind of true. This happened, that happened, whatever, but they're twisting what it was.

And in that, you realize there was sin, and the two of you work through it together as Matthew 18 says, defense.

We defend one another. We defend one another.

And I submit to you, that means you have to defend the people you don't like.

You defend the things that they do that you don't like.

You defend the church when the church seems indefensible.

Jesus defended us when we were lost and dying and going to hell,

when we were not part of the kingdom, when we had no spiritual gifts,

when we were not good in any way, shape, or form.

He died for us while we were yet sinners.

Forgiveness. You go first to forgiving, and that makes it possible then to stretch to love.

Bearing one another's burdens.

I think what Peter was getting at is we're to be directed by the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5, beginning 16 and 17 says,

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

But these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

Did you catch that last part? You don't get to do what you want to do.

You got to do what you're supposed to do.

You don't get to do what feels good, tastes good, sounds good, looks good.

You got to do what's right. That's what he said.

And we do that because the Holy Spirit is living in us.

Baby, you're a houseboat. A houseboat sail.

And they take that Holy Spirit wherever that Holy Spirit wants to go.

And if instead you pursue the things that are of this world, then you've missed the point.

For the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such thing there is no law.

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

And you could stop right there, and by the way, most people do.

But in 26 it says, let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

Listen to me very carefully here.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit is here.

It is in us. It is from us.

You should be gentle and kind to one another. Love one another.

Patient. You should practice self-control.

We should be found faithful because the Spirit of God lives in us.

And he wants to bubble over in those fruits.

And he wants to display and produce those fruits.

And if you can't do those things to your brothers and sisters in Christ inside the church,

then, and you want to end that statement with, you can't do them in the world.

But guess what? You're not even asked to do them in the world.

This is written to the church.

We're commanded to do them in the church.

And we do them here because this is the training ground.

This is the place.

We ought not to be boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

You don't get to disagree with your brother and sister in Christ in an unloving way.

You don't get to be upset because they did something that you don't like.

I'm sorry. That's not on the menu.

That's not the kind of people that we are.

If you have an issue with somebody, go and talk to them.

And if you talk to them for any purpose, like justice or vindication,

or so I'll be known to be who I'm supposed to be, or so people won't be thinking bad things about me,

if any of those things are your motivation, you've missed it.

Because you go in love to call them to be what it is that they're supposed to be,

to help them, to lift them up to be what it is that they're supposed to be.

Galatians 6, 1-10 then says it this way,

Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespassing,

it means in other words, you know they sinned. You caught them.

You who are spiritual, assuming you're walking with the Lord,

restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness,

each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted.

Because listen, we're tempted.

The whole time we're trying to correct somebody else, we're tempted.

Bear one another's burdens, he says, thereby fulfill the law of Christ.

Listen to that. I almost went past it too quickly.

Bear one another's burdens and thereby, in other words, in bearing one another's burdens,

fulfill the law of Christ.

For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

But each one must examine his own work and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone.

In other words, you look at who you are, what you're doing in Christ,

and if you're doing well, then you can feel good about the fact that you're doing well,

but you don't compare yourself to other people.

And that's the problem, the world teaches us to compare ourselves to others,

and if we're doing better than them, then we're okay, and if we're not, then we're not.

And that is not the way it works. It's not in God's kingdom.

And it says, and not in regard to one another.

For each one will bear his own load.

The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.

Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.

For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption.

But the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, listen,

and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Colossians 3 says it this way,

Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord and not for people.

Knowing that it is from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance.

It is the Lord Christ whom you serve,

for the one who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done.

I submit to you, ignoring Peter's warning to stretch yourself to love the brethren,

to stretch yourself to love the people in your church,

the people who are in New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East Toledo.

If you're not willing to stretch yourself to love people,

then you are ignoring what Peter is commanding you to do,

and I submit to you that would be a wrong,

and it says for the one who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done,

and that without partiality.

It doesn't matter if you're the pastor, a deacon, a leader,

it doesn't matter if you gave the most, talk the least, or talk the most.

If you sing the best or sing the worst, it doesn't matter if you can play an instrument or you can't.

If you do not stretch yourself to love the others in the body,

you will receive the consequences of the wrong which you have done,

and that without partiality.

Last one, and I'm sure you're grateful to hear this one's a little shorter,

do what you alone cannot do so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Sober-minded, sound judgment, do this thing for prayers,

stretch yourself to love, this is all pretty tough stuff.

This is what we pretty much could not do outside of Christ.

Nothing more, nothing less.

We are asked to push ourselves, be sober-minded.

In other words, let's get your brain focused on what it's supposed to be focused on.

Let's start closing out windows, swiping things off the screen.

Put your phone away and actually worship.

Sing when you don't feel like singing.

Work when you don't feel like working.

Be sober-minded.

Practice sound judgment.

Make the decision that's necessary.

Man, I could buy this, but the truth is I'm really supposed to do this with my money.

Man, I could go there and do that, but really I'm supposed to be over here worshiping God, praising God.

Figure out what you're supposed to do and do that.

Practice sound judgment.

And these things for prayers because God gives us the ability to pray.

God wants us to pray.

He wants us to spend time with Him maybe above all things except for stretching ourselves to love one another.

That brings us to our conclusion, but I want to restate that final point because it was kind of short.

You need to do what you alone cannot do so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

If you can't do it and you weren't meant to do it, then you just don't do it.

But if you can't do it and you've been commanded by Scripture to do it, then you do it with the power that God has given you to do it.

Maybe you're meant to serve, preach, or give.

If you can serve just so much, then serve more than that.

If you can give just so much, then give more than that.

If you can preach just so much, then preach more than that.

Go beyond your ability so that you know that your hat is not hanging only on your head.

Until you stretch like that, there is a debate as to whether or not you are doing what God has called you to.

Final conclusions.

From the Scripture, Colossians 3, 23-25,

Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord and not for people,

knowing that it is from the Lord that you will receive the reward of the inheritance.

It is the Lord Christ whom you serve, for the one who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done and that without partiality.

It would be wrong to ignore this call of Peter.

Most importantly, God, to go further, harder, more pointed, and self-disciplined in love of our fellow church members and in honor of God's gift.

And most importantly, Christ's Lordship.

Wouldn't it be wrong?

Wouldn't it be wrong to not show up sometimes?

Wouldn't it be wrong to not focus my life enough to be a good steward of that which God has blessed me and use it to bless others?

Wouldn't it be wrong to employ it for his service?

If you believe that God loves you, then what are you supposed to do?

Let's be realistic.

If you believe that God loves you, and I hope you do because if you don't, then you are probably not saved.

But if you believe that God loves you, then you know that you are supposed to love the other people that God loves.

That's what we are called to.

And most importantly, it's about Christ's Lordship.

1 Peter 1, 22 says this, Since you have in obedience to the truth, purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.

1 Peter 3, 8, 9.

To sum up, all of you be harmonious.

Let me wish you peace.

Working together.

Tim could better explain harmonious, I'm sure.

Sympathetic.

Brotherly.

Kind-hearted.

And humble in spirit.

Not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead.

For you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.

Ephesians 4, 30-32 says, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Gosh, I wonder how we could grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Well, 31 says, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Back to Colossians 3, 12 says, So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,

bearing with one another, forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.

Let the Lord of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching, and admonishing one another, with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your heart to God.

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Now this story could end here.

Basically what we've said is, you need to exhibit these qualities toward other church members.

You need to draw together, we all need to draw together as a church to love one another, and stretch to do so.

It's not enough to just do that. It's to stretch to do so.

To depend on God to allow you to do more than what you could do by yourself.

In order to stretch, I submit to you, you're going to have to pray, because that is one of the spiritual disciplines that God gives us.

It is a way in which God empowers us. It is a way that God pours into us.

It is a way that God communicates some of the things that we don't otherwise know.

He provides conviction and teaching, and we recognize things from His Word as we pray, talk to God.

Well, that brings us back to sober-minded, sound judgment, make some decisions, figure out what it is that's messing with your head, and get out of it.

So that you can pray. And then as you pray, you and God work together to love people in your church the way that you could not alone.

But still, sounds like we can stop there, don't you think? That's a powerful message.

It's a reminder. It's a call to repentance.

As you look around the room and you see people that maybe get on your nerves a little bit, or I don't understand why they say that, why they act that way, why they do that, whatever.

So-and-so hurt my feelings. Sometimes they're not there when I need them. I think maybe somebody talked about me.

Whatever. Make your list, right? Whatever your personal list of confusing circumstances that stops you from wanting to love the people in your church.

There you go. Sounds like it's talking about that.

Except, guess what? There's one piece missing.

Because all of these commands don't inherently in them say that we have to handle the people that are our New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church different from the people that are not.

So now, if we're called to love everybody this way, I submit to you that in God, even in God, it's pretty much impossible.

Because they're not going to let you. Even if you wanted to, if you went out of your way, they're not going to let you, in some cases.

Can't do what's best for them because they won't let you. Can't help them figure out what's best for themselves because they won't let you.

So then you have to do it at a distance. And you want to say, well, I love them, but I keep them at a distance.

I get what you're saying there, except that's not the word love here. The love here is actual charitable actions toward the other individual.

It's actions that you carry out. So that doesn't work.

Paul says it very clearly in Colossians 4, 5 to 7. This is what he says.

Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

Let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

That's actually through verse 6. No, it might be 7.

Anyway, the point is this. There is a different standard. I am fond of saying there is only one race, the human race, and that is true.

I do not believe that people of different skin colors are different races. That idea was invented by Darwin as he wrote the Origin of Species to basically say that people with fat lips were closer to baboons and worthless.

It's ridiculous. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

And so nowadays racism has been flipped around and people are, well, that person is better than that person.

And that person needs to be punished because in the past that person suffered. And the whole thing is stupid.

There's one race, the human race. That's it. Adam and Eve were the beginning of the human race and everybody else, dark skin, light skin, whatever,

population anywhere on the earth, all came from Adam and Eve. So there's one race. But there's two peoples.

One people is way smaller than I would like it to be. But that people is New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East Aledo.

That's the one people. And the other people is everybody else.

The letters written to the Church of Colossi, conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders.

Outside what? Not saved. We're not talking about that. Outside what?

Outside the church, out of the box, out of the building, out of the meeting place, not coming to meetings, not involved, not serving, not giving this way, not part of the body of Christ.

So conduct yourself with wisdom toward anybody who's not in your local church making the most of the opportunity.

In other words, you still try to love them as much you can, tell about Christ, draw them toward what's right, etc.

Even though you may or may not ever be able to draw them to be part of our church, you still want to push them in the ways of God if possible.

But he says, conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders making the most of the opportunity.

Let your speech always be with grace. In other words, you still want to be graceful toward that person.

Explain the gospel. Tell them how they can be saved, how they can be forgiven. Try to forgive sins wherever you go.

Do that as though seasoned with salt. In other words, still teach righteousness, holiness, the difference of God, God's judgment, how they're going to stand at the judgment seat of God someday.

If they don't pay attention to God now, they're not going to like the results of that standing there.

Do this so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

There are two people, two types of people on the earth. New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East Toledo and everybody else.

And in New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East Toledo, we are a people who, I hope, anyway, we're supposed to be, according to Peter,

we are a people who gird our mind and make our choices for the purposes of prayers, or for the purpose of prayers, or for the purposes of prayer.

And we are a people who stretch ourselves to love New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church, the other members, brothers and sisters in Christ.

And we are a people who do what alone we cannot do, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

And that means we must be sober-minded. It means we must practice sound judgment.

We must do so for prayers. And we must stretch ourselves to love one another.

Stretch first. If you love and have not stretched, you're lying to yourself.

Because you're not doing your best. You're just doing what's easy or what you're already capable of.

When people do that, people get hurt. Stretch first.

Realize first that it's going to be hard. I had a man ask me, he said,

what will it take to become a member of East Toledo or New Heights Fellowship?

And I said, well, you're going to have to agree to work toward tithing.

You're going to have to agree to participate in church regularly.

You're going to be here pretty much every Sunday or as often as you possibly can be.

And if you can't be there, there's a reason why you can't be.

Be here whenever you can on Tuesdays if you possibly can be.

If you can't be there, there should be a reason why you can't be.

Be here regularly involved. What does that look like to you?

You tell us and then the body will decide whether or not that qualifies.

And you've got to be part of a ministry team, serving as part of your team.

So together empowering a ministry. In the church, minimum one team doing the work.

You've got to work in our missions that we do once a month or every six weeks.

You've got to work in outreach and stand up for what Christ wants us to teach others and so on.

By that time in the list, he'd already stopped listening.

And he never did come. And he's never become.

To which it's okay. Because maybe it wasn't meant to be.

It's hard. It's hard to be this church. And it should be.

Because if it's not something you and God do together, then you're not stretching yourself.

And if you're not stretching yourself, then you probably weren't supposed to do it at all.

You're just wasting your time and everyone else's.

Will you please consider that Peter was calling you? That's as he's calling me.

I ask the praise team to come forward at this time.

And we're getting out of our closing hymn.

And sing together. Opportunity to respond.

If the Lord is convicting you in some way. If you realize, say, I'm not a calling God the way I should.

You need to repent and turn to him today.

Or if you realize you're not going to be in the church that you're supposed to be.

You know what that looks like in some way. Or you need to know what that looks like when you respond.

God's calling you to take on a ministry. Take on a task.

Or talk to a certain individual. Where it might be.

The Lord is speaking to your heart today.

And you respond as we sing this song.

Stand with me. If you're able to do so, let's sing together.

And then you respond. God is with you.

All to Jesus I surrender all, to him I freely yield.

All ever love and trust in him in his presence daily there.