Maggie Street Virtual Service 10.4.20

to maggie street missionary baptist church where ezekiel pettway senior is the pastor amen our mission is to take the whole gospel to the whole city to be a loving caring and sharing church with christ as our model to train evangelize and make disciples of men to be expressive with our praise and to worship christ the savior in spirit and in truth and to minister to the whole man body soul and spirit maggie street missionary baptist church worship with us virtually morning worship service at 10 a.m each sunday sunday school at 9 00 a.m each sunday and each thursday evening bible study at 6 00 pm [Applause] giving just got easier you can give online online giving is available now for members friends and family check out our website for more information at www dot maggie street church [Applause] follow us on twitter at maggiemsbc [Applause] happy birthday and happy anniversary let's stay together connect with us online via facebook twitter instagram youtube or email join us for our morning devotion prayer call monday through saturday at 6 30 a.m and on sunday at 8 30 a.m the number to call is 978-990-5408 access code 26567 be sure and join us for revival of encouragement with pastor ezekiel pettway senior each wednesday at 7 p.m our theme there will be praise after this congratulations and let's celebrate pastor ezekiel pettway's 18th pastoral anniversary [Music] seen a lot of situations unfold been a lot of places met all kinds but there's one thing that stays on my mind the things i've done all the places i've gone and the things i've seen said i'll never the righteous forsaken said i never seek the righteous forsaken [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] no receipts [Music] [Music] you [Music] seen the rise righteous forsaken said i never [Music] see the righteous forsaken said i never [Music] see the righteous forsaken no receipt begging come breaks put your hands together [Music] [Music] no no [Music] oh yeah let's take it up [Music] i never [Music] all right come on everybody [Music] good morning my brothers and sisters what a blessing it is to be in the house of the lord again we're so glad to be able to share this word with you on this morning as we do our communion with you virtually as well today as we celebrate the lord jesus christ for another first sunday what a blessing it is my brothers and sisters that we have made it into the month of october and for that we are grateful we are excited about what god is doing fall is in the air and we're believing god for greater things to come in this year and next year well father we thank you for this day we thank you for the lord jesus christ we thank you for him dying on the cross in our stead we pray now lord god that you would give us ears to hear what the spirit will say to the church we thank you now for what you're doing what you're going to do and what you have already done and god we bless your holy name god we ask you now as we delve into this word today lord hide self behind the cross don't let him be seen or heard allow the word of god to be preached today with boldness conviction and power to the end that our lives may be better we ask all of these blessings and supplications and the only name that matters in jesus name amen my brothers and sisters this is a time for you to share with us in our given peace if you desire to give we would encourage you to go ahead and push the green tab and give you can give online you can come to the church we would be here for an hour from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock or you can continue to do what you've always done and that is to marry your gifts and your offerings in again we appreciate all that you do all that you have done and all that you will continue to do to help the ministry of jesus christ to help us keep our church operational and functional with that being said we're going to get right back into the word of god i introduced to you a message entitled the preeminence of love of the superiority of love and then last week i shared with you about the motivational gifts now those gifts should motivate you to do these things that we are talking about in the text today and so we're going to get back into the meat of this text and then after i preached this message the next week we will talk about the manifestational gifts in the body of christ now paul says in verse number 3 of chapter 13 he said though i bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though i give my body to be burned and have not charity it profit this me nothing now listen now we had finished this amen where paul had talked about even though we have faith that we can move mountains and that the person uh you or me possess the gift a man of faith uh to the maximum that we maximize that gift in faith amen as so that we can accomplish great miracles in the body of christ it is impossible to have a man the gift of faith and exercise it mightily but still have not love and this is what paul wants us to understand amen even though i have this in my heart even though i might be the epitome of a spiritual individual gifted amen endowed beyond measure with all of these gifts that paul has talked about but yet before god i am nothing why am i nothing because i don't operate in love the essence of god is love and god wants us to operate in the very essence of who he is and the reason why we know that god is love is because god demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners christ died for us for the bible says that god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him they would have eternal life and we would not perish so god wants us to operate in the very essence of who he is and that is love if you go back to chapter number 11 in the same book you find that paul in the earlier part of that letter paul says to those those individuals or to that church he said i do not praise you in this paul rather rebuked them because they were having the lord's supper or what they call the the lord's feast and they were eating and they were neglecting one another they were they were not waiting for those who were poor and they were gluttony and they were getting drunk and all of this kind of stuff and so paul began to let them know how important love was in the body of christ amen so here we are today amen as we look at at this very very important topic amen on on love paul wants us to understand that i am a zero without love and we've got to have love if we are going to carry out and be useful and effective in the body of christ i am not useful i am not effective if i don't operate in love and paul wants us to know this even though i'm able to speak with 4 000 different languages amen even though i can do that even if i have a prayer language even if i do all of these men these miraculous things he wants me to understand that without love i am nothing and this is what he says in verse number three he said if i give all that i possess to the poor now listen to what paul said if i give everything i have to the poor the question is what is it that is motivating me to give away everything i have to the poor what's my motivation for doing it am i doing it that i might draw attention to myself that people might praise me because of what i'm doing can i tell y'all today that when jesus decided to die on the cross he did not die to draw attention to himself for so that he can say hey look world i'm dying for you and you're not worthy of my love but i'm gonna die for you and we know god's love is genuine god's love is real and his demonstration to us that he loved us is that he took his only begotten son and sacrificed him for all of us in the world today that those of us who have accepted him as our lord and savior so if we look at this hypothetical man that paul is talking about in this text if it was you if it was me paul lets us know i can be the most benevolent person in the world i can be a fine excellent philanthropist amen i can be one that has all this money and all these things and i can be the best of all time i can be the bill gates in the spiritual realm but at the end of the day if i don't have love i am nothing amen he wants us to understand that that this kind of love amen what he says is that it indicates that that that with one sweeping uh gesture uh this man gave away every single penny that he had i'm reminded when jesus had a conversation with a young lawyer and the young lawyer said to jesus good master what must i do to enter the kingdom of heaven jesus said i tell you what you do he says sell everything that you have and distribute it to the poor and come and follow me notice now the young man's his whole demeanor changed and he decided well i can't do that jesus now i want heaven but i'm not willing to sell out and sell everything i have and a lot of times if we are not careful there are some things we want but our motivation for those things are the wrong motivation and so this man that we are talking about if i had the gift and i can give away everything i've that i had if i was dedicated to wiping out poverty if i could wipe out poverty what would be my reason for wiping it out why am i doing it am i doing it that you might put my name in the world guinness book of record am i doing it that you might put me in the history book to say that i did all of this for the poor i did it because i loved the poor or did i do it for the accolades that i would get can i tell y'all there are people that will work in church but the first time you stop calling their name the first time you don't mention that name they get upset with you because they say you didn't call my name no i shouldn't have to call your name because one thing we do understand that if you love god you do your best work behind the scenes you don't do it that nobody might praise you that somebody might stick your name on the signboard of life and say hey look at what he did he did this that and the other that is not important and so we understand that even if i'm dedicated to wiping out poverty but but i have not love and i'm not motivated by love then then what i do amen it amounts to absolutely nothing listen it is possible for a person or for people to give great sums of money to charitable and religious organization and to do it with selfish motive let's talk in the bible amen when you go over into acts chapter number five let's go to that real quick acts chapter number five and verse number one we'll read a few verses to show you how this happens in church but a certain man named ananias with safaria his wife sold a possession and kept back part of the price his wife also being private to it or privy to it and thought a certain part and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles feet but peter said anonymize why has satan feel thine heart to lie to the holy ghost now watch now what he has seen he has seen others sell their possession and laid them at the apostles feet because those people that sold those possession in chapter number four they did it out of genuine love for those who were without they shared what they had in the community of love and so now watch this this is what i call copycat giving it's not in their heart to do it but they sold it trying to deceive other people that their motivation for doing it was love but the truth of the matter is their heart was not in it they wanted to accolade so that somebody could praise them for doing the work have you ever noticed people when they do a good job they sit back and they smile with their arms folded and they're saying like come on say some more say some more what more good can you say about me no that's not what god want us to do so so but peter said ananias why have that has satan feel your heart to lie to the holy ghost see see when you do things and they are not motivated by love you're not deceiving me not are you lying to me peter said you are lying to the holy ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land watch this verse number four says this is a good place amen i tell you uh to jump off here where peter is just confronting him and saying to him don't don't lie to the holy spirit don't don't do that don't keep back part of the land it's yours and you sold it nobody coerced you into selling it in the first place you did it because you saw someone else do it but your heart was never in it from the very beginning he said watch this while it remained was it not thine own in other words it was yours was it not yours and after it was sold listen to what he said was it not in that own power yes why has thou conceived this thing in thy heart thou has not lied unto men but you lied unto god now don't do what he said you had it in your heart you had it in your power to do what you need to do first of all you could have sold it and kept it and not act as though you were committed to giving it to the church for a reason those people that sold their possession in chapter number four they did it because they said no man lacked anything they sold it and and they distributed and i just need to stick a pen in this because when they put it at the apostrophe they were not sowing into the lives of the apostles that mess that you see on tv is not of god they don't throw money on the altar at the feet of the preacher so that he can pick it up and take it to region bank and put it in his bank account oh no he that money was given to distribute to those who were in need and what motivated them to do that the love of god motivated them to do it if if god motivates you to help people listen to me you do it out of love so then he finishes this let me finish this piece and i get back into this and anonymize hearing these words fell down in other words he died we better thank god that he don't do drop judgment anymore god didn't allow that thing to even what god is saying i can't let this mess get in the church so i'm gonna set an example right here right now and cut it off so that people who are in church that are in position will not play these kind of games and they will know that the holy ghost is real watch what it says and great fear came on all them that heard these things people don't fear god anymore people think they can do whatever they want to do and get away with it but i'm here to let you know today god is sending a warning to us here in america and in the church anytime god get ready he can come and get us and the young men of rose wound him up and carried him out and they buried him he's dead and it came and it was about the space of three hours after three hours later when his wife not knowing what was done here she comes peter answered unto her tell me whether you sold the land for so much how much you sold it for what did you sell it for and she said yeah for so much in other words she ain't telling him the truth what she gave what they gave was a small portion of what they could have given then peter said unto her how is it that you have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the lord behold the feet of them which have buried your husband are at the door and should carry thee out he said they they coming for you now then fell she down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost she died you all and the young man came in and found her dead and carrying her forth buried her right next to her lying husband then they were in life together lying not in death together lying and great fear came upon all of the church listen this is where i'm trying and great fear came up on all the church and upon as many as heard these things the church has to get back into a place where it fears god the people fear god and we operate in love now listen to what he says even if i give my body to be burned i may give to merit favor with god or to gain applause with men why do we give do we give for the cause or do we give for the applause many people give for the applause oh he did spectacular he wrote a check for this man god don't care how big a check you write it doesn't matter your heart has to be in it the love for the ministry is what motivates me to do what i do it ought to motivate you to do what you do for the love of the church and of the ministry though a man gives everything he has you may give a big you may be a big giver of money but without love it profits you nothing i've known people in my life talked about giving money to the church and what they gave and then they come back i hate i gave that money then you gave it for the wrong reason listen this is where i am in my life if you're sitting in the pew if you're sitting at home and you're contemplating about giving to the church and you don't want to give then you know what you should do is not give because your heart is not in it that's why paul said we should lay aside and store a man ahead of time and we should give as god has purpose it has we have purpose in our heart to give in other words if you got to sit and scratch your head well i know i should give my tithe but i'm gonna give five or ten dollars you shouldn't give anything because you're not motivated by love to give it love motivates us to do what we do you may give money for the cause of christ for missionary work for the church but if it has no love you're not a gainer you're not a giver you are a loser you have to understand that so a christian may be able to exercise the spiritual gift of giving but still do it without love you can give without love but you can't love without giving you can't do it that's why i quoted john 3 16 god so loved love motivates you to give if you love you will give it motivates you you can give all day and not love let me go ahead and do this to get them off my back no i do it because i love to do it and that's why you should do it because you love to do it listen great spiritual gifts can operate without love that can operate apart from love i just showed you it can operate without love but yet love without love will nothing in the face of god in the presence of god that's why love is preeminent even to the gift of mercy and if i surrender my body to the flames but have not love i gain nothing that's what paul said i can give my body to be burned you know you read in fox's book of martyrs there are some people who died for the gospel one is polycarp and they talked about how he had stood for the faith and they had put him out in the arena and did all kind of stuff to him and they literally tried to burn him alive and he still wouldn't die he he gave his body because of what he believed now he didn't do this so that we could be talking about him today saying oh what a great guy he was no he was motivated by love and he gave his life for the gospel message they wanted him to renounce who christ was but he refused to do it because of the love that he had for god and the ministry by the book fox's book of martyrs and it will share some stories and testimonies about some of the first century christians and some people thereafter a man who had lived their life in such a way with a love for god that they were motivated to die for the cause of christ let's just talk about martin luther king for a minute martin luther king in my opinion has been reduced to a civil rights leader but i believe he was a man of god i believe he was a prophet of god i believe that he loved god to the point that he did not count his life dear unto him he could have after he graduated from colgate and from morehouse and all these places he went to school he could have he could have landed a job anywhere and did well in life but yet he chose to live a selfless life so that he might liberate many that's love so even if i surrender my body to be burned if i possess the gift to this extent that i'm willing to give up my life martyrdom was welcomed by me i would be willing to be burned or run through by a sword or put on the torture rat or linger on a cruel cross or rot away in a rat infested dungeon yet it is possible to do all these things without love no a man might die a modest death for selfish reasons pride political beliefs and still have not love i want to ask this question i'm not going to stay on it i wonder why did jim jones do what he did i wonder why did david koresh do what he what he did i wonder why jeffries did what he did all of these people i'm talking about professed a new to know god and to have love for humanity but they did things for selfish reasons it was all about them it was not about god and so we have to look at why we do the things that we do it is not uncommon for us to read of some people today who pour gasoline on himself or herself and make a flame make themselves a flaming human torch there's a show on tv that's entitled america got talent and i just happen to sit there and watch one episode i don't i don't watch very much tv like that but he is literally in flames and so i'm saying to myself what in the world would motivate someone to set themselves on fire well we know what the motivation is now he wanted to become famous so he's willing to set himself a fire with with this this this this propane whatever it was he had on but he was in a blaze and the people in the audience they were like oh lord what's going on and then eventually they put him out and so he gets to come on the show the next week because they voted that what he did was amazing what was amazing about you setting yourself on fire nothing absolutely nothing why who knows we don't know but without love even if you die it profits nothing in the presence of god dying without the love for christ does not gain the favor of god if god calls us as christians to make the ultimate sacrifice then that's different but when we decide well i'm just going to do it just to be doing it no no can't do that it's not uncommon in the new testament for even pagans set themselves on fire out of commitment to their god when you read the old testament man some people sacrificed their own children to their gods and even they tried to sacrifice some to our god but god is not accepting that kind of stuff why do we do what we do that's the question it's got to be motivated by love and that's there were even a few christians who died and who did the same thing to show that they had as much commitment to christ as pagans had for their false god yet even that sacrifice if not done out of love is worthless only god knows the human heart only god knows that so what paul is saying is that if we make the supreme sacrifice of life itself and help not learn love this is what the church has to do the church has to learn how to practice love and to not have classism in the church not to have big eyes and little you in the church when you go back to first corinthians chapter number 11 you will find paul addresses some of those issues and how they treated one another they were spiritual they were saved but they did not know how to operate in love when it came to treating each other differently they did that they treated each other as though they were not in the body of christ paul said for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and men asleep because they don't discern the lord's body they don't know who's in the body they think because i don't have the the kind of gift you have i don't live where you live i don't wear what you wear i can't eat what you eat so so i'm lesser than you because my gift is lesser no there are many members in the body but there's only one body that's what paul wants them to understand so he wants us to know we gain nothing absolutely nothing because at the judgment seat of christ it will be regarded as nothing if love wasn't in it god has set us as believers on this earth to learn how to love now come on people let's be honest there are some people that we are still struggling with loving even today there are some people that don't look like you and me that we struggle with loving because of their narcissistic attitude and how they do certain things it should not matter we should love them but we should hate the deeds that they do we love the person but we don't love the deeds and the actions that they do even jesus did not love the action but he loved the person and what i've discovered in my life whenever a person is obnoxious whenever a person acts a certain way you got to look at what's behind that person what is driving that person what makes them do what they do if they are not saved why are you shocked and surprised you shouldn't be they don't know any other way to be but watch this when they see my demonstration of love and how i respond to how ugly they are toward me they know that something has to be different about that person because he's not responding to my craziness we got to admit sometimes it's hard not to respond to some stuff that people do but when you think it through and you decide i'm gonna let love cover this mess this time i'm gonna let love continue to prevail in this situation it demonstrates that we are the children of god blessed are the peacemaker for they shall be called the children of god because we want to live a life that we are at peace with ourselves we're at peace with god and we're at peace with our fellow man we got to learn how to love and to live without learning to love is to have wasted our time while we live here on planet earth no matter how impressive your achievements are my achievements are all of our achievements are in in in any other way that it might be no matter what they are love is more important than even giving your body to be burned i'm gonna conclude this for the day so what what a lesson we as believers learn from this portion of these scriptures number one we learn love and god's estimation is the bottom line with god in god's estimation it's the bottom line nothing else if we have love we have everything because god is love he that loveth lot love it not knoweth not god because god is love if we do not have love we have nothing number two any spiritual gift we may have even if we have it to the maximum it is not as important as showing love i don't care what your spiritual gift is i don't care if you can walk on water it is not more important than love love takes precedence over spiritual gifts love is the key to humbling the christian who has great spiritual gifts and exalting the christian who has a lesser spiritual gift paul talked about in second corinthians 12 when he had been caught up into the heaven and he had seen things that were unspeakable and he said god had given him a thorn in the flesh that it may buffet him lest he be lifted up in pride and paul understood i have spiritual gifts but i don't have it twisted either paul was a gifted individual but yet he had himself under control to the point where he said even when i preach to others i keep my body under subjection lest i become a castaway my preaching means nothing if it's not motivated by love so number four love is the motive that god expects from us when we are doing service for our lord it is love which gives every deed and every act that we do value if what we are doing every act every deed if love is not in it it has no value whatsoever people look on the outward man but god looks on the heart and a heart without love does not impress god one iota he's not impressed with it because he looks at the heart this kind of love is supernatural my brothers and sister supernatural love that can only be produced by the holy spirit in the life of a christian that's what the bible said god has poured out his love into our hearts by the holy spirit whom he has given us and that's found in romans chapter five and verse number five so how can we get this love it comes as an outgrowth of our daily faith our daily devotion in prayer our walk with god and faith in jesus christ it is christ through the holy spirit who gives us power to love the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love one verse and i'm done galatians 6 i'm in galatians 5 and verse number 6. galatians five and verse number six listen what he says for in jesus christ neither circumstance circumcision or valence anything in other words you don't have any advantage because you are of the covenant of abraham of circumcision nor uncircumcision so you can either be a part of it or not but watch what he said but faith which worketh by love even faith has to work through love even faith works through love trust the lord jesus christ to grant you power through the holy spirit to overcome personal bitterness hurts and scars which you have in your heart toward those who have mistreated you you got to ask the holy spirit to help you to overcome that bitterness those hurts those scars that you have on your heart toward the people who have hurt you and mistreated you we have to trust god to grant us the power through the holy spirit to love those who are of a different race why is it that there's so much hatred there's only one race people that's the human race that's the race god made he just made us with different pigmentation of color in our skin but that's only one race that's the human race our culture our economic status those who don't look like us act like us dress like us or smell like us if christ is going to love through you you must be willing to step out in faith risking your pride your reputation your selfishness as christ begins to change you giving you a new heart a new attitude and a new view of others to love as christ loves you must sacrifice yourself to god and for others the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love and this is the last jesus said in john 13 34 and 35 a new command i give you love one another as i love you so that you must love one another by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love or love one to the other that's how the world would know that we belong to jesus because we love one another well my brothers and sisters i thank you for tuning in and listening to this word today on the preeminence of love the superiority of love because all things work through and by love if we love not we don't even know who god is because god is love and we represent god here in the earth realm we are the church and the church must put love on display church must always be loving what we about to do even today as we take communion is a demonstration of love so let me invite you today if you don't know who jesus is i want you to just confess with me lord i believe that you died for my sin i believe that you rose again the third day according to the scripture i invite you to come into my heart come into my life be my lord and be my god i accept you as lord of my life and i allow you to occupy the throne of my life with that being said if you made that confession i want you to give us a call at 334-263-3215 if you do that you can leave a message with our secretary and should give me the message of one of our lead deacons uh dick and parker and we'll get back with you or you can send us an email we'd love to have you as a part of our church family now at this time i want you to share with me in this virtual communion and um this is where we participate and love that was demonstrated for all of us in the death of jesus christ on the cross this is paul's revelation that he received about communion in first corinthians chapter number 11. if you get a chance i i really want you to read that whole chapter matter of fact let me go ahead and put this out before i do it this will be your devotional reading and you'll see why paul actually rebukes this church in this chapter about the way they will carry themselves paul says for i received of the lord that which also i delivered unto you he said i only gave you what he gave me that the lord jesus christ the same night in which he was betrayed he took bread he knew he was going to be betrayed and when he had given thanks he break it and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you this due in remembrance of me after the same manner also he took the cup when he had stopped saying this cup is the new testament in my blood this do you as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the lord's death till he come wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the lord but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not the discerning the lord's body for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep for if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged but when we are judged we are chastened of the lord that we should not be condemned with the world wherefore my brethren when you come together to eat tarry one for another wait for one another if a man if any man hunger let him eat at home that ye come not together unto condemnation and the rest would have sailing set in order when i come father we thank you for uh this commemora commemoration of your death your barrier and your resurrection we thank you lord that you demonstrated your love toward us and that while we were yet sinners you died for us and lord we thank you because we know that without the shedding of blood and god i want to qualify that without the shedding of innocent blood no sin could be forgiven and we thank you that jesus blood made us free and god it is his innocence that was so powerful that nothing was found in him no god no sin no nothing and that's what makes his blood so powerful that no sin was found in him and for that god he presents us to you the father without blemish god we thank you for that we thank you for his model we thank you for his example now lord i pray that you would help us as the local church to demonstrate love in all that we do in our gifts in the church whatever capacity whatever gift we may have if it's a servant gift god help us to do it in love if it's a motivational gift god help us to do it in love if it's a manifestation of gift god help us to do it in love if it's one of the help gifts lord help us to do it in love and god we know that love covers a multitude of fault so now we thank you we love you we adore you as we partake of your death your barrier and your resurrection we ask your blessing upon this communion service in jesus name amen amen this wafer cracker is symbolic of the body of jesus christ that was broken for humanity i encourage you to take it with me at this time and this grape juice is symbolic of the blood of jesus christ that was shed for all of humanity take and drink it god bless you god keep you is our prayer i want to encourage all of you and remind you amen those of you who i don't get a chance to talk to you get an opportunity to call me today at 12 o'clock we will do uh impact call for those of you who can't call in during the weekdays at 6 30 or 8 30 in the morning you have an opportunity to call us today at 12 o'clock well god bless you we appreciate you we thank you so much as you tune in with us every week to do uh what you do i appreciate you i love you in the lord now it's time for us to sign off and get out of here amen again remember first corinthians 11 is going to be your scripture to read for the week well father we thank you we love you we adore you we appreciate you we thank you for dying on the cross for us we thank you for demonstrating that love toward us now that you have demonstrated your love help us to demonstrate that love to others as well now god we thank you we love you we adore you now unto him that is able to keep us from falling present us faultless before his mighty and exceeding throne to the only wise god our savior be power dominion glory henceforth now and forever in jesus name amen and we'll see you online street missionary baptist church where ezekiel pettway senior is the senior pastor maggie street is located at 642 maggie street montgomery alabama 36106.

Channel: Maggie Street

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Length: 52min 7sec (3127 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2020