The Love Challenge - Pastor Jeff Schreve

[Music] welcome to from his heart where pastor jeff shreeve is in a brand new inspiring series entitled the greatest of these is love in today's lesson he'll share how to love like god loves with the message the love challenge he can heal every school [Music] amen if you have your bible please turn to first corinthians chapter 13. we're in a series on first corinthians and today we want to talk about the love challenge as many of you know the tallest mountain on earth is located in the himalayas it's between the border of nepal to the south and china to the north it's called mount everest it's 29 029 feet above sea level serious mountain climbers look at that because it's the tallest as that is the be all end-all of mountains to climb i was reading and it said there have been about 4 000 people over the years that have gone to the summit of mount everest even base camp just to get to base camp which most of the people go on the nepal side the the south side that's 17 598 feet you know you really can only do mount everest in in may is really the key month that people uh use to try and scale the mountain because any other month it really doesn't work mount everest is a daunting and dangerous endeavor to try and climb to the top because of altitude sickness insufficient oxygen extreme cold high winds avalanches so many people have died because of avalanches the weather is unpredictable there's only so much amount of daylight you can't be on in in transit there to get to the top and have the sun go down on you because then you're dead meat if you saw the movie everest you saw that uh how brutal that is i don't know why anyone would want to do it personally but you see people do that and they come back and they're frostbite and they lose fingers and toes and all sorts of things you see the bodies of those who have died there they're still there because you can't get in there to remove those bodies mount everest needless to say is the ultimate challenge for a mountain climber now we want to look today at the ultimate challenge of love we've been talking about love we've entitled this series the greatest of these is love because verse 13 says now abide faith hope love these three but the greatest of these is love and the love that the bible uses is agape love the highest kind of love the love that doesn't uh depend on conditions it's not a love if you do this or if you do that it's a love in spite of it's god's kind of love the kind of love he has for us it's the love we're commanded to have for god and to have horizontally to other people when paul wrote to timothy first timothy chapter 1 verse 5 he said the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith you know when jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment he said the greatest commandment is to love god with all your heart all your soul all your strength all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself on these two commands hang the whole law and the prophets now it's interesting because the jews would look at the first five books the written torah and they would say there are 1613 laws commandments in the torah well we know from the two tablets of stone written by the finger of god that god had ten ten that made the tablets and the two tablets interesting four commands on the first tablet six commands on the second tablet the first four commands of the ten commandments all have to do with our vertical relationship with god you shall have no other gods before me you shall not worship idols you shall not take the name of the lord your god in vain for the lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain remember the sabbath to keep it holy those are all vertical commands and then you have commandment number five which goes horizontal honor your father and mother do not murder do not commit adultery do not steal do not bear false witness do not covet all those are horizontal so jesus said basically in his answer to the the what is the greatest commandment he said it's to love god that's the first tablet that's vertical and to love your neighbor as yourself that's horizontal that's the second tablet and that's a challenge for us now between the two loving god vertically loving your neighbor horizontally we could say if you compare those two it is much easier to love god than it is to love horizontally to love my neighbor why god is holy holy holy holy he's perfect god loves us with an everlasting love god is merciful god is kind god is slow to anger and abounding and loving kindness and truth god is compassionate and forgiving i mean and he never changes he's faithful and true so who wouldn't love god it doesn't make sense that we wouldn't love god because god is so wonderful and god is so lovable so we could say well loving god we love because he first loved us that would be much easier than loving horizontally loving our neighbor why because our neighbor is not holy holy holy our neighbor is not necessarily very kind not very necessarily very compassionate our neighbor has a tendency to be selfish our neighbor has a tendency to be rude our neighbor has a tendency to be cutting our neighbor can stab us in the back our neighbor can steal from us lie about us our neighbor can do a lot of terrible things to us so that second half of the law love your neighbor as yourself that's the struggle and in corinth they weren't loving at all they had missed the boat on loving they prided themselves on all their spiritual gifts but paul said a whole chapter this is your big problem you don't love and it doesn't matter what else you do if you don't love that's why he starts off this chapter hey if i speak with the tongues of men and angels and do not have love i'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol i have nothing if i don't have love he said i have nothing i am nothing even though i can know all prophecies and have faith to remove mountains even though i can do that if i don't have love i am nothing i have nothing i am nothing if i give my body to be burned if i give all my goods to the poor i profit nothing it gains nothing if i don't have love love is that critical and love is a challenge it's very hard to love let's just be honest it's impossible to love like god loves as god commands us to love our neighbor as ourself how are we going to do that we can't do that without his strength without his help without surrendering to him him who lives inside and say lord you love through me now of the things that we've talked about in this series the qualities of love verses four through seven he lists fifteen qualities of love see love is not so much defined as it's described and it's described in in the greek it's described in verbs not in adjectives but in verbs because love is something you do and so he says in verse 4 love is patient love is kind and is not jealous love does not brag and is not arrogant does not act unbecomingly it does not seek its own is not provoked and then we hit we could call this the mount everest challenge of love it does not take into account a wrong suffered does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth so i want us to focus on those three this morning we can call them kind of three little peaks on this summit on this mountaintop of love that we compare to mount everest first little peak agape love does not hold grudges it does not hold grudges it does not take into account a wrong suffered that word take into account that translation is from one greek word legit zomai which is used 40 times in the new testament it means to reckon to count to compute to keep a record to keep a ledger it's an accounting term it's what you put on the books and you're going to consider this you're going to reckon this you're going to put this on the books the scripture says love doesn't do that as one translation says it keeps no record of wrongs it doesn't keep a record of wrongs that others do to us now if you're like every other person on the planet you have had people do things to you either on purpose or by accident that have hurt you i've had that happen to me people have done things to me said things about me that hurt and that have wronged me just like you have been wronged and those hurts have to be processed if we don't process them we're going to hold grudges we're going to remember oh you said this about me you did this to me some of you in here some of you watching uh in the atrium or in fusion area or in the scout hut or at the hotel or uh watching online from a different place a different city you're you're holding somebody captive somebody did something to you and you wrote it down so to speak not physically wrote it down but it's it's recorded there you did this to me and love says you don't keep a record of wrongs you have to release that person you have to let that go see agape love forgives those who hurt us and you have people that hurt you and i have people that have hurt me and love says you let that go you forgive the word for forgive that's used 140 something times 146 i believe in the new testament a fear me it literally means to forgive to send away to release to let go now here's what unforgiveness does unforgiveness holds on holds on to the offense and to the offender and this is so beautifully pictured in the parable that jesus told in matthew chapter 18. you know matthew 18 is such a critical chapter that's where peter asked jesus he said lord how often should i forgive my brother up to seven times the rabbi said three times peter doubled it and added one for good measure and he thought jesus was going to be so blown away because peter was j i'm so magnanimous i could forgive my brother up to seven times and jesus said no it's not seven times it's 70 times seven it's an infinite number of times and then he tells the parable about the the slave who owed his master 10 000 talents this gigantic sum of money 10 000 talents to give you an idea of how much 10 000 talents is a talent is a measure of weight it's between 60 and 80 pounds and to give you an idea of how much money that is solomon who's the richest man by far in the bible one of the richest men who who has ever lived somebody said if you put solomon into today's world he'd be a trillionaire i mean he's just unbelievably wealthy his haul for a given year in taxes and revenues coming to him was 666 talents of gold that's solomon jesus is talking about somebody that owes the master 15 times that of solomon's annual hall i mean this is a huge amount of money no one would ever have that much money and no one would ever have a slave get into him for ten thousand talents but jesus was expressing the fact that hey the master is god and you owe god an unbelievable astronomical uh amount from your sin debt so he said this guy had ten thousand towns and the master forgave him when the slave cried out for mercy but then this forgiven slave goes out and he finds a fellow slave who owed him a hundred denarii a hundred days wages now a hundred days wages is not nothing if we just just for the sake of math principles because i'm not uh great at uh calculating things on the stage in front of a crowd let's say you make a hundred dollars a day he owes you 100 days wages that's ten thousand dollars that's not nothing but that's such a huge cry from ten thousand talents which is 350 tons of gold that's what 10 000 talents would equal did you know it would take a slave 20 years of labor to earn one talent 20 years and so he he has this this huge uh discrepancy and disparity and this guy finds somebody throws him a hundred talents and this is what the scripture says but that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii and he seized him and began to choke him saying pay what you owe here is the picture of unforgiveness it seizes and it begins to choke and it doesn't let go of the person who offended you you pay me what you owe i'm not going to let go of this i'm not going to let go of the fact that you hurt me i'm not going to let go of you that's unforgiveness forgiveness is letting go it's releasing that person it's setting the captive free and when you do you find out the captive was yourself because unforgiveness doesn't hurt the person unforgiveness hurts you and that's why jesus is so hard on this issue of unforgiveness he says in matthew 6 15 but if you do not forgive men then your father will not forgive your transgressions well you're in serious trouble in your walk with the lord if the lord says i'm not going to forgive you because you won't forgive your brother now you can't walk with god if because you sin every day and i sin every day and god says no you deal with that sin now god is so hard on that on the issue of unforgiveness because he knows that if you don't forgive it's going to destroy you and god loves you too much to see you destroy yourself see here's the deal if you don't forgive then resentment and bitterness find a home in your heart and agape love doesn't let resentment and bitterness find a home that's why it keeps no record of when it has been wronged ephesians chapter 4 says this be angry and yet do not sin we talked about that last week it's called righteous indignation it's okay to be angry but don't get angry for yourself if you get angry because people are doing things against the lord it's okay to get angry jesus got angry when they would turn the temple into a den of thieves be angry and yet do not sin do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity every time you get hurt somebody says something or does something to you and it hurts you it wounds your heart as you nurse the hurt and rehearse the hurt and curse the hurt and think about the hurt you will get angry the flip side of hurt is anger every single time and if you let the sun go down on your anger and you don't deal with the anger you don't rightly process the anger you're going to get resentful and bitter toward that person who hurts you the bible says don't do that don't let the sun go down in your anger and then it says don't give the devil an opportunity the word for opportunity topos in the greek t-o-p-o-s also means place don't give the devil a place don't give him space in your heart people who refuse to forgive they this is what you don't understand this but spiritually what you're doing is throwing out a welcome mat on the door of your heart to the devil and saying come on in mr devil set up shop in here don't give the devil a place agape love doesn't keep records of wrongs it forgives and it doesn't let resentment and bitterness find a home here's the thing the bible tells us hebrews chapter 12. see to it that no one comes short of the grace of god that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many be defiled you know if you see and hang out with a bitter person you you can figure it out pretty quickly that person is bitter toward somebody or something maybe they're bitter toward the church or bitter toward this school or bitter toward uh this company because they the company didn't treat them right or whatever when you hang out with a better person that bitter person doesn't keep the bitterness to himself or herself that bitter person has to share the bitterness well did you know what so and so did to me and they share what so and so did to them so that they can get you on their team so that you can be on the posse that hates that person too they hate them they want you to hate them too so a root of bitterness springing up and many be defiled so be good to yourself forgive those who hurt you and not only forgive but forget see love does not remember the offense against the offender you know you we've heard the phrase well i'll forgive so and so but i'm not going to forget i'll forgive what you did but i'm not going to forget it hey is that the way you want god to treat you oh you know i'll forgive what you did but i'm not going to forget it i'm writing it down in the book see it says love doesn't do that doesn't keep a record of when it has been wronged and love doesn't remember against another person listen to what isaiah 43 says i even i this is the lord speaking am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake and i will not remember your sins now when god says i won't remember your sins that doesn't mean that god doesn't know that you did that god is god he knows everything god doesn't all of a sudden just get alzheimer's and so i can't remember that god knows but he doesn't remember it against you that's what he is saying when the lord first kings chapter 15 talking about david david's been dead for a good while now in first kings 15 and the bible talks about david david's the standard bearer of good kings and it says david followed the lord fully with all his heart except in the case of uriah the hittite david had uriah the hittite murdered so he could marry bathsheba his wife because david had an affair with bathsheba when uriah was out fighting battles for the king you know the story second samuel chapter 11. and so david did a terrible sin and the lord knows he did that the lord forgave him for that but he knows that he did it he didn't just forget i know david didn't do he wouldn't do that you're telling me it's news to me because i must have forgotten all that now when the bible says forgive and forget it means you you don't hold that against someone you forget that they did that in terms of holding it against them debbie used to get in some confrontations with her mother her mother's in heaven now but debbie used to say to her mother mom you're a kitchen sink fighter you say what is that well all of a sudden they get into an argument and mother starts pulling out well i remember four years ago when you did this and this debbie and she starts pulling this stuff out well how does she know clean the kitchen sink don't be pulling that stuff out she had been keeping a record of the wrongs the bible says don't do that agape love does not hold grudges and that can be so hard for us because all of us have been hurt and all of us have had people say and do things to us how do you deal what do you do if you had a parent who really hurt you maybe physical abuse or sexual abuse how do you deal with that and it's continuing because there they're still alive and you have to deal with that person how do you do that this is what i found to help you not get bitter stay bitter at someone who's hurt you and maybe continues to hurt you pray for that person pray god would bless that person play pray that god would work in that person's life and shower down goodness and grace on that person listen it's really hard to be bitter towards someone of whom you are constantly praying for that helps you it's not so much for the other person it's for you so that your heart stays clean because love does not take into account a wrong suffered second peak on the mountaintop agape love does not rejoice in sin verse 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness doesn't rejoice in moral wickedness see sin is a crippling and destructive thing it's a cancer of the soul that brings death and real love can't rejoice in sin it's not glad about sin now there are two types of sin that we have to watch out that we don't rejoice in first type is personal sin agape love does not rejoice in personal sin you know the scripture says about moses that he chose to endure ill-treatment with the people of god rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin sin is pleasurable that's why we're tempted to do it if sin weren't pleasurable nobody would do it right if if sin let's say if if overeating was like somebody sticking a knife in your foot nobody would do it it'd be like i'm not taking that next bite i'm done you know if lusting somebody stuck a knife in your foot you wouldn't do it if whatever it is caused you physical pain and it was just this is awful i'm gonna this is gonna make me so sick i'm not doing it but here's the thing about the devil he's too smart to go fishing without any bait on his hook you know a fish knows when he sees a worm on the hook man the worm looks good and it tastes good and it is good the problem with the worm is it's on a hook and so when you bite on the worm you also get the hook and the hook is not good and the taste the passing pleasure of the taste of the worm does not compare to the hook and then when you bite on that that worm with the hook you're hooked and cooked gutted and grilled it wasn't worth it and you say no that wasn't that wasn't a good thing but sin is like that it has pleasure but it's a passing pleasure i remember billy graham told a story about a man on a business trip and he was in the hotel bar area and he had a drink and a woman came up to him and they began talking and married man any long story short he ended up spending the night with this woman in his hotel room and when he woke up the next morning she was gone and when he went to the bathroom he saw written in lipstick welcome to the wonderful world of aids it wasn't worth it it was a passing pleasure and now it is disaster david's sin with bathsheba that was a passing pleasure but then it brought disaster hey agape love doesn't rejoice in personal sin and we can find pleasure in sin but we can't find joy in sin how do you know if you're really a christian here is the way that god showed me when i was a 17 year old high school senior when i prayed to receive christ the way i knew that there had been a change as we sing that song what a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since jesus came into my heart the way i knew something had changed dramatically in me was my attitude towards sin man i used to just love sin live for sin oh this is so wonderful i would uh sing that song i live i live i live for the weekend it's all about the weekend and chasing girls and getting drunk and all that when i got saved all that changed i couldn't do that anymore it didn't mean i couldn't it didn't mean there wasn't some pleasure there's not the the worm on a hook but i would get convicted about that i never had conviction before my attitude towards sin changed so you get you become a christian and god doesn't fix it so you can't sin anymore he fixes it so you can't sin and enjoy it anymore there's still a passing pleasure but afterward then it's like ah i feel horrible that i did x y and z that i sinned against god the bible says in romans chapter 6 for when you were slaves of sin before you became a christian when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things which you are now ashamed for the outcome of those things is death what does that do for you when a christian sins and jumps into sin sexual sin especially is one of those sins that uh the immoral man sins against his own body that just you just feel covered in the slimy fingerprints of sin and you just feel so awful about yourself that that reveals that you've really been saved the lost guy does that stuff and he brags about it to his friends let me tell you what i did on friday night wow we had such a time we got so drunk and just all this stuff and we met this girl and we did this and we did that bragging about it hey if you can sin and it doesn't bother you news flash you've never been saved when david sinned with the bathsheba uriah thing he said in psalm 32 when i kept silent about my sin because he tried to cover it up when i kept silent about my sin my body wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night god your hand was heavy upon me my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer sila which means pause feel what i was feeling it was awful it was horrible i was out of fellowship with god i had sinned there was no joy it was misery hey real love does not rejoice in unrighteousness it does not rejoice in personal sin but then it also does not rejoice in another person's sin see two types of sin we can rejoice in our own sin and if you find joy in your own sin you're probably not a believer but how about other people's sin did you know in corinth they were doing that they were rejoicing in another person's sin first corinthians chapter five paul says this it is actually reported that there is immorality among you an immorality of such a kind as does not even exist among the gentiles hey the the pagan world doesn't even do what you're doing he said that someone has his father's wife someone is shacking up with his step-mother how horrible is that and you have become arrogant and have not mourned instead in order that the one who has done this deed might be removed from your midst the church in corinth said whoa we have somebody that does this in our fellowship we are such a an encompassing group we're such a welcoming group oh so this guy has some trouble here and he's doing some things that some people might say are wrong but not our church we we just welcome everybody and we're the church of no standards and uh they were arrogant about it maybe because look at our church look how wonderful we are we we don't judge anybody even the guy that is committing incest we don't judge him we just come on in have part of the church be in the church enjoy the church and so they were proud maybe from that standpoint or maybe they were proud because they say well look at that one over there he's i'm so much better than he is we compare and uh his sin is worse than than your sin so you feel better about yourself and either way there is rejoicing over a man's sin the bible says don't do that love doesn't do that because love knows when somebody sins well that's a sin against god high treason against heaven's king and that's something that is going to wreck and ruin that person's life pastor friend of mine he posted on facebook that he had left his wife divorced his wife and married a man and now he was so deliriously happy living out the person god made him to be i private messaged the guy because i wasn't going to put this on publicly i went to him i know this guy so i private messaged him and i said listen i said i need to talk to you about what you're doing i said i know you know you can blow me off if you want but i care about you and what you're doing is gonna wreck and ruin not only your life but the lives of your kids and the life of your ex-wife i said you are going directly against what god has clearly said in his word and you're in some kind of demonic euphoric state like this is that i am finally the person god wants me to be i said galatians 6 do not be deceived god is not mocked for whatever man sows this will also reap for the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption but the one who sows to the spirit shall from the spirit reap eternal life i said you are going to reap a crop of destruction in your life that's going to affect your kids it's going to be bad news for you and i was kind but i was direct and he responded back i was kind of surprised another pastor friend of mine said he's not going to respond back to you i've reached out to him he's not responded back to me he did reach out and he said thanks for caring about me but i am in such a good place and this is so wonderful hey would would love say well i'm so much better than you because look what you're doing love grieves love mourns love says that that's terrible and there are going to be horrible consequences with that and you're going to groan one day at the decisions you've made and it's going to be too late to fix it hey it doesn't rejoice in another person's sin and you know what else it doesn't do it doesn't gossip about other people's sins have you noticed how much we like to do that i mean that is just kind of the sin of the church isn't it unforgiveness is a big sin among christians but gossip is a huge sin among the people of the church we we don't think it's that wrong did you know the bible calls gossip dainty morsels dainty little morsels you ever been to a wedding where they had uh like food set up and they had they have finger sandwiches at the wedding you know what a is a finger sandwich it's a sandwich that somebody cut up and and hopefully the finger's not in it but you guys got these little you know these little vertical little pieces there horizontal pieces and you can eat those and it's it's just wonderful finger sandwiches because you're not eating a whole sandwich i nobody would go to the wedding and eat four sandwiches but you might go to the wedding and eat 20 finger sandwiches you know because they're just little they don't count it's just like oh that's just a little piece of one how many have i had i've had 15. but you know you have the that's what gossip is it says i can have one more oh that's just so good it's a dainty morsel and we were like uh have you heard about so and so oh no i haven't but i'd really like to what do you know about them share the dirt somebody had this definition of gossip i thought it was exceptional it says gossip is sin enjoyed vicariously and we love to hear the dirt so that we can somehow enjoy that we enjoy the destruction of another human being we enjoy hearing how our enemy fell we enjoy uh you know hearing about so and so and oh that's just so awful what they did but just tell me more tell me let me have another finger sandwich and the bible says don't do that one of the things we really harp on at the membership class class is no gossip because gossip destroys churches and we say listen if you have an issue with someone you go to that person that is the principle in matthew 18. you don't talk to somebody else about the person you go directly to the person hey you hurt my feelings hey you did this you did that let's work it out and you hopefully work it out and if a person's in sin you go to them and if they don't listen to you you take somebody else with you and then if they don't listen you bring it before the church that's the way of church discipline that's recorded there in matthew chapter 18. but we don't talk to other people about this third person that's not done that's just sharing things that's gossiping to try and destroy somebody now i know that virtually everyone in this room myself included we have been guilty of eating on sunday after church roast preacher you ever had rose preacher oh i like what pastor jeff said here or there and you know i mean i i didn't he i saw him in the hallway he didn't even talk to me didn't didn't even shake my hand you know it's whatever it's just something that you don't like and you have to you talk about it with your kids at lunch about the pastor rose preacher people have that all the time hey if you have a problem with me talk to me hey the bible says this galatians 6 brethren even if a man is caught in any trespass you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness each one looking to yourself lest you two be tempted hey love does not rejoice in unrighteousness and then peak number three agape love rejoices in the truth see verse six really goes together it doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness it rejoices in the truth now isn't it interesting that it says it doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness but it rejoices in righteousness it seems like it should have that kind of a juxtaposition but it doesn't use the word righteous it says it doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth now you mark it down truth and righteousness are inseparably linked those are synonyms together because they go together can't have truth without righteousness and you can't have righteousness without truth and the scripture is clear that when the truth is attacked you're going to see a falling away from righteousness isaiah chapter 59 verses 14 and 15 says and justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away for truth has stumbled in the street and uprightness cannot enter yes truth is lacking hey in our world today in our nation today truth has stumbled in the street truth is lacking people have rejected truth and what happens when you reject truth you get unrighteousness because truth and righteousness go together they are inseparably linked true love does not rejoice in unrighteousness it rejoices in the truth and god's people are to walk in love and agape love walks in the truth and proclaims the truth we speak the truth in love we tell people the truth jesus said in his great high priestly prayer john chapter 17 sanctify them in truth your word father is truth and so we come to this book and we say this is the truth and we're going to live by it and we're going to walk by it and hey if it steps on our toes it steps on our toes people ask me a lot they say you know you say some things and man you can be pretty pretty hard from the pulpit as far as boom this is the way it is do you ever think about that i said it never crosses my mind i mean i i my job is the mailman i just deliver the mail i don't pull the mail out and redact it thus says the lord if you have a problem with the word of god don't come to me take it up with god i didn't write the book my job is just to deliver the mail to tell you thus says the lord and i need to be faithful to do that and so agape love says we're going to tell people the truth and you know what is so ironic when you love people enough to tell them the truth in our day and age in a world that doesn't want to hear the truth they'd rather hear myths they call the speaker of truth who loves them enough to tell them the truth a hater you notice that truth is hate to those who hate the truth but see love doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness it rejoices with the truth people have asked me well pastor jeff you know i have a i have a family member whether it's a son or a nephew or something like that and and they've come out of the closet and they they've given themselves over to homosexuality and it's not a preference it's an orientation baloney and uh they say well this is this is how i am and now i'm going to get married and i want you to come and be a part of that and to celebrate with me and pastor jeff what should i do first corinthians chapter 13 verse 6 love does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth how could you go to a wedding where people are celebrating and enter into that that is unrighteous that god says that is wrong so you can't do that yeah i couldn't be a part of that hey i love you too much to violate that i can't rejoice in that we had bruce jenner who came out to be caitlyn jenner and i'm gonna have i'm really a man trapped in a woman's body and so i'm gonna have a sex change operation to become a woman you have to have a cell transformation to become from one gender to another you have to have every chromosome in your body change because god made them male and female and you're either xx female or xy male and you can't change that i don't care what you do to the outside you can't change that but here is [Applause] that's just true you know the party of science should really embrace that but they have trouble knowing the difference between men and women and boys and girls but anyway here are all these people and we're going to give bruce caitlyn jenner we're going to give her the courage award because she has so much courage and people are cheering and all that stuff those people are the haters why because love does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices whenever the truth wins out rejoices in the truth hey truth is hate to those who hate the truth and we're called to speak the truth in love i'm called to do that you're called to do that and when we live in a world that rejects the truth you stand up and you speak the truth in love and people will hate you they hated jesus jesus who is loving the flesh loved personified and they hated him they hated him so much they nailed him to a tree they lied about him to get him out of the way and they nailed him to a tree and in the midst of it all he said father forgive them for they do not know what they do agape love it doesn't hold grudges doesn't rejoice in sin it rejoices in the truth i'll close with this story i was watching a testimony from a lady who started to question whether she questioned her her gender and she said you know i'm really i think i really identify more with a being a man and so she went through all of the things to make herself a man and went through surgery to make herself a man her mother who's a christian just broke her heart and her mother tried to reach her and the girl just didn't want to have anything to do with her no you know i'm changing my name i'm not christine i'm chris and and this is who i am that type thing well this mother prayed for her and this mother had a bible study group and they prayed for her and and this girl who said now i'm a guy you know she ran on the track the euphoria of her sin until the track ran out because it always runs out and all that stuff always leads to the pigsty just like the prodigal son found and when she was at the pig sty of life she said i came to my senses and i said i am so miserable i don't i don't even want to live anymore that's why people that go down that road they're 20 times more likely to commit suicide or a huge amount of times more likely to commit suicide because they they can't stand themselves and what do they do from where they are and so this girl started to see that and she said you know what she said in the midst of of that end point i remembered my mom i remembered those ladies and she said when you hit the end of the road you don't want to talk to the people that have been lying to you you want to talk to the people that have loved you enough to tell you the truth and she went back to her mom and to those ladies and they loved on her and they prayed for her and she was transformed and she received christ and she lives her life now as a woman because that's how god made her to be hey we have to stand up for the truth in this day and age in which we live and if god gives me the strength i'm going to continue to stand for the truth until somebody shuts me up locks me up or takes my life but i'm called to be faithful until death and you're called to be faithful unto death and love doesn't hold grudges and love doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness it rejoices with the truth my friend the greatest of these is love and god so loved the world he so loved you that he gave his only begotten son if you have never put your faith and trust in jesus i want to encourage you to do that today just pray this prayer with me just say lord jesus i need you i know that i'm a sinner and i'm lost and i can't save myself jesus i believe that you are god in the flesh i believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead lord right now i surrender my all to you come into my heart forgive me of all my sins be my lord and savior and i promise to follow you all the days of my life my friend if you pray that kind of prayer and mean it the lord will come in and your life will never be the same i'd love to hear from you to know that you're watching to know that god is using this broadcast to make a difference in your life to know that you just prayed that prayer to receive christ as savior and lord please call me write me let me know what's going on and how we can pray for you you really are important to god and you're important to us and we're here for you thank you for watching from his heart today the viewer supported broadcast ministry of dr jeff shreeve who believes that no matter how badly you may have messed up in life god still loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life find out more go to promiseheart.org [Music]

Channel: From His Heart Ministries

Views: 1,151

Rating: 4.8823528 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: CpXHRaTdYEg

Length: 48min 11sec (2891 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021