Preparing For Suffering pt. 11

Amen. You may be seated.

A little old lady answered a knock on her door one day, only to be confronted by a well-dressed young man carrying a vacuum cleaner. Good morning, said the young man. If I could take a couple minutes of your time, I would like to demonstrate the very latest in high-powered vacuum cleaners. She said, I'm broke and I haven't got any money. And then she proceeded to close the door.

And yet, quick as a flash, the young man wedged his foot in the door and pushed it wide open. Don't be too hasty, he said, not until you've at least seen my demonstration. And with that, he emptied a bucket of horse manure onto her hallway carpet. If this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of this horse manure from your carpet, madam, I will personally eat the remainder.

The old lady stepped back and said, well, let me get you a fork, son, because they just cut off my electricity this morning.

People often promise things that they can't deliver. Yet when God promises something, we can be sure that He will indeed follow through. We can indeed be trusted. Now here in 1 Peter chapters 3 and 4, God is promising that we're going to go through times of suffering in our lives. And that as we are prepared for that and realize that and understand that it's designed by God with purposes in mind,

that we can probably not even immediately understand. But knowing that God has a purpose for it, that these times then, during these times, we can draw closer to Him, closer to His intimate presence.

As Christians, God has given us access into the glorious presence of the Father. J. Oswald Sanders is a writer, a theologian, and he's written several things. And I have just a little tract of his called Intimacy with God. And in that tract, he says we are as close to God as we want to be. You and I as believers in Jesus Christ are as close to God as we want to be.

And he says in this that he gives four different circles of intimacy, talks about four different circles here of intimacy. And actually in premarital counseling, there are stages of intimacy that I talk to couples about, and I can see where they've been taken from this particular concept of our intimacy with God and related to the intimacy that we as husbands and wives can have with one another. But Sanders says in this tract that he describes four circles of intimacy that were exampled by Moses and those that were around him. And the first circle is Moses and the children of Israel.

Now, the children of Israel were at Mount Sinai with Moses. They saw the glory of God on top of the mountain, the cloud and the fire of God and the thunderings of God. And they were aware of God's presence. They could see it. They were aware that God was there, but they were unable to draw near to him because as they told Moses, we don't want to hear him. You know, it's too loud. He's scary. And so they refused to hear what God was saying.

They said it hurt their ears. So although they were aware of his presence, that's as close as they got. That's as close as they were. Well, of course, then God then, you know, forbid them from coming up to the mountain. But it makes you wonder initially what would have happened if they'd have said, you know, Lord, speak to us. Even though it's things that you say are hard to hear, you know, we want to hear it.

Now, that's a stage that several of us as Christians can be in. But unfortunately, we can be aware of God's presence, but, you know, we don't want to hear him. Because some of the things that he has to tell us may be hard for us to hear. Because it will involve change. It will involve a surrender in our own lives. And so as long as I don't listen to him, you know, I'm okay. I know God's there.

And I can still call myself a Christian and still go on with the rest of my life. But as far as any intimacy with the Lord, it isn't there. Stage two, he says, is with Aaron and his sons and the 70 elders and judges that Moses appointed. Now, they not only were aware of God's presence, but they had an experience with the presence of God. They saw him in a closer way. God took some of the spirit of Moses, it said, and put it on the 70 elders.

Aaron and his sons were there and saw the presence of God actually come down on the altar and consume the offering. So they had an experience with God, but it was unfortunately without any real personal transformation. Aaron's sons were just kind of snuffed right after that because they were wanting to add to the fire, the Bible says in Numbers, that they were bringing before this throne and the fire from God went out and snuffed them because they had this experience with God, but it was without any personal transformation. And we can be there. We may be a little further than stage one, recognize the presence of God,

but we want this experience with God. And so we may go to different places. You may be here this morning looking for an experience with God. You know, some kind of something that's going to happen, waiting for the zing or the tingle or whatever, waiting for that experience with God. And you may have that experience, but does it transform? Does it carry on through the rest of the week when you have problems with the boss and problems with the car

and problems with the kids and problems with your spouse? And it doesn't transform. You're just kind of living from zing to zing. And there are a lot of Christians doing that, looking for the experience. Circle three, the third circle of intimacy, he says, involved both Moses and Joshua because they had the desire for intimacy with God. They both had the desire for intimacy with God.

They both wanted to dwell in his presence. They wanted to be where he was. Now, Joshua was forbidden by God to come any further, but he went further than the rest of the children of Israel. As a matter of fact, Ten Commandments was just on this past week for Easter, you know, last week. You see it for the 60 billionth time or whatever. And, you know, Joshua's there waiting for Moses.

I can see that as a reality. He's waiting for Moses to come down while the rest of the children of Israel are out, you know, frolicking around the golden calf. He wanted to be, he wanted to experience that closeness with God, that presence of God that Moses did as well. Had the desire for intimacy, the desire to dwell in the presence of God. And maybe you have that this morning.

Now, according to Scripture, if you have that desire, there's only one thing that hinders that desire, and that's personal sin. That's areas that we're considering in our heart that are an offense to God. And rather than giving those things up so we can experience a deeper intimacy with the Lord, we want to hang on to those things and still have God around. And I may not want to do God's will in this particular area, so I'm hanging on to this, but I still say I want to dwell with God. I want to dwell in His presence.

But I don't want to give this particular thing up. And that's hindering that. That can keep you from moving into a deeper intimacy with God. And again, remember, you're as close to God as you want to be. God's not limiting it. As close as we want to be, this side of glory, it's up to us. That fourth circle, only Moses experienced. Moses communed with God. The Bible says that he communed friend to friend, face to face, mouth to mouth.

Moses shared in the divine perspective. He shared in God's own heart. And God even told the children of Israel that. He told when Dathan and Korah rose up against Moses' leadership, he told them, you know, do you dare to question Moses' leadership and his authority? Him who I have spoken with mouth to mouth and face to face. He's my friend. He understands my heart. He knows the heart of God.

God revealed His glory to Moses. You remember that. We talked about that before. As much as Moses could stand, as much as would keep him from being consumed, God revealed His glory to Moses. And then we read where some of that glory even rubbed off on Moses. And it was evident to the people that Moses had been in the presence of God because as he came down, it said his face glowed and it freaked the people out.

And Moses had to put a veil over his face until the glory faded after not being in God's presence. It affected his life. It was transforming. And that's where God desires for us to be. He wants us to come into that level of intimacy with Him. He wants us to experience that life-changing communion. He wants us to experience the glory that stays with us even after we leave our time with Him like here this morning.

He wants us to have that fragrance of His presence. That's one of the pictures we get from the alabaster box being broken and the nard being rubbed all over Jesus' feet and Mary wiping it with her hair, preparing Him for burial. That fragrance of the nard would have been with Mary when she'd left that place. It would have stayed with her for days because of that intimacy at that time with Jesus.

But you're just back like three pages or four pages or so. So just go back to James 4 and drop down. James says, let's start with verse 5, James 4. Do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us, but He gives us greater grace. Therefore it says God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep over your sin. Your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Enable yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you.

So there's this need to submit to the Lord, confessing our sin, acknowledging our sin, drawing near to Him as a result of that, and in that He draws near to us and He then exalts. He lifts us up. He raises us up. Now, Satan wants to sidetrack us from that, and that's what we were talking about last week. Go back to 1 Peter 4. In this area of 1 Peter 3-8 through all of chapter 4,

Peter is preparing us for the understanding that suffering has a purpose. Just as Christ suffered and there was a purpose in that, so arm yourselves with this understanding, he says as we come into chapter 4. Arm yourselves with the same understanding that Christ has suffered in the flesh. Arm yourselves also with the same purpose. Have this understanding about suffering,

that there was a purpose in it, and the purpose always, apart from whatever God's accomplishing through us to the lives of others, is it draws us closer to Him. It should draw us into that intimate presence of the Lord. Now, Satan wants to sidetrack us from anything that has to do with intimacy with God. He wants to distract us, to drive us away from loving God.

Last time we talked about the two purposes that we have, and that's loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and telling others about Jesus. And that's the only reason you're still here. That's the only reason you're breathing and moving about. It's not to go have fun. It's not to go party on Friday night. It's not to go get a job. It's not to go get a career.

The reason you still live and breathe is so that you can come to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength in everything you do every day that you're doing it, and to tell others about Jesus. And if He has you going into a particular line in school, a particular thing in school, that's great, because He wants to use you to touch people in that particular area that you're going to be involved in. If you're in a career, that's great, because He wants to use you to touch the lives of people in that career, at that location that other people couldn't get to. But that's your reason for existing.

And in the midst of that, the only way we do that is maintaining this intimate relationship with the Lord. Now, Satan wants to distract us from all of that. If he can sever your intimate relationship with the Lord, if he can sever that intimacy, the first thing that happens is you get your focus back on you, and you are loving you with all your heart and your mind and your soul and your strength, and loving you only rather than your neighbor. And you're not telling anybody about Jesus because you're telling everybody about you and your problem.

And Satan wants it that way. And so he will do everything that he can to distract us. And he'll do it in one of two ways, we've seen. He'll attempt to draw us back into our old ways. He'll attempt, first of all, to draw us back into our old ways, back into the flesh. And not only into just satisfying our flesh, but he draws us back into the idea of meriting God's favor.

That I have to do this kind of stuff so that God likes me. I have to do this stuff so that I'm okay with God. And so you end up doing stuff with a hard heart, doing stuff for the Lord. I come down here and mow the lawn for God. Because I really want to mow the lawn. Now let me tell you, when I'm backing my trailer out and loading the mowers on, I'm not going joy, joy, joy, joy.

I get to go mow the lawn.

And then when I got down here and the one mower wouldn't start, Glenn's family's out mowing the lawn, and I'm sitting over here trying to get a bolt off. I wasn't really rejoicing in the Lord at that particular time. And I finally had to go to the store and get another bolt unit and hook my thing back up and jump start the mower and got out there and Glenn says, well, it's about time. I did that mower.

It was fun. It's a good time. And it was, and that was so necessary because that helped my heart get right. All of that was just a blessing. And so we can all start with the wrong attitude. And the Lord can move us to that point through the difficulties to come back to Him, to just pray. And man, I was praying over that bolt. I was really praying. But we can do it. We can get back into the old ways.

We can get back into the flesh and end up doing things to merit God's favor, doing things with the wrong attitude. Or number two, Satan will attempt to kill our relationship with one another, to kill our relationship with the brothers and sisters in Christ, to kill your relationship with the body of Christ, to kill your relationship with the fellowship at, the fellowship of the church. We're at a building called Calvary Chapel. This is the church.

You're the church meeting in the building of Calvary Chapel. And it's the fellowship of the saints that God uses mightily. He works mightily in and through to just encourage you to get back your focus to who He is, back into that intimacy with Him. And Satan can't stand that, and so he'll do anything to kill that. And so we've looked at so far two of the three strategies

that we started into chapter four with that Peter suggests to us to help thwart that distraction. The first six verses are to arm yourselves with Jesus' attitude. We've already been through this. His attitude towards suffering, that suffering has a purpose. We need to have that same attitude. His attitude towards the world, that we're done with sin. Sin doesn't have to have a pull on us.

We have the authority and the power of the Holy Spirit to where we don't have to yield to sin. We don't have to be into self-gratification. And we're to have His attitude towards God the Father, that intimate desire to do the will of the Father. And then secondly, last week we looked at verse seven and saw that a second strategy is to have this urgent expectancy of the coming of Christ that leads us to clear-minded prayer.

Look at verse seven real quick again. The end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Now again, that's why we continue to share that, that Jesus is coming soon. So you have that sober mind, that clear mind, that prioritized, Lord, what's priority for you? What's the best thing for you right now in this particular circumstance?

And it leads us to prayer, brings us into that prayer. Well, the third strategy this morning is in verses eight through 11, and that's having a deep love for one another. We're only going to get through eight and nine, but let's read eight through 11. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaint.

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 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, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Having a deep love for one another. Now, one thing I want you to see is these three strategies are progressive and they move out from one another. Arming yourselves with Jesus' attitude. You have that attitude in you which Christ had in those first six verses. That brings you that constant awareness of the fact that Jesus is coming and you have that urgent expectancy for his coming

and it causes you to be in continual prayer, not just praying before meals or praying before bed or praying when someone is sick, but just constantly being in prayer, that constant communion with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 5, praying without ceasing. Praying for one another when you meet somebody and that you ask them how they're doing and they say, oh, my wife's sick or whatever, and you say, hey, let me pray with you for her right now. Just begin to pray.

It just brings you into that intimacy with the Lord. And then this third one grows out of that. As we are doing that, there's this deep love for one another that just grows. Now, notice he qualifies it by saying, above all. So this is absolutely more important, but it's born out of the other two. So it's like a conclusion. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another.

Above all, that which is absolutely most important in this strategy against distraction is to have a deep love, a fervent love for one another. So, do you? Where are you this morning with that? Was this morning just kind of a slide in, slide out kind of day? You know, I'm just here. I didn't really want to come. I was going to use the rain as an excuse, but it kind of quit.

So I had to get in a car and come. And I'm here, but I really don't feel like being here. I've got other things I need to do. So when I'm done, I'm going to slide out of here. Or are you really here? Because not only did you want to come and worship the Lord, even if you didn't feel like it, you realize that is a sacrifice of praise. We bring a sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord

isn't just a jolly. We bring a sacrifice of praise into the house. It's coming when you don't want to come. I really don't want to come. But Lord, I want to come, but I don't want to come. I want to see your face, and I'm coming, and things are really hairy and heavy with my family, with my job, with bills, with whatever. But God, I know you are God, and I want to be reminded of that.

And I know that happens when I come into your house. I come here to worship you and to hear your word and to see your people and to praise your name. And in that, I know I'm going to be lifted up. So Lord, I'm coming, and I'm willingly praising you. That's a sacrifice of praise. So saying that you don't feel like coming and I really don't want to be there and all of that stuff is no excuse for not coming.

That's when you need to be here. It's not, well, I've got to get myself all up and all that stuff so I can go in and act real cheery and God-like. No. I have to be here. I have to be here so I can be in the presence of God in you and hear his word and sing praises to him, and I will sacrificially praise him because I know that's what I need to do. And as I do that, this love just oozes out.

There's strength and there's protection in the fellowship of the saints. I don't know if you realize that yet or not, but I pray that you will. That's why he says, above all, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. There is protection and strength as we gather together in Jesus' name. In 1 Corinthians 5, which we're just breaking into Corinthians on Wednesday night,

in 1 Corinthians 5, there's a situation that's happening in the church at Corinth where there is an individual who has married the mother, married his father's wife. It's his stepmother, but he marries her. And the church has evidently said, you know, we're just trying to love this guy long as he's going through this particular time. And Paul says, no, you know, this is sin in the camp.

Set the guy outside the fellowship. He won't receive admonition from you. He won't seek to correct his ways. Put him outside of the fellowship, lest that sin corrupts the entire fellowship. Put him outside the fellowship and deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Now, that's a hairy thing that we'll talk about when we get to 1 Corinthians 5 on Wednesday night.

So you have to come and find out what that's all about. But there's protection there. There should be protection there. You should feel protected here. Now, it doesn't mean, and we talked about this Wednesday night too, it doesn't mean you're not going to get offended by something we do. Because we are people and we will offend each other, whether you're here or at home.

You'll offend one another. So that's just a people thing. That's a natural people thing. Because we're human, we offend one another. And Satan likes the idea of people in the fellowship being offended and then staying home because you're isolated. You're isolated from the love of the saints, which is great because that means you're going to slack off on your communion with the Lord,

which is great because that means you're going to get your focus off of loving him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and get your focus on you. And you are ineffective as a witness for the Lord and Satan can move on and mess with somebody else. So anticipate offense. But we deal with offense by forgiveness, long suffering, apologizing, bearing with one another through these difficulties.

There's protection here and strength. And we have to realize that. We have to see that. So above all, he says, keep fervent, it says in New American Standard. Keep fervent. Some of your translations may say, love one another deeply. Literally, the Greek word for fervent, that's translated fervent there or deeply, means stretched or strained. As an athlete straining his muscles in a race

when he's given it all or a horse that's running at full gallop. So when he says, above all, love one another or keep fervent in your love for one another, what that is saying is that this kind of love for one another takes effort and energy. It's great intensity. It involves difficulty to do that. But keep fervent. Keep fervent. And again, that implies a personal effort on our part

to keep it that way. It's like putting more logs onto the fire. Otherwise, it's going to burn out and grow coal. Keeping fervent your love for one another. It equates to, in a marriage relationship, after the honeymoon. Now what? It doesn't just happen. It doesn't just, you know, from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, just happen. You have to keep fervent that love.

You have to keep loving one another. It takes effort to move through those stages of a marriage relationship. It takes effort to move through the stages of our spiritual growth, and we need one another for that effort. Your responsibility is to keep your love fervent for others. It's not someone else's responsibility. It's not someone else's job to keep your heart fervent

that way. It's not somebody else in the fellowship that's going to come along and has to tickle your ears or stroke your neck or whatever, you know, attaboys, the pats on the back, the encouraging you to do this or that. That needs to happen. We need to be doing that for others. That needs to be what we're recognizing, that that's what we're doing for one another

is encouraging each other, strengthening each other, lifting each other up, and we'll get into that a little further as we go down, but we're not expecting that. That's not what's going to make me love you as you're not loving me. See, that's just, we get back into the marriage relationship. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. Too often, especially in a Christian marriage, we have the one waiting for the other to do what they're supposed to do. Well, I'm going to love you fervently as Christ loved the church as soon as you submit unto me. Well, I'll submit unto you as soon as you love me as Christ loved the church. Well, we ain't getting nowhere then.

Because until you change, I'm not doing that. See, that's conditional love. Unconditional love means, I love my wife as Christ loved the church no matter how she is, no matter what she does, I'm going to love her as Christ loved the church because, see, that's how Christ loved you. When we were enemies, at enmity with God, Christ died for the ungodly, Romans 5 says.

So unconditionally, I love my wife. Unconditionally, she surrenders and submits unto my leadership. We talked about that Thursday night. You should have been there Thursday night too. That's pretty cool. But it's our responsibility to keep our love fervent. It's not somebody else's job to do that for us because love covers a multitude of sins. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Love covers a multitude of sins. It doesn't say anything about love here taking away. It says love covers a multitude of sins. What does that mean? How does that flesh out? How do I see that practically? Well, I'm sure with any one of us in the room, I could find in your history a name, and just the mention of that name. Matter of fact, me saying this right now,

you in your own mind can have somebody pop into your mind that is a name, and they may be a Christian. They may be a Christian brother or sister from this fellowship or from another fellowship or from your interactions with them in the past as a Christian. And just that name, if you were to think of that name right now, your jaw clenches, your fists can tighten, you just kind of grow cold in that because of what they've done to you, because of how they treated you, because of what they said to you or about you behind your back or whatever. We all have somebody like that.

The first Corinthians 13 says, love does not keep a record of wrong. So why can you still remember those things? Somehow you've kept a record. Well, it's my brain. You know, that's just the way the brain is. The brain stores this information. Okay, well, what are your tendencies when that name is mentioned? Or even right now while I'm suggesting it, what are your tendencies to do?

Chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka, right back down through the list. You could even tell me dates. You could probably even tell me smells in the room. And so there are things, you know, there are things you can go through. I mean, this morning on Good Morning America, they interviewed a couple of the kids who, 10 years later after Columbine,

today's the 10th anniversary of Columbine, and they interviewed a couple of the kids and one of the girls who, she was in the room in the library, and she and her friend were there together holding hands when Klebold came in and asked them, do you guys believe in God? And they both said yes, and he shot them both. She lived, her friend died. She was talking about, you know, the guilt that you feel, survivor's guilt.

You survived, the other one didn't. And she was in tears. She said, you know, there's even smells, even certain odors will just immediately trigger that. See, we're all that way. God designed us that way. Senses bring about memory. Okay, the responsibility lies in what do you do when that memory's triggered? Do you let your mind go back down through all of that?

Love covers a multitude of sins. Love covers over that. What do you do then? How do I not do that when that thing is triggered? Well, immediately, in the immediacy of whatever, wherever you are when that name is triggered, the first thing you do is, Lord God, I don't know where they are right now, but I pray your blessings upon them. I pray that you would cover them

with your grace and your mercy. I pray that you would meet need for them. I pray that you would show them more of you. I pray they would grow in their love for you. And I pray that you would forgive me for allowing that to stay in my heart. I pray that you would cover it over so that everything that I can think of when I hear their name again is just thoughts of the fact that you are working

in their lives in answer to prayer. And then also be attentive, because when that name's brought up, and especially if it's brought up more than once, God wants you to do something actively. And you need to pick up on that. When God mentions something, when God brings something across your path, we had somebody Thursday night share that. You know, oh Lord, does that mean

I have to go talk to these people? Oh, you know, I feel that I'm going to have to go say something and I don't want to. And then God brought them in the store, right there, to where they had to confront them and say hi. You know, so anticipate, when God's saying something like that, anticipate that he's moving, he's going to move in that particular situation because it's a sense of soreness that the enemy can use to hinder your intimacy with the Lord, and God wants to deal with that.

And the way that he deals with that is love. Love is an action word. Love your enemies, Jesus said, Sermon on the Mount. Pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you. Do good unto those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Those are all action words. The more you can find ways to bless, to do good unto those who have that area of offense in you,

the more that sin is going to be covered with love. The more that anxiety that you feel when you hear that name is going to diminish to where it no longer affects you. As a matter of fact, you realize that God's working in their lives. They are a child of his or a potential child of his. And God is going to move in their lives. It involves a willing forgiveness.

It does not take into account the wrong that's suffered. Quickly, into verse 9. Verses 9, 10, and 11 are evidences that that love is operating. If that love is operating in your life, a fervent love for one another, then verses 9 through 11 will be happening. And the very first one that we'll just touch on this morning is genuine hospitality. Be hospitable to one another

without complaint.

Why couldn't he just have said, be hospitable to one another? What's this without complaint stuff? Why is that? Hold your finger here and go back to Romans 12 because Peter is echoing Paul. We just went through this in Romans on Wednesday night.

Peter is echoing Paul. Romans 12. In verse 9 it says, let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, and cling to what is good. Let love be without hypocrisy. The first phrase in verse 9 of chapter 12 of Romans, he's expressing a truth. Let love be without hypocrisy, without dissimulation. Let it be without any phoniness. And then everything after the first half of verse 9

all the way through verse 21 examples what that is. Love is abhorring what is evil, abhorring what is evil, clinging to what is good. Being devoted to one another in brotherly love. Oh gee, that's just what Peter is saying here. Giving preference to one another. Paul is just expounding on it. Go down to verse 13. Contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

So if indeed, we have unhypocritic, undissimulated love, then these things are going to happen and part of it is practicing hospitality. Being hospitable. And Peter adds on, tacks on without complaint.

You want to know how hospitality works with most of us? Well, I really like them and I really like them and I really like them. And I kind of like them too. So I get together with them. And we'll even have them over for dinner maybe. But I don't really like them and I don't really like them and I don't even know them. So they're not ever going to be on my list

to get to know.

So I'm practicing hospitality because I'm hanging out with people that I know and I like.

Keep fervent your love for one another. We make the effort to do that. Part of that effort is getting to know one another. That's why once a month we do an agape feast. So we can just get together outside of here because for the last couple hours you've been out there, we've been up here. And for maybe five minutes you went around and said hi, some of you during fellowship.

Some of you have got a blast out of your row here. We're going to try and get, we pray that that happens over a period of time that you just feel free to get up and move. Whether you know anybody or not, you go out and you say hi to somebody to introduce yourself to people. Same thing with the agape feast. You go back there and you eat with a lot of people you don't really know.

Well, what happens if you sit at a table with five or six people and you don't know four of them? You make yourself available and you start talking and you start getting to know one another.

With doing the meal, we could say that's kind of hospitable. We're kind of being hospitable to one another. We're kind of throwing out the first tag and now it's yours to do with one another. You pick it up from there and go with it wherever you're going to go with it. But it's a chance, it's an opportunity to begin to get to know one another. Well, I'm really shy.

Everybody in this room is shy. I'm shy. I am your classic textbook introvert to the max. The only way I can do this is because God pushed me, actually drew me with cords of love and I said, anything Lord, I'll do anything. Okay, well I want you to be a pastor. He said, oh God.

As you begin to experience what it is to surrender to him and say, okay Lord, this is what you want me to do. Love one another with a fervency. Being hospitable without complaint, without complaining. I want to say, I've only been here, well I think I've been here to one and a half, Agape Fruits. And

Agape Fruits, for those of you that may not know it, for the benefit of those on the media, the different media, is a ministry that's developed here the start of the first of February wherein we throw open an invitation to the city. Anybody in the city wants to come for a free meal, they come on Sunday night, every Sunday night there's a free meal provided. In our Agape room. And it's been exciting to see what has happened as far as the people that the Lord's bringing in.

And to watch the people that are serving, you guys who are serving, you guys who are a part of this, that Agape Fruits ministry, are people like me who are classic introverts. But you just, you want to love people, you're being obedient to the Lord. And we're watching God take you and put you down with other people that you haven't even a clue as to who they were. And over these months, they're family.

And the people that come to that feel like family. So much so that they don't want to leave when the time's over. See that's, that's a fervent love. That's what God wants to do with the overall body of Christ, not just the people in this room, or not just the people at Agape Fruits. We are told to do that. It's a part of the evidence of fervent love. It's a part of,

in Romans chapter 12, of unhypocritical love. So just take a few minutes of your time, one Sunday a month, and spend some time with the people here. We invite you to that. It's just such a sweet opportunity to fellowship together. Now, maybe the way somebody eats their meatballs is going to be offensive, or maybe somebody didn't take a piece of your cake. Don't let it take you off too bad.

Love covers a multitude of sin. Just practice hospitality. It's the evidence of the fervency of God's love working through us in the lives of others. Father, help us. Help us today. You give us a perfect opportunity, a perfect example of this fervent love in an extended time of fellowship with each other at the Agape Feast. Just bless us. Just bless. Lord, may we just

enjoy our time together, and may you just grow out of that relationships that are going to grow and blossom into other relationships that are going to grow and blossom. That in the midst of that, we're going to be drawn into that intimacy with you as we love you with all of our hearts and mind and soul and strength and commune deeply with you and watch the fulfillment of your promises as you reach out through us to touch the lives of somebody else. And it's not because of us because we're we're nothing and we realize it. It's just so awesome to watch you do that.

And may everybody here catch that. May we catch that vision. May we take advantage of that opportunity for your glory. And we're going to be blessed besides. So let that happen, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.