Good morning. It is a privilege and honor, an honor to be with you this morning. I was here last month, so it's not my first time in in this pulpit here, but we had a conference here last month that your church graciously hosted our operations of America event.

We did some outreach in this community, and it was a great blessing. And so, it has been a blessing getting to know pastor Michael over the last year and to know. The work that he is doing and that this church is doing. And so, this is what you call a hot pulpit. You guys ever know what a hot pulpit is?

It's where you got some good preaching that takes place regularly. Keeps this pulpit hot. Amen. And but I have to confess this pulpit is not as hot as it was the last time I was here. And it's not because our perspective of, or view of Michael has gone down since we've been in his house, I would say, and concur with him that being in his home and seeing his family has caused my respect for him to increase as well.

He's the real deal from what I can see. And you see it in his children. And his wife and the love that is there in their home. And so that's a beautiful thing to see, but it's a little cooler today because I think you guys got your air conditioning fixed. So, it's a little bit less of a hot pulpit, but.

Praise the Lord. This is a great location you have here to be in the middle of Cincinnati to minister to this city. And I understand that many people travel from different regions from Kentucky and other parts of Ohio. But this is an area that obviously needs tremendous ministry.

Needs a lot of gospel light. And so, we were at the Planned Parenthood yesterday, just a mile from here. And then we were at the Taste of Cincinnati yesterday sharing the gospel. And we had some great conversations, some great opportunities to talk to people, to pray with people and to let our light shine.

Amen. And so, it was neat to see some of the young people that were with us, that it was some of their first time doing something like that. And that's a, it could be a big step. How many of you would say that doing something like that would be a little intimidating to just go out on the streets and just to start talking to people, cold turkey, that could be a little intimidating?

It could be a little fearful. And so, it's always good to face your fears. Amen. It's always good to push and challenge yourself out of your comfort zones. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about that this morning and talk to you about what should drive and motivate us in our Christian life, in all facets of our Christian life, and especially as it pertains to our evangelistic endeavors that we have a mission given to us by God.

How many of you know that it's not just. Your pastor and the elders and leaders of this church. It's not just their job to do the work of the ministry. Every single one of you is a minister in Ephesians four talks about the purpose of pastors and elders and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, pastor's jobs, and leaders.

In part is to equip you to do the work of the ministry. And so, every one of you is a minister has giftings by God. And so many of us, we oftentimes neglect those gifts, or we suppress those gifts. So, we're afraid to step out in faith and see God work in and through us. And so, I want to encourage you today

And I hope that this sermon is inspirational and that it encourages you to say. Lord, here I am, send me. I will go for you. Though I am a man of unclean lips, and though I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips, as Isaiah said in chapter 6, but Lord, here I am. Use me. Amen? So, with that being said, if you will turn in your Bibles to the first Corinthians, I'm going to read from first Corinthians chapter 13.

It is the, what is known as the love chapter, and I'm a, very sweet, loving guy, as the NBC News report made abundantly clear. Highlighted some of my more loving and compassionate attributes and persona. No, they didn't. But how many of you know that love is a, if not the dominant theme of the Bible?

And certainly, the New Testament. And so, we're going to talk about this notion of biblical love. Love this morning biblical lover and read 1st Corinthians chapter 13 and before we get into that I want to just share briefly, you know what God did in my life And so I was my dad was a pastor in New Orleans if you can believe that he was a Pentecostal preacher in inner city of New Orleans And ran a drug rehab program ministry down there, but I was not raised by him.

Him and my mom were teenagers, part of this 1970s, sex, drugs, rock and roll, do what makes you feel good, don't let anybody judge you kind of idea. And they had two kids as teenagers that they couldn't take care of. They got married for a short period of time and were divorced within a year. So, my mom was a single mother raising me and my brother.

And both of them had experiences with the Lord as teenagers. My mom and dad were actually at a Keith Green concert, if you can believe that, if Keith Green is, and they were on their faces with 10, 000 people for two hours praying and repenting and crying out to the Lord. But sadly it didn't stick it didn't last and so they both fell back into a life of Sin, and my dad ended up coming back to the Lord years later and my mom It was always a journey up and down for her But my dad ended up in New Orleans and I was in upstate New York Ended up in California various places and I'd spend time in New Orleans with him But I was the prodigal son consider myself a Christian up until age 14 Though I was not being raised in a Christian home with my mother.

We didn't go to church There was no discipleship in my life I had a sort of long-distance relationship with my dad, and he would, pray with me over the phone and he'd send me Bibles and things. But at 14 I officially announced I'm not a Christian. I don't believe this stuff. I had a lot of questions, and those questions were not being answered.

How do we know the Bible is true? Why did God make the world just to send everybody to hell? I had all these sorts of questions, and I was a skeptic, right? And also, of course, I was 14 years old, and I had raging hormones, and I was, being raised on gangster rap music, right?

And listening to N. W. A. and these kinds of artists were not necessarily contributing to my sanctification. Or a right understanding of the Lord and what his expectations of us are. And certainly not in how I ought to be a man and what my understanding of manhood and masculinity should be.

So, I was woefully deficient. So high school was a spiraling downwards for me, four years of spiraling downwards. I was more mature when I started high school than when I graduated high school. And I just party and drugs and chasing girls. And that became. My life because I thought that's what being a man was right I measured my success as a man, but what I could consume and so I was wound up broken I used to do a lot of crystal meth and other drugs that were popular in San Jose, California where I graduated high school in the 90s and Was homeless at 18 years old had a girlfriend that had an abortion and I was very consenting to that and just was lost I But I, I had this sense always in me that I needed to know what the purpose of life is.

I wasn't just going to conform and be a good boy because that's what everybody else is doing. And my dad in that state, he called me, and he said, son, I know that I've not really been there for you. And I'm sorry for that, that I've not been the father that I've needed to be for you. But I want to give you an opportunity to come to New Orleans.

Get a fresh start. I've, I see the condition that you're in and I'll give you an opportunity. I'll buy a bus ticket. Come down to New Orleans. You can live with me. Get off the streets, and I want you to commit to getting off of drugs. I'm not saying you got to be a Christian. Come down here and just commit to turning your life around.

And I had to think about that for a day. I was like I'll call you back pops. And I was like, I got so many friends and there's a big party this weekend and oh man, God just I was, the mirror was in front of me. God was putting this mirror in front of me, and I was seeing myself as I was.

I was a mess, and I was lost and so I called my dad back a day later and I said pops buy me the bus ticket I’m coming and my dad's a very matter of fact kind of guy he had said he'd give me kind of ultimatum He said come now or don't come at all. Don't be straggling me along for months I think you're coming and I’m getting the house prepared and you don't show up, so it's now or never come now as a guy pops I’m coming So four days on the greyhound bus to think and to reflect and God was just impressing conviction of sin upon me reflection on what have I been doing with my life?

You know, how I had turned, I, growing up in a broken family, I always had a protective instinct over my family and over my mother, my, my grandmother who raised me for a lot of my childhood. And I just had lost all of that. I just was an utterly self-centered. Young man, and so God was just breaking me And so I got off the Greyhound bus after four days of being sober and reflecting celebrated my 19th birthday and that in that journey alone And I was just broken and I got into New Orleans and my dad had a little apartment in New Orleans He was single dad at the time and he was having a Bible study at his house And I remember just the people there just being so genuine so authentic and I sat in on their Bible study, and I remember just the words of Scripture jumping off the page, the pages, and it was like, I was like a starving person wandering through the desert who came across, this incredible meal.

And it just was like, incredible. And God was just doing something mightily and showing himself to me in drawing. Me too himself and convicting me of my sin. And so, I spent about the next two weeks just in, in debate with my dad. We would stay up till two, three in the morning and just getting to know each other again and rekindling this would be, has become a great friendship.

It's like I got to know my dad for the first time. We became we just became best friends, and he would just patiently walk me through questions that I had. And he's given me books to read. I remember he gave me a book by Francis Schaeffer Christian Manifesto, if anybody's ever read that book. And I don't know that why I'd give that to a young skeptical kid, but somehow it had a tremendous impact on me. It's pretty heavy book. I remember having to struggle through reading it. But he just answered my questions for me, and God used him mightily. And so, I went to church with him or felt the presence of God in a profound way, unlike any drug I'd ever experienced

And so, within a couple of weeks of being in New Orleans, The Lord radically transformed me at age 19. And so that's been 26 years, almost, it'll be in July, 27 years that I've been blessed by the grace of God that He has been transforming me and continues to transform me. And within a couple years I was running a construction crew and went into full time ministry doing evangelistic work.

And had a passion to reach young people like me who were lost and broken and got married at 24. We have 11 beautiful children, been blessed to run a construction business and be in pastoral ministry and devote myself to preaching the gospel and discipling people. And also, pro-life ministry is a huge component of what we do.

I have a big heart for preborn children, so we're involved in our ministry. Operation Save America has been on the front lines of that fight for 35 years, and I've been blessed to lead it for the last three. And we are on the front lines of trying to rescue babies and save the lives of little children and reestablish a respect for motherhood, for children, for fatherhood, for family, in our culture.

Amen. So that's a bit of my story and I'm blessed. To be here with you. And we've been in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the last 18 years. It's a slight step above Siberia. So, it wasn't as though the Lord sent me to Siberia, but it was it's, it can be close at times, weeks of not seeing the sun and not being able to feel your face when you go outside and those sorts of things.

But there's a lot of good things about Wisconsin, believe it or not there's actually things you can actually go north of Wisconsin. I didn't actually even know that. I didn't know. I thought that was like about as far north as you could possibly go, but there's actually a whole country north of Wisconsin.

So, I feel bad for those people up there, but it's been nice. It was hot yesterday. We were still thawing out in Wisconsin, so it was nice to be in the sun and soak up some sunshine yesterday. But it's a blessing. That's our story. Amen. And so, I'd ask for your prayers, as our family is in a period of transition right now, as I believe God is moving us out of Wisconsin.

And we are preparing to make a transition and figuring out where God is leading and directing us. So, your prayers would absolutely be appreciated for our family, and for myself, and for our ministry. And you all will certainly be in our prayers here. Let's read the scriptures. If you'd like to stand this morning, we could stand together and read from 1 Corinthians.

This is a passage of scripture that is, should be familiar to everyone here. And certainly, is a passage that is misused and misunderstood, but it is a profound passage of scripture for us to be reminded of this morning. So let us read 1 Corinthians 13. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love.

I've become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love I am nothing And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail. Whether there are tongues, they will cease. Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child.

I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. And for now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Know I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide, faith, hope, love, these three. But the greatest of these is love.

Amen. Let us pray. Father, we are thankful to be in your presence this morning. We do indeed. And we humble ourselves before you. And we recognize that all good gifts come from our father above and Lord, we are thankful. And I pray that our hearts would indeed be filled with gratitude for the life that you've given us, the gifts that you've given us, and for the incredible grace that has transformed us and is continuing to transform us into the image of your son.

Lord, I pray that you would increase our faith today. Increase our hope today and indeed increase our love. May our love for you abound. May our love for others abound Lord and increase and we pray this that you would speak this morning in Jesus’ name. Amen.

When I was a young man people used to criticize me and also praise me for being so spiritually active and focused. You know I was this really on fire Despite being out of balance in various ways and inexperienced in various ways, I had this passion for God. And I didn't understand why others didn't.

When I read the Bible and I became a Christian, it became very clear to me that we are in a war. How many of you know that the Bible tells us That earth is a battleground. There is cosmic warfare going on. We are not on this earth to just merely go along to get along. We are not on this earth just to carve out for ourselves a comfortable happy life and then attach Jesus to it or drape some spiritual language or veneer over the top of it.

But as we look around us and as we see this world of suffering and violence and brokenness and suicide, we become very attuned to the reality that there is a spiritual War going on things are not as though they ought to be and if we don't see Our spiritual life our Christian life as that Then we are not going to act appropriately.

The Bible says if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who indeed will prepare himself for battle. And so, a part of my job and standing here today is to sound the trumpet, to awaken the saints of God to know that we are an army. Yes. The church fulfills many roles and many functions. It is a hospital that meets the needs and cares for those who are broken and destitute and in need of healing The church is a place for fellowship and relationships and community and for families To have solace from the world and encouragement and strength the church is a place for teaching and instruction and education And in setting forth sound doctrine and speaking to And applying the word of god to all realms of life and society, but we are an army All of these things are things that we do as being enlisted soldiers of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And as Paul exhorts Timothy, to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And so, we are at war. We are at war. And if we are at war, then we ought to recognize what are our weapons. We ought to want to be good soldiers. Amen? We ought to want to cultivate the skills and the discipline and identify and learn how to use the weapons that God has given us to fight that war for there are many.

Amen. The Scripture is, indeed, the Bible says, is the sword of the Spirit. We are endowed with the Holy Spirit of God. God lives in us and is transforming us inwardly and empowering us and giving us spiritual strength and spiritual power and wisdom. We have the church body; we have relationships with brethren who equip and strengthen us that we can go to war with God.

All these things are aspects of weaponry.

And one of the big ones is your character. The development of godly character is one of your greatest spiritual weapons. Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

The desire of the Lord is to transform you inwardly, that your light may shine in this dark world wherever you go and whatever you set your hand to.

And so, we want to look at some passages of Scripture about the centrality of love and the importance of love in the Christian life and how this must be the motivation.

And first I want to say that love is probably the most misunderstood, misused, misapplied word in the English language today. Gangsta rappers talk about love, but it's a little bit of a different kind of love. When they tell their girlfriend they want to love them all night long, I don't think they're talking about what Jesus is talking about here.

Pastors frequently speak of the love of God, and oftentimes what they say about love is not what the Bible says about love. There are homosexual pastors who stand in pulpits and say that God loves all people, and thus He accepts all people, and that their church is a place that is welcoming and affirming.

And that they don't judge others. That certainly sounds nice, but I've walked into churches like that, and attempted to speak to pastors like that, and I can tell you, they are places of judgment. I will tell you; those pastors can be quite judgmental. And they can show much hostility and intolerance.

And Beatles had a song in the sixties, love is all you need, right? That was a great driving force of the sixties, the hippie movement that we could just transform the world through love. We don't need religion. We don't need authoritarianism. We don't need government. We don't need laws.

We just need love. And of course they were pulling from scriptural passages for this mentality. But of course, you, you don't get love without the source of love. The Bible says that God is love. Amen. And so, there's a lot of misconceptions about love in and out of the church. We live in a culture of young people that are literally, have become incapable of long term committed relationships.

The hook up, shack up, break up culture is utterly rampant in our society. The average 30-year-old man is incapable of getting married and producing children. And they've led us to believe that this is progress. 150 years ago, 250 years ago, young men at 20 years old already had children, were married, could build their own house, grow their own food, were reading, could read and quote Latin and Shakespeare and great theologians through the Middle Ages on down to the early church.

And these were farm boys. And so, we've not made progress in America. We've gone woefully backwards as we have indulged in utter selfishness and sin and de Christianized our culture. We have lost our way, but to justify this deconstruction, we've, the secularists have hijacked the term love.

And so, we often are accused of not being loving. And churches often will say that if you preach the word of God and speak plainly regarding the word of God and what it teaches, that you're not loving. Many have reduced love to an emotion. Many people want to get into relationship where they can find love.

But what they really mean is I like what this person does for me. Oh, I love you so much. I want to be with you the rest of my life. Six months later, they're with somebody else. What happened? They didn't love that person. They loved what that person did for them. They liked what that person did for them.

That is the opposite. And the antithesis of love is not an emotion. Love is not just mere acceptance. I can love someone and not accept what they do. I can love someone dearly, give my shirt off my back for them, and yet oppose their own self-destructive lifestyles. And that is love. Love doesn't mean the other person is going to affirm your treatment of them.

This is called emotional manipulation. When people say you made me feel bad, so I don't love, you must not love me. And we shouldn't fall prey to that, as many churches have, and they've dimmed their light to speak on important issues. Love demands we speak the truth. As Paul says here, love does not rejoice in iniquity.

It rejoices in the truth, and it thinks no evil. And so, what is love? If we're to think about it and define it properly, it's not what Amy Winehouse wrote about when she said, Love is a losing game for her and her notion of love, indeed, it was a losing game. Sadly, she ended her own life. Fame and fortune and sexual escapades did not.

Bring her either love or happiness. What is love? What is Paul talking about here when he says the greatest of these is love when he says though You can speak with the tongues of men and of angels But if you don't have love you are just sounding brass and a clanging cymbal What is Paul talking about here when he says you can understand all mysteries you can have all knowledge You can be the greatest theologian on the planet.

But if you don't have love, you're Nothing.

What is love? What are we talking about? I would say that love is this love is a deep Concern and care for the well-being and best interests of others That's a good biblical definition of love a deep care and concern and you could put an action phrase on It's it is an active term.

Love is not passive. Love is active We act on behalf of others we act on behalf of the best interests and needs of those around us. We put others ahead of ourselves It is the antithesis of selfishness and self-centeredness The root of all sin is man's pride self-worship and selfishness, and love is the antidote to that love is what drives out Flushes out and washes out of the human heart Pride, vanity, lust, selfishness, greed, covetousness.

And thus, Jesus said this in Matthew 22, He said, When He was asked, what is the greatest commandment? And of course, the Jewish people had 613 commandments. They were very meticulous to follow, and they said, what is the great commandment? And what does Jesus say to him? Matthew chapter 22. Love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And the second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself. For on these two commandments hang all the law and all the prophets. Amen? And so, Jesus exalts the place of love in Christian ethics and Christian virtue.

Let's look at a few other passages of scripture to zero in on this. Colossians 3. 14, Paul says, above all, that's a pretty significant statement to begin your sentence with. Above all, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. Peter, chapter 4, verse 8 says, above all things, same language, above all things, have a fervent love one for another.

Earlier in the chapter he says this, since you have purified your souls and obeying the truth through the spirit and sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 3.

I'm sorry, chapter 13, just a few pages back in your Bible. Romans chapter 13. Chapter 12, Paul says, let love Be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be kindly, affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

It's giving definition to what it means to be kindly affectionate, to be, to have brotherly love. And then here in chapter 13, he segues in talking about civil government, the role of the minister. And then he goes on and he says this, after he says, give honor to whom honor, fear to whom fear, custom to whom custom, he says in Romans 13 verse 8, Oh, no one, anything Except to love one another for he who loves another has fulfilled the law for the commandments You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness You shall not covet if there is any other commandment are all summed up in this saying namely you shall love your neighbor as yourself love does no harm to a neighbor Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Amen.

And so, Paul is telling us that as we love God What flows out of that is a deep love for our neighbor.

As the Lord transforms our heart, transforms our character, replaces self-centeredness with Christ centeredness. It replaces selfishness and pride with godly, biblical, Christ like love, a heart of sacrifice and service for others. That transformative work begins to shape and mold our character and our action and our identity as Christians.

And that must come first. Amen? It is at the heart of the Christian gospel. The fruit of the Spirit. We read about the fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians, and what does it begin with? What is the first fruit of the Spirit mentioned? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. The first is love, because that is the emptying of yourself.

And in the emptying of yourself, then there can be joy. There can be peace. Self-control. These things flow out of, first and foremost, the emptying of yourself. The denial of self and the recognition other people matter.

Jesus said, if you love me, obey my commandments. And he said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. My commandments are not grievous. Familiar with that passage? I remember as a young man thinking, what? Man, this is extremely difficult. What is Jesus talking about? I just came out of a life of selfish, sinful indulgence.

Being a Christian is hard. Restraining my sexual lust is difficult. Restraining my pride and ego is difficult. Denying myself is really hard. What is Jesus talking about? His burden is easy. His yoke is light.

I think the way to understand that God helped me see that as a young man in the workplace. Sometimes when you're working, a workday is miserable. Other days, you can have the same exact job, and you breeze through the day, and it's enjoyable, right? Same work. What's the difference? Difference is your attitude, right?

Your attitude. And I realize that's what Jesus is talking about. When your attitude changes, his burden becomes easy. His yoke becomes light. The Christian life becomes amazing. It becomes exciting. It becomes adventurous. It becomes joyful. The things that previously I thought were, Man, this is a religious burden.

I gotta get up and read the Bible. I gotta discipline myself. I really want to do these things that are fun, I gotta be a good Christian, and I gotta do this, and I gotta share the gospel. That's a burden. That's grievous. And that's why many people don't have the joy of the Lord. And thus, they don't have the strength that comes from the joy of the Lord.

And they don't have the power of God manifested in their life because there is a profound lack of love for God and for others. Selfishness is still driving much of their religious life, choking out the fruit of the spirit.

And I realized looking back at my early Christian life, one of the reasons I was this on fire Christian and had this joy and this desire to do evangelism is because man, God radically transformed me. I was lost, broken, homeless, destitute, and he transformed me. And I wanted to tell that to other people. I wanted to grab young men and say, brother, you're living in sin.

Your life is a mess. You've been lied to. You've been manipulated. Your heart is filled with sin. Turn from that. Understand the God who made you that can save you and set you free and give you true life. How easily we accept the cheap substitutes of our own flesh and of the world. And then we wonder why our Christian life is passive and weak, and oftentimes we struggle through it.

You cannot get the cart before the horse.

You know what that means? You don't push a horse into a cart and think that's going to get the cart to move. Get the horse in front of the cart, hook it up, and the horse will move the cart. Biblical love, a love for God, a love for others. The power of the Holy Spirit transforming your inward desires is so incredibly powerful to give you spiritual life and joy and peace.

This is why Christians could sit in dungeons, having all the money, all the wealth, all the comforts, all the liberties stripped from them, all the things we think that we need to be happy. And Christians can sit in dungeons and rejoice and have a supernatural peace in the midst of this. Of such deprivation and persecution and hostility.

You know why we often don't open our mouths and speak the gospel. Why we so tiny times are timid and afraid is because we are thinking about ourselves. What does scripture say? Perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love casts out fear. I can tell you this. I was the last person you would have ever expected to be a public speaker.

I did not want to pulpit and speak publicly. I liked sitting in the back. I liked being behind the scenes. When I became a Christian, I liked to evangelize one on one, but I was not a public speaker. I remember being asked and called on to pray at a Bible study one time, and fear just swept over my body.

And I thought, oh my goodness, I gotta pray in front of people. Ever experienced that? Why was I so afraid?

Because I was thinking about the opportunity that I had to beseech the Lord on behalf of my brethren? No, because I was thinking about myself. I'm not adequate. What about if I fumble through my words? What if I don't say the right thing? What if I misquote a Bible scripture?

What if they think I'm dumb? What if I come across not looking as spiritual as I want people to think that I am? What is all that? It's all of our flesh. I use this analogy with people all the time. Imagine if you're walking down the street, and there's a burning building, and you see a child in a window screaming, and she's stuck up there.

What are you going to do? What would you do? Think you might raise your voice? Think you might say, Hey, help! Hey, if we got any help, we got to get this child out of the window! The child's in the there's a fire! You're gonna rush, you're gonna take action because you see a need. And you automatically rush to meet that need.

You're not thinking about yourself.

And so, this is how love casts out fear. And so, our evangelistic zeal, our desire to live all facets of the Christian life, must indeed be driven with that kind of love, that kind of concern. And that is what makes the Christian life joyful, adventurous. There's nothing the world can offer me that's a substitute for that.

I remember when I became a Christian, I stopped playing video games fairly quickly. And people were like, oh, you think you're a holy roller, your video games are sinful. I said, no, video games aren't sinful. I said, no. They're just boring. I'm worshiping and have a relationship with the guy who framed the stars.

Have you ever seen a sunset? If you looked at the clouds, have you seen a massive storm front roll through and the tremendous force of wind? And if you stood on a beach and just looked at the waves crashing into the shore, that's the God that made all that is the God that I have a relationship with. I don't care what the latest Hollywood movie is.

I don't care about CGI effects. I don't care about the stupid new video game. That's boring stuff. That's little kindergarten stuff. Go play it if you want to, if you find enjoyment in that, fine. But I don't. I do. I like John Meadow football, I'll be honest, okay? But honestly, you understand the point I'm making?

God is the author, creator of life, creator of the heavens and the earth. We get to have a relationship with him. We get to represent him and be his ambassadors. We get to be soldiers in his army. We get to wage war on the works of the enemy. How exciting is that you tell me your Christian life is boring I have young men leave the church all the time.

I talked to him. Oh, the church was boring, man He didn't he were at the wrong church brother Christian life is anything but boring It could be a lot of things, but I’ll tell you the true Christian life is far from boring and if you're bored in your Christian life rethink Christian life The condition of your heart.

Ask yourself if the love of God that Paul is speaking about in 1 Corinthians 13 is indeed transforming you. Have you experienced and tasted that the Lord is good? And have you felt the love of God in your soul that so transforms you and opens your eyes to see your own selfish, sick, sinful heart? And fall on your face before God in repentance and say, God, cleanse me of these things.

Sanctify me by your Spirit. And use me for your purposes to bring the glorious gospel to those who desperately need it. Help me to stand as a voice against evil and injustice in my day. That's exciting. Amen. The Christian life is exciting. Hallelujah. So, three areas I want to look at in terms of what does this look like and make application of this.

We've touched on it already. Three areas that are important to the Christian. One is our home and our family life. What is your home and your family life look like? As it relates to the call of Christ to love your neighbor and to love God, what does your home life look like? What does your relationship with your spouse look like? Is your home life characterized by this kind of sacrificial love?

When Christians step into your home, or if an unbeliever were to step foot into your home, where they say, this is a home with the love of God. I can feel the love of God here. I can feel that there is a love, and a concern, and a sacrificial heart that is here, that permeates and fills the aroma of this house.

Christian love is here. Where are our homes, your home characterized by petty bickering, power struggle, laziness, impatience, sharp, coarse, biting tongues.

Our homes, the Christian home, is indeed the greatest antidote. To the utter brokenness and deconstruction that we see going on all around us. The Christian home is the antidote. Christian family is revolutionary in our modern day. And what greater witness to the glory of God, what greater witness to a world that thinks that they've got love figured all out and thinks they're morally superior to the Christian.

And yet their lives are characterized by selfishness, brokenness, and all the things. That we see to step foot in a Christian home and see deep love. See men who really sacrifice for their wife and for their children, men who lay their lives down, men who take up the yoke and the burden of leadership in their home and who their leadership in their home is characterized by this kind of Christ like love for their wife, for their children, that man toils and labors day and night without complaining and murmuring and whining, but he serves, pours out and trusts the Lord to refill him.

Our Christian homes must be transformed by the love of God. Not religion, not dry, empty theology, not stuffing our heads with knowledge and information about family, but first and foremost, by a love for God and a love for others, and that is the foundation upon which we build good, sound doctrine and theology.

Amen? About the home.

Secondly is, Our church life, our congregational life.

How does this kind of love transform our churches? What is a Christian community motivated and activated by this kind of a fervent love, one for another? What does it look like? What did Jesus say? By this, the world will know that you are my disciples. By your large church steeple. By the Translation that you all use by your theological tribe by cool t shirts by what will the world know that you are his disciples all those things are good.

I like big church steeples I love big, beautiful church buildings, a great testament to long term multi-generational view of the foundation of Christianity in society. I love cool Christian t shirts and I have my, certainly my choice of Bible translations. But Jesus said by this the world will know that you are my disciples.

By your love, one for another. And so, when you come to church Sunday morning, I would encourage you to not put on a face. Be genuine, be authentic, be yourself. Don't come here thinking you have to put on the spiritual. Come here with a heart to serve your brothers. Come here with a heart to learn. Come here with a heart to pour out.

Come here recognizing you have gifts, talents, and abilities. You play a role in this body, and you have things that you can contribute here. Don't come here what is the old JFK line? Ask not what you're Country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, right? So that should be our attitude about church.

I didn't like that church, you know Just a little dry a little stiff, just a little I just didn't know that it's not about you. Did you come there with an attitude to serve? Did you come there saying what can I contribute? What can I pour into what can I do?

To serve this congregation. If everybody has that mentality, you have a well-oiled machine. Amen. You have an army that is able to march and do great exploits for the Lord. As a congregation, we ought to be quick to meet each other's needs. We ought to be quick to be concerned about each other's needs. We all have probably learned this in various ways.

The problems and the issues and the struggles and the challenges you've had this week, the getting beat up and all the things that you muck in the mire, you've ran through this week, right? A lot of that stuff goes away when you begin to see somebody who's worse off, right? When you begin to think about the needs of others, your problems begin to go away, right?

This is why as we become an increasingly self-centered culture, increasingly de-christianized culture, a mental disorders and anxiety and depression are at all-time highs. And what is the professional pharma, pharmaceutical Remedy is to just give you a pill that numbs your senses, right? The solution to the vast majority of depression and anxiety is to stop fixating on yourself.

Your selfishness is producing spiritual death in your life.

The solution is to think about the needs of others. So often our problems, our worries, our anxieties go away. When we see somebody who has a greater need than us, we begin to think about the needs of others. And God restores the strength of our soul. God gives us, girds us up to begin to then serve and meet the needs of others.

How many of you have experienced that before?

And so, our church life, this isn't about coming here, this isn't a movie theater. We've been conditioned in modern society that this is like a movie theater. You come here, you sit down for two hours, you're entertained, you're like, that was cool, and then you leave. That's not what church is.

The body of Christ, Ecclesia, we are, as I said, an army. There's a war going on. We come here to get equipped for battle. We come here to serve. We come here to pray for one another. We come here to hear the word of God preached so that we can absorb that into our hearts, into our lives. Be transformed by it, by the preaching of the word, the worship, and the prayer.

And that we can then go out and preach. And be effective ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, be light and be salt in this world. Amen. And so thus what does 0. 3, what does godly love look like for a missional church? Matthew 28, Matthew chapter 28, you can turn back there.

Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray the Lord would send laborers into the harvest. Amen. This is the great commission, phenomenal passage from Jesus at the end of his time with his disciples after his. Crucifixion and resurrection and he comes down and appears to the disciples and this is at the end of the gospel of Matthew He gives what we call the Great Commission It's a missional charge to the church and it says in Matthew 28 verse 16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them and when they saw him they worshiped him But some doubted and Jesus came and spoke to them saying all authority is mine has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you. At low, I am with you always, and to the end of the age. Amen. Christ has all authority in heaven and earth. And He thus commands us to go and make disciples of all nations.

We are to go and preach the gospel, to make disciples, teach them to observe the things that He has commanded. Amen. Amen. This is an all of Christ for all of life scripture here. All authority in both heaven and earth belong to Christ. And he has given that to you to go and to be an instrument of transformation and redemption, to bring the Lordship of Christ into all areas, into your business, life, your vocational life.

You are a soldier of Christ on your job. The work and the labor that you do is worship to the Lord and all that you do. The Bible says, do it heartily. As unto the Lord. Amen. Your job is not just something you got to grudge through and drudge through. It is your worship to the Lord. Do it with excellence, shine your light on the work in the, in your workplace, be a light in your workplace, strive for excellence, Christian people of all people made in the image of God, recognizing the glory of God, the beauty of God, the creative power of God should be the greatest innovators and leaders in business, finance, art, and Christians have been in Western civilization.

Indeed, scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators.

And we've lost it. We've reduced our Christianity to this little comfortable, little area over here, this little bubble. And then we wonder why our children aren't, are falling away. Why people see this caricature of the Christian life and why they repelled by it.

So, we have a missional calling. You have a missional calling, go and preach and teach. Christian ethics are transformative in the business world. As if you're a Christian business owner, as I've been for many years, we don't get to view human beings as. We don't get to view economic transactions in a dehumanized manner.

Profit is not the bottom line for the Christian business owner. Profit is not the bottom line for the Christian entrepreneur. You are providing a service to another image bearer of God. And that is transformative of economics, amen? We're not bound by raw, pure, secular capitalism. We don't worship capitalism.

Capitalism. I believe in capitalism. I believe in free markets and Christians should personal property rights, but we have disconnected capitalism from Christian ethics in America today and the business place is a harsh Godless environment corporate America is a harsh taskmaster and many are just cogs in the corporate machinery and enslaved to the dollar bill Finding their security in a corporation.

Your security is in Christ. I've raised 11 children I've never had health insurance never taken a penny from the government I don't have a 401k and I don't plan to take social security. Not condemning those things. We've got those things. That's great. But what I am saying is that our society has been re-engineered over the last 100 years to enslave all of us to those things as a replacement for dependence on family, church, and God.

My security is in my family. It's in my church. Who's going to take care of me when I get old, if I can't work, if I get injured? My children. I've got a lot of them. We've taught them how to love other people, taught them to serve, taught them to work hard, taught them skills. They're going to take care of me just fine.

I have no fear of that. I've got phenomenal security, far better than any corporation I've ever worked for. And certainly, far better than any government of men that we see in our nation today. And this church body, right? We meet each other's needs. Somebody here gets hurt, somebody gets injured, somebody can't work.

We come alongside. We serve. We minister. We help. We provide. Amen? We meet each other's needs. We The church and the family used to be the economic center and the educational center of American society, and it built a strong, free and prosperous nation despite many flaws and always had flaws. Any human institution will, and there's been a social reengineering to steal education and economics out of the church, out of the family and put them in the hands of big government and big corporations, the unit party.

And we need to re-engineer that. Amen.

Christian love drives our work. Amen. And Christian love drives our mission. And we have a mission. Matthew chapter 3. I'll close with this. I'm sorry, Matthew chapter 5.

We have great evils going on around us. We have lost souls all around us. People are walking these streets of Cincinnati who've never heard the gospel. I went through four years of high school. I never had a Christian ever share the gospel with me. Four years of high school, four different states. Never had a Christian ever share the gospel with me.

Who's the last person you shared the gospel with? Who's the last person you talked to about what Christ has done in your life? Who's the last person you opened up your mouth and began to speak to about the Word of God? How often do you seek out those opportunities in your life?

Matthew chapter 5, verse 13, I'll close with this.

Jesus, this is in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot of men. Amen. And I would submit to you, this is precisely what is happening to the Evangelical Church in America today.

I don't blame the feminists, I don't blame the communists and the Marxists and the socialists, I don't blame the secularists for the plight of America today. This woeful spiritual condition in which our nation and culture, as in, you know who I blame? You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

We as God's people, the church, we have failed to be the light of the earth, light of the world, and the salt of the earth. Verse 14, You are the light of the world. A city set upon a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, it gives light to all who are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. And glorify your father in heaven. Amen. And the driving force for that must be, as we've talked about biblical love, that's what drives the development of good, sound doctrine. It's what drives good, sound political engagement. And we need to be involved politically, standing up for our preborn neighbors, fighting the injustices of abortion and the onslaught of sexual seductions upon our young people that has been a demonic hell hole being unleashed on our youth.

We need to be standing in the gap. We need to be defending and protecting those who are being seduced by the sexual perversions of this day We need to be standing and being a voice for the voiceless preborn children We need to be instruments in god's hand speaking against injustice and evil and all the godless things that prevail in our culture.

We ought to be concerned about them the bible speaks about them the bible gives solutions to them and we are a part of that solution. Amen So I pray that God would Inspire within your evangelistic zeal a love You How many people do you know who are lost on their way to hell, dead in their sins?

Lives are a mess that you have an opportunity to speak to. You have an opportunity to invest, and you have an opportunity to open your mouth, to be used as an instrument of God, to bring them to Christ and to see their lives transformed radically.

I pray that God would give you those opportunities as you seek them and would give you a heart desirous of doing it. Amen? And that is true of all of our Christian life and duty. Christian duty is a beautiful thing when we have the right attitude about it. Let the love of God fill you, brothers. I'll close with a quote from Albert Barnes.

He said this, the love of Christ and of a dying world Nerves the soul to great enterprises and sustains it in the deepest sorrows. I'll read it again. Albert Barnes in his commentary on second Timothy, the love of Christ and of a dying world nerves the soul to great enterprises and sustains it in the deepest sorrows.

Amen. Let's pray.

Hallelujah. Father, we thank you for this time. We've had to look into your scriptures. I thank you for this church. Thank you for your word. I thank you for the love that you have that has been shed abroad in our hearts, Lord, that you loved us even while we were sinners. And we are thankful for the love that Christ displayed and all the facets of his life, healing the sick, caring for the widow, the poor, the leper, and also even turning over tables, driving out money changers, rebuking the religious and political leaders of his day.

We for all these things. Demonstrations of his great love. May we be filled with that kind of love, Lord, that reaches down to the poor and the destitute, and it stands up in the face of evil and injustice. Lord, I pray that you'd use us for these purposes. Fill our hearts with love, the love that Jesus displayed as he carried the cross.

Lord, may we indeed follow in the footsteps of our savior, denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following him. And I thank you for this church may be a and continue to be a beacon of light in this city. May your church be. Encouraged in the hope of the gospel. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.