Love Our City pt 4

It's crazy because like earlier during the week, God told me, he said, Right, let's have testimony service on Sunday. And I'm like, okay, God, you know, I was telling the leadership team and the elders, I'm like, you know, we have testimony service. I'm gonna give boys the signal to play the keys if it goes too long, right? That's a little Baptist coming out of me. Because sometimes when people testify, they don't know how to keep a testimony short. They go in for 4 hours. But there's power in testimony. And Scripture says that we overcome by the blood of the lamb and what the word of our testimony. And so I don't think I'll be able to preach today, but I'm gonna keep the worship team up here.

You guys have a seat. I'll just do a quick sermon, and we're going to go home, man. That way I can make it to your. Your preferred restaurant of choice. Boys, keep playing, brother. I'm give you that dirt signal on the side right there. That's. That's a pastor, you know? You know, I know what I'm talking about. So today is the culmination of love our city. For the entire week of last week, we've been loving on the city of Highpoint. You know, we went to various locations just to love and different people with different spaces where that's what God has called us to do. That's what God has called the church to do. That's what God has called you to do. And so just to kind of fulfill this week, God brought me to the love passage, which is First Corinthians, Chapter 13.

And this passage of Scripture is so well known to believers and nonbelievers that many people can quote this passage or some version of it. Love is patient. Love is kind. It says that. Then we've this is although I may bestow all my gifts to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned. But I have now loved it. Promise me nothing. It says Love suffers long. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. It is not puffed up. It does not behave rudely. Nor does it seek its own pleasure.

It says that love is not provoke. Love thinks have no evil, that it is not rejoicing. Iniquity goes on. It says that love is what God has called us to do. And the beauty about this particular passage is that the Apostle Paul was writing to the church. Oh, you don't like that, do you? He was writing to the church because the church has gotten it wrong. They completely missed what God was trying to tell them to do. And this passage is nestled between chapters, Chapters 12, which talks about spiritual gifts. Then it connects it with Chapter 13, which talks about love. Then on the back side of chapter 13 is Chapter 14, which talks about what? Spiritual gifts? So why in the world is saying God?

Is that the common denominator, the berry, the bridge that connects the two of your gift things that comes from God is love. So don't misinterpret this passage. He said, You may be gifted, but I am the giver of your gifts. You may prophesy, you may speak in tongues, but yet I gave you those gifts. And so the Apostle Paul was writing to the Church of Corinth. And just just in case, if you don't know who and what the church creed was, it's one church all day long. Hey, man, it's the. It's the big church. The church was so messed up, I was about to say jacked up, but, man, pray for you, Pastor. There were dealing with sexual immorality. There were dealing with idolatry. There were dealing with believers trying to live a life with Christ, but was getting it wrong.

That's one church. That's our church. That's you and myself. Every day, seven days a week, 360, five days out, the year, trying to get it right. But we missed it. So Paul writes a letter, not only words of encouragement, but words of correction. He is saying that you are not the church that I called you to become. That is not the church for that he has launched. So he is saying what I need you to do today. What I need you to do from this day forward is to be the church that I know you can be. But what God is saying, that church, the church that God desires us to walk out and live out every single day has to be a church embodying love. I begin to think about the Book of Revelation in the Book of Revelation of seven churches. There there's seven churches that is identified. The Book of Revelation, the Church of Ephesus. See, the Church of Ephesus abandoned its first love that its it it it abandoned the love for Christ in his teachings. The Church of Smyrna, the church that remains faithful in the midst of persecution.

They were the only church that remained faithful to the Gospel, even when they were persecuted. The church appeared in the church that compromised its beliefs. The Church of Sardis. It was the church that was spiritually dead. And this was not this church. Not only do we invite the Holy Spirit to be here, but we ask that He may dwell in this place forevermore. But not just this place. This place right here that we are the church, that we are the Temple of God.

Even the Church of Philadelphia. The church that was supposed to be. The Church of Brotherly Love. That church that church endured. Despite its weakness, the Church of Lady Usher, the church that was lukewarm. It was neither hot or cold. Whichever way the wind blows that church where that wind was blowing sea church, I don't want to be the church says, lukewarm. I don't want to be the church that's spiritually dead. I don't want to be the church that's compromising. And we're having false prophets. No, I do not want to be that church. I desire that one church. Our church, your church. You are the church that's walking and living and professing the love of God upon your life. Even in the midst of a broken system, of a broken community, a broken economy, and broken people.

Because where there's broken people, that's where God desires to dwell. Some would say this, he says in Revelation chapter two verses for he says this. He says, Yet I hold this against you. You have forsaken the love that you have. For that you have forsaken your first love. He says, Consider how far you have fallen. He wants you to consider how far you have strayed away from the Gospel, how far you have walked away from Christ. He said, Consider this. He said, Repent and go back to your first love, he says, because that you do not repeat. I remove your lamp, stand said. I remove that light that you supposed to carry. And I'm reminded of a story by Danielle Stricklin. She tells the story about this young man. She's a Canadian pastor doing ministry in Vancouver.

She tells the story of this young man that where they go out into the community, begin to evangelize it, begin, begin to walk out the light of the gospel into these different communities. Daniel talks about a place where this community was overtaken by drugs were where kids were leaving and playing, becoming, you know, doing their life. The drug addicts and drugs are taking over. She tells the story where this one young man begins to have Bible study with Daniel and her team. So they decided to take the church into the church, become the church, and live out the church so the community can become the light of the world. She does life with this young man, and in a Bible study they read the Scripture where he hears that I am called to be the light of the world, that we are called to become the light of the world.

And so this young man who name was Robert after hearing that he gets it from a Bible study, he runs out and everybody's looking at, where do Robert go? So Daniel goes after Robert. Daniel goes after Robert Roberts. He's he's in a playground where we're kids used to play. We're drug addicts. And now taking place, he goes after that young man. He's like this Daniel asking Robert, what's going on? He said, I'm the light of the world. She said, What do you mean? He said, We just pray that we're called to be the light of the world, right? He said, yes. He said, Well, under light of the world. He begins, You on the light of the world. On the light of the world.

He yells out in darkness. Now he proclaimed that he is the light of the world, that he's the light where darkness is needed. He runs to the place where people are running from the church. We have to go to places where people are running from and become the light of the world. And when we carry that lying, we have to carry the love along with it. We know John 316 is the most memorable scripture that most people would know for guys who love the world that he gave his only begotten son. And we do an injustice to the gospel. Stopping there because it's only get gooder and gooder and gooder, a man come on church. It gets gooder after that. This is what it says after four gospel of the word that he gave his only begotten son.

This is the thereafter part that the whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have ever lasting life. Come on, church and for God, do not send His Son into the world to condemn it. Church We have to stop condemning people, right? That's why people don't come to church. Y'all all churched up coming in here. Somebody come in looking like you don't look. Don't dress like you look in in all the other crazy stuff. You're judging them right when they walk in it and they can feel it. How dare you?

He says, if for God did not send his son into the war to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. That's love. Our city right there, that we're taking the light of the world into dark places. That's what God has called us to do. That's what God has called us to become. So we're going to wrap up today in a very simple way.

It's one song that we sung before. It's a song that we sing a couple of different times. I forgot what that's was. There you go. Yes, I was trying to set it up and I messed it up. But there's that's when Grace comes about a man. And so my desire for you to do this as we become a house of prayer, because in the Book of Revelation, if you forgot how to get your first love, what your first love look like, I want you to go back and Revelations two or five says, just remember, therefore, who you have who have fallen. It says, repent and do the work. And so part of my three point sermon was this Remember, repent and return. Remember what God has done for you? Remember the doors that God opened up for you? Remember how God brought you out of the Mary Clay? Remember how God has set you up in such a way that it can only be God.

Our provider. Repent. Turn away from those things that is not of God. And lastly, return to your first love. Return to Jesus Christ. My desire is that we would do that through prayer. Many of you may be ask, or some of you may be asking, like, I've kind of lost my way. Go back to doing what you did when you were first saved. Go back into the fellowship of Believers. Go back into reading your scripture. Go back to fallen on your knees. Come on, church. The reason why I have holes in my jeans is because I pray. I pray a lot. Amen. But I bought these things from Hollister. Amen. They had holes in them already. But the other. Jeez, they have holes in it because I stay on my knees.

I proclaim who Jesus is, often reclaim his goodness and his mercy. All the days of my life. And if you don't know that posture, I pray that you do. So, church, as we stand and as we continue to love on our city, let's remain the light of the world. Let's remain the light of high point. Let's remain the light of our communities, the light of our family, the light of our still. And Asheboro and Thomasville. Whitsett. Burlington. Charlotte. Greensboro. Well, we come from every city because our desires continue to multiply this church, begin to multiply what God has called us to do. And I'm close with this. If you become a house of prayer, I would encourage you to pray the prayer that Jesus prayed for His disciples in that prayer was John 1721. And why do we pray?

We pray for those areas that we know that we may fall short of. Right. So we, Jesus, pray for his disciples. He cannot pray for anything else in the world. But as John 1721, which is our division of this church, Jesus prayed that his church that believers will become one, that we will live united. If Jesus prayed that as his last prayer, the now lets us know that the enemy is here to cause division even in his house.

Yes, my God. So when I pray for my children, when I pray for my wife, when I pray for my church, when I pray for my family, my friends, I pray for those prayers that people need the most. We need a unity that love beyond barriers, that love beyond borders, and a love beyond our differences. Amen. Let us become the house of prayer.