So we are in the book of First Corinthians 13 this morning.
If you guys could turn your Bibles there.
And it is with a heavy heart that I'm here today, as I was
last week. Can't get this murder out of my
head. You know what happened, but got
allotted for a purpose. And I believe he's using Charlie
Kirk's passing to take us deeper in him personally.
Where we are with Jesus. Where's our commitment level?
What are we willing to do and say?
And how? How are we living in light of
what's occurring right now in the country?
After this past week of these horrific events of this
senseless death, we as Christians have seen a very
divided response that has been in many instances void of agape
in first Corinthians 13 is on agape love OK how God loves us
while we were yet sinners and enemies of him, He loved us.
He showed us His love unconditionally and with mercy
and grace. We're not real good at that as
human beings are we? People do something to us we
don't like or say something about us that we don't
appreciate, or whatever it might be.
We have problems loving people with the kind of love that God
loves us with. But what we have to understand
this response to the people who are celebrating his death, I I
can't comprehend that. That's inhumane.
Even if you don't like him or what he represented you, you
don't act like that as a human being, right?
But people are nonetheless behaving that way.
And there's believers like us that stand for the word of God,
that we are also in the crosshairs of people that as as
you guys said in Spain, they don't want to hear about the
Lord, they don't want to know about Jesus.
They, they're not interested in what it is that's changed our
lives. So we're told by Jesus to love
our enemies, aren't we? How can we do that?
That's something I'm learning to do every day.
How do I die to myself and have my heart broken?
For people that don't know the difference, they're lost,
they're blind. They act the way they do because
they don't know Jesus, right? How can we expect people to act
differently if they don't have faith and they don't know Jesus?
How did Jesus do what he did while being crucified for us on
the cross when he said, Father, forgive them for they know not
what they do. That's our God, that's our
Savior. That's how he loves us, that's
how he treats us, that's how he forgives us, and that's how he
has mercy upon us. And so as I was studying this
chapter, preparing to teach it today, I've taught this book
numerous times in my 30 years of ministry, but it's like a whole
new study for me because it's really digging deep into where I
am in regard to what is my love like?
Is it my Eros love? My sexual love I have for my
wife, which is important. That's an important good love if
you're married. Is it my filet love that loves
people in general that are easy to love?
Is that my sorge love that causes me to have this intimate
deep love for my own family and my kids?
Or is it the gape love that God wants me to have for the world
as his representative? And so as I was preparing for
this, I was thinking about people right now like Erica
Kirk. How is she rolling with the two
kids? And how is she responding in her
own heart to the person who murdered her husband?
Well, she's a Christian like we are, and she has to to go to the
same place we do when it doesn't make sense.
We still have to love. And we can't do that in our own
strength. We need the Lord to pour that
love in us so He can pour it out of us to other people.
It says in Romans 5 that He shed abroad in our hearts this agape
love. Whenever we got born again,
whenever we got saved, the Holy Spirit came to live in US and
dwell on us so that this attribute of agape love could
live through us to other people. And the church is meaningless
and the Christian life is pointless if we aren't vessels
of this agape love to the human race, right?
Like we don't need more information.
We need more transformation. We need to become more like
Jesus. And my prayers, I was on my face
since this event happened and preparing for this message.
Lord, work on my heart and make me like you.
I'm not like you unless you make me like you.
I don't have the capacity to to do what I'm called to do without
your empowerment, Holy Spirit. And so someone said that this
chapter is a circulatory system of the Christian life.
Now, if any of you have cholesterol, which I'm sure some
of you do, I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
And you get your tests, you get your numbers, you start seeing
it going up, and they want to put you on satins, which has
side effects and other issues, right?
But it somehow I guess, prevents the plaque buildup and prevents
strokes and heart attacks. At least that's the science
behind it. But in the Christian life,
what's worse than cholesterol is bitterness, unforgiveness,
judgmentalism, self righteousness, pride, all the
attributes of the of the sinful fallen nature clogs up this
heart that God's given us that he wants to flow with his
presence to to people. And so you and I were put in
situations every day where we're called to love someone that
naturally we don't want to love or we don't like or we don't
want to be around, or someone who's betrayed us or someone
who's really hurt us. And it's painful to be hurt by
human beings. And we have a tendency when
we're hurt, we don't want to forgive.
We just want to remove ourselves from those people the rest of
our lives. This circulatory system of agape
love I've seen it ruin marriages when people don't love like
Jesus tells us to love. I've seen it's ruined families
where families don't talk to one another for months, years,
sometimes forever over some stupid thing had happened.
I've seen it split churches and cause Christians to don't want
to be with each other anymore. And it, it's, it's, it's madding
really as a pastor, because my responsibility, first of all, is
to somehow have some kind of character of Jesus in me that
when you guys see my life, you know, I'm not perfect, but you
know, like God is working in Clark's life.
He wants to flow through Clark's life for your benefit.
So that when you come here, you're hearing something that
can help you love the people that God's calling you to love
that you just don't want to have anything to do with.
And until we as Christians, until we as churches begin to
get real and be honest with God and say, I don't have the
capacity to do this, but I know this is your command.
This is what you want me to do. Lord, I'm surrendering myself to
you. I'm yielding myself to you so
that you can love through me. So I'm not self-centered, then
I'm others centered like you are all the time, Lord.
And I know if we believe that and pray that way, God will do
that in our lives. He will do miracles.
He will transform relationships. He'll cause us to love each
other as brothers and sisters in Christ in a way that we've never
loved each other before. He'll cause us to love our
enemies and to pray for people that despitefully use us and
say, O manner of evil about us for His name's sake.
Jesus in John 1334 and 35, he talks about the commandment of
love and he told us that we're to love one another.
He's given us commandment. He said by this love that he's
referring to this agape love. People will know You are my
disciples. Without the love in the midst of
the gospel, the gospel is going to fall flat on its face, not
because it doesn't have the power, but God chooses to use
people like us to take His gospel to other people.
And people can tell if you really love them or not when
you're telling them about Jesus. Is this a sales pitch?
Is this like trying to manipulate me or make me say
some prayer that I don't want to pray and you, you and that I do
it and then I'll never see again because you really don't care
about me. You don't interested in me.
You know when Jesus was on the earth and he was living his
lifeout he was 100% committed to the people he was speaking to.
His love was everlasting. It was overwhelming, it was
magnetic. It was so attractive that people
when they saw him as a human being, which he was like us, but
fully God at the same time, they're scratching their heads.
I never met anybody like this before in my life.
I've seen these other people say they're Christians and I see how
they act. And of course, we know in First
Corinthians this is a corrective book because the Church of
Corinth was really messed up. Paul planted this church in AD
51 and his second missionary journey, he spent 18 months with
these people. That's a long time.
Him and Priscilla and Aquila, they were on a team and they
were discipling people and teaching people and spending
time with people and getting them grounded in the truth as a
as a Bible is beginning to be developed in the life of Christ.
He goes away on his third missionary journey.
He gets reports, letters that Corinth is messed up.
The leaders are fighting, the Christians aren't getting along
together. They're focusing on spiritual
gifts, and they don't even know the purpose of the gifts.
And what they were for is to glorify the Lord and build each
other up, not tear each other apart.
Paul was the planner and the apostle.
Can you imagine this? He goes back and they don't even
want him there anymore. You know, it's like if I went
away for a couple years and sometimes I'd like to do that,
to go to Stone Harbor for two years and come back.
But they'll come back and say, who's Clark?
What's he doing here? You know, and Lewis says, well,
he he planted the church 30 years ago and yeah, well, we
don't need him around anymore. We don't like him anyway.
So it's better off he he doesn't come back again.
And I know you guys won't behave that way or not that way, but
that's what Paul had to experience.
Can you imagine that? And so when he's writing this
letter and teaching them about spiritual gifts, he gives a list
of the of the of the gifts at the end of chapter 12.
And he's also reminding them that there should be no schism
in the body, but that the member should have the same care one
for another. So there should be no division
in the body of Christ. But unfortunately, there is.
Maybe you're here today and you're sitting over there
because you don't like someone over here.
I hope that's not the case, but. Or maybe you're watching on
YouTube and I'm glad you do. Or listening on Grace FM, but
you prefer to do that so you won't have to deal with the
people. Because it gets messy at times,
doesn't it? But this is where we get
Christianity worked out in the midst of one another, learning
how to rub up against each other and not get bothered by each
other and learning about the things I'll be teaching about in
First Corinthians 13. But after Paul talked about all
the exciting gifts and all the things that are happening and
how to do these things in order, he says at the end of verse 12,
he says, and yet I will show you a more excellent way.
And as he begins to teach in this First Corinthians 13, he
says, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love, I've become sounding brass or a clanging
cymbal. You have around people that
dislike to hear themselves talk. You're with them and they never
ask you anything about yourself. They just want to, they want to
tell you all about themselves and you're there like an hour
later looking for an excuse of how you can get out of the
meeting and just get out of there because you know, you've
heard enough. Maybe.
But that's what we can become like if we don't have love, we
can have teaching ability, spiritual gifts.
We can go to look harder. We can do missions.
We can do all kind of like good things, but if they're not
motivated and empowered by agape love, they'll they'll fall flat
on their face. They won't last.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all
mysteries, wouldn't it be cool to to have that gift fully and,
and understand all these deep things of God right now and have
all this knowledge? And though I have all faiths
that I could remove mountains, boy, what kind of when you win
like that kind of that kind of faith that some obstacle or some
situation in your life occurs that you're able to see it
removed immediately because you have such dynamic faith, but
have not love. I'm nothing.
So Paul's giving these profound statements about things that
people wanted in Corinth, and maybe you want this stuff too,
but you don't have the foundation to make these gifts
work because if you don't have the agape love, then it's not
going to. It's not going to do anything.
It's a waste of time. And then I think of Charlie
being a martyr. He wasn't planning on being a
martyr any more than anybody else has ever planned to be a
martyr. But it says here, and though I
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body
to be burned. And that was pretty common back
then. People were being burned at the
stake for their faith and to get them to not confess their faith
in Jesus Christ. And so they they would be
burned. And some people were burnt to
the glory of God and some people burnt out of pride.
I'll show you my enemy, the ungodly Roman Empire, the people
who are putting me in prison and beating me.
I'll show you I'm not going to denounce my faith, but I hate
your guts while you're lighting the match and setting me on
fire. But I'm giving my body to be
burned. And who knows what the attitude
of the conversation was with some of these martyrs prior to
their death? But if they didn't have love and
look at the person who's going to martyr them and say, before
you do this, I want you to know I love you.
Why? What do you mean you love me?
I'm going to kill you. And you hear and read the
stories of martyrs throughout the centuries that were able to
tell their killers that they love them.
He says if you don't have love, you're burning profits.
Me nothing. So then he gets into these
definitions of what love is and we're not going to rush on these
things. I think they need to be thought
about a little bit personally. How are we doing with this
definition of love as we go through these different
attributes? And of course, this is referring
to Jesus and how he is and if you've put your own name in
there, like your name suffer as long as kind does not envy
whatever you'll find that you don't get through the list too
far before you realize I'm not really like that the way I know
I'm supposed to be. And this agape love that we're
studying here, the first place it has to be experienced and
seen is in the marriage relationship between the husband
and wife and between the kids and the and the parents.
If it's not working there, it's not going to work anywhere else.
I've been married 54 years and I'm still trying to learn how to
love my wife like Jesus loves the church.
I wish I could tell you I got it nailed, man, I do it right.
It's perfect. It always works out.
If you heard some of our arguments sometimes in the
house, you say, well, there's still works on process and we
love each other, but we're still learning how to love with agape
love because human love wears out.
People get on your nerves, you get burnt out, you're just like
weary. You know you just want to and
that's when you get a gun on your face before God and say
Lord work on my heart till I've got the love for this boss
that's driving me crazy and minimizing me and making feel
inferior and doesn't appreciate what I do.
Or this this husband is demanding all the time and
doesn't appreciate the simple things I do because he's so
focused on what he wants versus what he knows.
I need these basic principles of kindness and sensitivity to one
another. So he says love suffers long.
Now, if you look at Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit, we're
told we got to be filled with the Spirit, and that means be
under the control of the Holy Spirit 24/7.
And none of us do that. But as we're growing in the
grace of God, we're learning that by walking in the Spirit,
things work out a lot better in the home and workplace, in the
church, and everywhere in the community.
And the fruit of the Spirit is first one is love.
And everything emanates from that love, the joy, the peace,
the long-suffering, the gentleness, goodness and
meekness, the temperance and the self-control, the the, the, the
fruit of the Spirit. And if, if we have this love
occurring in our lives, this agape love, all those other
attributes would be automatically and organically
flowing out of us because it's the fruit of the work of God's
Spirit and control in our lives. And that kind of love is
overwhelming it. It blows people's minds.
They, when they meet you and you're filled with the Spirit
and you're living this way, they want to talk to you about what
it is that's happening in you. It's very uncommon in most
people. They're used to people flying
off the handle. They're used to people getting
mad and getting angry. They're used to people judging
or saying things they know they shouldn't say.
And unfortunately, this happens many times in our lives as
Christians. And so it makes our faith
hypocrisy. We we all have to come to grips
with this chapter and pray and does not read.
You know, I read it. Cindy and I read it when we
first got married. We we were crying, you know, we
were emotional, you know, she had her mini skirt.
I had my hair down to my shoulders.
We had just gotten saved and, and her parents all have
sunglasses on thinking why is she marrying this, this nut
case? You know, what's happening to
her, her her niece, What's happening to our daughter?
Where's she going with this guy and that we had just gotten
saved and we're giving our testimony and you know, we're
just young and 18 and 20 and the whole whole life ahead of us and
boy, we thought we just got to say we we know everything now.
Everybody else needs to be like us.
Well, they they needed to get saved, but they certainly didn't
need to be like us at that time. We're just starting out.
We didn't know much about anything and we're still not
real sharp. We're still learning to be
honest with you. It's funny, 54 years, you think
you'd have some stuff down by now, but but it's, it's a
process, right? No guilt trips here today.
I'm, I'm being real. I struggle with understanding
this love that God has for me. Lord, why are you so patient
with me? Why have you been so good to me?
Why have you chosen to use me? I, I know myself as I am.
I'd be like the last person I would say to the Lord, you know,
pick that guy to serve you. So we start out our life and our
conversations now and our prayer time together and the things we
open up about things we regretted or things we wish
would have worked out differently or things we wish we
could have maybe managed or handled differently.
Too late to change that stuff, but it's not too late to be
humbled by it. Allow it to work on our lives
today. And that's how you learn this
subject of agape love. It's it's day in and day out
learning to suffer. Be patient, not for 5 minutes,
but for maybe five hours, maybe 5 days, maybe 5 months, maybe
five years. That's how God is with us.
God's patient eternally. He never says I'm done with you,
I don't have time for you. I've had it.
I never want to see you, God. Thank God he doesn't say that to
us. So none of us would be here
today. We have nothing.
We have no good news. God's good, but he's only
patient for one or two times and after that you're done though
he's patient 70 * 7 for the same offenses.
So when you look at that first word there love agape suffers
long where, where are we with this right now?
That's an open-ended question. No answer, obviously, but where
are you in regard to your patients with your older mom's,
your older dads, your wives, your husbands, your neighbors,
your children, the populace of the United States of America?
Where are you and being patient with the nonsense that's
occurring? How do you interact, or are you
even willing to interact with someone that thinks differently
than you? You're able to hear them out and
to listen to them and maybe give them something to reflect on as
opposed to just blowing them off as a waste of time and they're
not interested and you don't you could care less about.
And that's that's not how God is.
How long did the Lord wait for you to come to salvation?
How long is he still waiting for other people to come to
salvation? He's eternal.
Love is kind. Just to be a kind person, to be
kind to someone. People in general don't seem to
be real kind nowadays. You ever going to shopping
center parking lot and you see the spot that you think that
that's where you're supposed to park and someone else zooms in
and you get mad or you're kind, that's OK, I'll find another
spot. No big deal.
Where as you pulled in, they're giving you the sign language,
right? People don't have patience.
They don't have kindness. It's basic kindness.
Opening the door for someone telling someone have a nice day
thank you for what you did for me it's a it's an art it's an
art of life and living through the power of the Holy Spirit to
be kind. When you come to church, you
don't expect people not to be kind, right?
And I pray that when people come here, they sense the the love of
God. They sense the patience of God
through the worship and through the Word and through the Supper
and all the things, the fellowship we have.
They sense the kindness of God. I like going to that church,
being with those people because they're kind to me, because I'm
in a world that isn't kind, right?
I work in an environment that isn't usually kind.
I'm driving in traffic that's far from kind, but here it's
like a safe haven for me to get re energized and get re
acclimated to what life's really all about and that's Jesus and
living for him. Love does not envy.
When Jesus came, there was nothing that anybody had,
whether it was material or personality or communication
skills or nice houses, whatever. Nothing wrong with any of that.
But he, he didn't come here like wanting something from you and
me. All He wanted was to give of
himself completely to you and me.
He wasn't ever self focused, He was always focused on you.
And MV can go into all kind of dangerous places, whether it's
wanting someone else's wife or husband or someone else's family
set up or someone else's house or car or someone else's
community wherever they live, or someone else's ability to
vacation wherever it can. It can sneak into your heart and
before you know it, you're jealous.
Love doesn't parade itself. In other words, it's not
interested in being a big shot in charge and control.
There's humility in someone who is living through and in agape.
They don't want any accolades. They don't care if anybody
thinks there's something the Bible says If you think you're
something when you're nothing, you deceive yourself, right?
That's stupid thing to think of yourself as being more highly,
thinking of yourself more highly.
And you ought to. But the society lifts up people
that are famous or that have power politically or in in in
the arts, in the film, theater, legal stuff, all that Anybody
that is is like puffed up to be someone that is super important
running Amazon or Microsoft or whatever.
And unfortunately, a lot of these people that are so
successful are totally lost. And if they die without Christ,
no one's really even going to remember them in 50 years.
It's it's all going to be in vain.
But what is it in us that causes us to want to be important and
recognize Jesus came and says he made himself of no reputation.
Pastors are known for egos and also the narcissistic, unhealthy
tendency to want to attract the following, which is the worst
thing that a pastor could fall into.
They want to be on TV. They want to have jet planes,
they want to brag about their wealth or their budget or the
number of people that attend their churches and and it makes
them feel like there's something.
And if people are following you and me, they're following the
wrong leader, aren't they? We're to be following Jesus
Christ and him only on Christ the solid rock I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
Last one I'm going to cover today and we'll cover the rest
next week. Love does not behave rudely.
I'm reminding you of this frequently where Cindy will say
to me occasionally you are so rude that should shock you.
I'm a pastor. Or maybe I just did something
stupid. I didn't hold the car door open
or I went through the door and I'm thinking I got to get
through, but I'm not thinking about her that she's got to get
through. I mean, it's, I'm not doing it
intentionally. It's just part of my flaws.
And, and you're some of you are looking at me like shock.
My gosh, pastor, how can you be rude?
You know, well, I'm trying to be less rude.
And any way I can be less rude is by being filled with the Holy
Spirit, right? Because if I'm not filled with
the Spirit, I'm going to be the same rude Clark that she married
54 years ago, right? Nothing going to change.
But when she says to me that I've been rude, I don't want to
be rude. Honey, forgive me.
You're right. I was wrong.
I got to think about that more now.
And so I'm trying to walk behind her now so she opens the door
for me. So we're going to, you know,
stop here and that worship team can come forward.
We'll take the Lord's Supper. Devin Noel, I saw her a little
earlier and she looked at me. Holy Spirit, word she says,
Clark, the Lord's God of the day.
I looked at her like, because I'm struggling teaching on this.
Be honest with you, but it's it's fun being with you guys
because you're gracious and and I looked her and I said, Deb, I
needed to hear that the Lord has this teaching.
I don't, but he does and he has it for you.
What a wonderful thing when someone has a word for you right
and speaks it into your life to encourage you.
And many of you do that. We endeavor to do that with one
another. So before we go in the Lord's
separate, there's two things I wanted to share.
Pastor Lewis and I were in here praying on Wednesday and he was
concerned about the attendance on Wednesday night.
Not that we don't take a role or anything, but we have these 5-6
guys that teach the Old Testament, pour their heart into
the word, spend time Brad and Janelle and the, and the kids
ministry. They they prepare they they
really work hard to provide a resource for you during the week
if you are so inclined to want to participate.
And so he he wanted me and he's going to chat about it too that
pray you can't come every week I can.
I'm on the road most of the time out of town, but when you can
come. This is this place is open for
your benefit to grow in the grace and the knowledge of God
to build relationships. Wednesday nights are different.
You can ask questions with the teacher because it's just a
different format. Sunday morning, the youth group
that's developing and growing all these ministries.
There's people here actually called to these things and
they're here to serve you. So please, please pray about
that this coming Wednesday. I have a friend that's coming
and and I don't want you to miss it if you can't.
He's a former addict. His story is thrilling and how
the Lord saved him out of addiction.
He went to Calvary Chapel, Bangor, ME went through their
program, Ken Graves, the pastor, a friend of ours, this amazing
story. I met him at a church plant
outside of Pittsburgh and New Calvary.
It's starting. And he was saying, well, I'd
love to get my testimony sometime.
And so he's going to be here this coming Wednesday at 6:30.
Anthony's his name, pray for him.
And his grandfather started at Calvary Chapel in Honolulu years
ago. So this guy grew up in the faith
but got away from the Lord like a lot of us can.
And he went his own way. And now he's on fire with his
wife and his kids. And so he'll be here at Calvary
on 6 at 6:30 this coming Wednesday.
Also the men's retreat that's coming up.
What they said, Karen, the men's retreat with with 19th.
Yeah, it's awesome. So Ed Taylor, who's on a radio
station at 5:30 out of Colorado, he's a dear brother.
He's going to be speaking and he's a wonderful Bible teacher.
It's at Ligonier Conference Center, right down the road from
us, and we have to go far. If you can't afford it, guys,
we'll help you and and pay for it.
Just let us know, but you can, you can register online.
There'll be more details about that next week.
I'm going to go up Friday night and go come back home.
I I'm not staying overnight with some guys snoring and keep me up
on that. I'm going to go home and I'll
come back Saturday. So some of you might just want
to go Friday night or or just Saturday, whatever.
But please brothers, pray about going.
It'll change your life that time just hanging out with the other
brothers, other men of God. So we did have a baptism at our
house on Saturday. 5 people got baptized, verse 13, about a
month ago. It's exciting to see people
falling with baptism. And she had it there.
Praise the Lord. Water was 86.
That's Ava. She's 13, big volleyball player
and Hemfield School district. Awesome, Awesome.
There she is again. And that is Luke, Right?
Luke. Right.
That's Luke. Who is it?
Laura. Oh, Laura.
I'm sorry, I can't tell. That's Laura.
I kept calling her Anna. That's Gina's and Jerry's
daughter. She's all excited about Jesus.
There's Luke. He's a little troublemaker in
our kids ministry over there. He's got a lot of energy and we
got to stay on that kid. But you know, the Lord's getting
hold of his heart. And he, he made that decision
himself to get baptized. And then who else we got, huh?
Oh, it's all OK. So we have you, sister.
You got baptized. Raise your hands, everybody.
And who, who else got? Did I miss anybody?
Miss anybody, Lewis. OK, so anyway, it was exciting
and it was amazing. Families came to witness and
watch it and they were all celebrating seeing their
families getting baptized. Glory to God, Dave and Cindy,
thank you for coming and sharing with us.
And May God continually give you a wonderful retirement.
Healthy and enjoy yourselves. Well done, Well done.
So let's pray and prepare our hearts for the supper.
This supper today, in the memory of what Jesus done for us, I
think the way we could really glorify and honor Him is to just
take a moment and think about First Corinthians 13 and ask Him
to work on us in our hearts that we will be experiencing and
living this kind of love in a way we've never lived before.
Not any. In our church, but first in our
home and our families in our neighborhood where we work all
those places. So let's just take a minute
before the Lord and if we need to repent of some stuff, let's
let's give it to him. If you're here today and never
put your faith in Jesus today, today to say I need to be saved.
I need my life to change. It's just not working the way it
is. And I know I'm a Sinner and I
need you, Jesus, to come into my life and save me and forgive me,
change me, change me inside. Until we're changed inside,
nothing will change outside. Father, we're just so thankful
for your patience, your long-suffering, Your love, Your
grace, your kindness, your goodness, your meekness, who you
are, who you are to us. Lord, we, we know you and we
want to be like you and we know that's your will for us, that
you would conform us, all of us, the hardest center, the hardest
heart here today. Lord, you are able to change us
so that we're like you and we can make an impact in this
world. There's a lot of people are
angry today out there's a lot of people that are hurting, a lot
of people suffering. And Lord, you've called us to be
a solution, not a problem, to be an answer for people's
hopelessness and fears, to bring the gospel, Jesus Christ to them
so that they can have a brand new start in this life.
Lord, we bring our own hearts to you and we ask you to to to
touch them and to make them like your heart that we could
experience first of all this wonderful agape love and a
deeper way in our own hearts with you, but then to give it to
one another. Lord, we pray for today, for
those who are broken over the earth for Charlie's memorial
service. God, we pray you would use His
death for Your glory in our country and in our world.
Comfort His dear wife and children and all of us, Lord,
who are shook from this event. We pray, Lord, you would protect
us from danger and hatred. You put a hedge of protection
about us and our families in these days, wherever we go,
whatever we do, Lord, we know you go before us, You go with
us. And the Knights of Jesus is
betrayed. He took the bread in his hands
and he broke it, and he gave thanks and he said, take, eat.
This is my body which was given for you.
Eat this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, in that
evening he took the cup, and he said, This cup is a new covenant
in my blood, which was shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.
Drink this in remembrance of me. For as often as we eat this
bread together and we drink this cup, we show forth the Lord's
death till he comes again. Amen.
God bless you guys, have a wonderful day.