Praise God. What a sweet spirit of
celebration here in this house this morning, church. I'm so excited
to, to join in with, just
congratulating Hal Laughlin. He is he is the epitome of
what it means to to see God's faithfulness in action,
and a man of integrity. Man, I tell you what,
I just hope that we can all, see that
and and and see that bar that Hal has set, and say,
Lord, let me, you know, achieve this one day.
Thirty years of faithfulness and service to the
Lord. So wow, what an incredible incredible thing. We are
gonna talk about some things that might ruffle some feathers today.
So we're gonna go from celebration to maybe, oh,
maybe. But you know what? I pray that this morning it's gonna provide
some freedom, in and amongst ourselves.
It'll break some bondages that maybe we've been holding on to for
a long time that I pray that the Lord is gonna use it
mightily to to just set us free.
Amen? Alright, so let me ask you something this
morning. Have you ever felt like maybe sometimes you're just going
through the motions? Just another day, one step at a
time. Here's another day, so I'm going to go through it. This is what I
got to do. Right? These are the things that I'm
responsible for, so I'm going to step in and I'm going to do it and
I'm going to perform it because that's what's expected of me. Like
maybe there was a sometimes maybe there might be a different image that you're
presenting to the world than what you're actually
who you are on the inside. Right?
I know I have. I have, felt that way a
lot of times. I felt like I was living a lie. I felt
like what I was allowing other people to see was
not the real me. It was maybe this facade or
this, act. And, you know, whenever
I really came to the real moments of, okay
God, you know, what am I doing here? Times
of reflection of going deeper of who am I
and who who do I want to be. Right? The Lord has shown me some
things. I started to crave something
real, something genuine, and I and I got real honest with myself.
So today, we're gonna unpack a portion of scripture that cuts right to the
heart of this very struggle. It offers us not just comfort,
but a pathway to a deeply authentic and powerfully
impactful life. It's out of the book of Romans chapter
twelve:nine, just one Scripture. I'm not gonna make you read a
whole bunch, so if you would stand with me this morning, and we'll
all read it together. Love is
to be sincere and active, the real thing
without guile and hypocrisy. Hate what
is evil. Detest all ungodliness.
Do not tolerate wickedness. Hold on tightly
to what is good. Amen. Lord, thank You for Your
Word. Thank You for the truth of Your Word, God. I just pray that You
would use it this morning to penetrate our hearts, Lord, that
any hardness that's there, God, I pray that You would soften
us and correct us, God. It's in Your name we
pray. Amen. You may be seated. I
love reading out of the amplified version of the Bible throughout this,
teaching this morning. You're actually gonna hear probably four different versions of
the Bible because I like to study, and I like to see
what different, versions, say. And
so, the Amplified, it just kinda goes a little bit deeper. It gives
a little bit more context context, maybe some more explanation.
And so that's, that's an incredible thing. It
it says to, it says love
meaning the real thing without guile and hypocrisy.
And then whenever it says hate what is evil, detest all ungodliness.
Do not tolerate wickedness. These are things that I think we
need to think about. Right? So
it's not just a a phrase, it's not just a verse in the Bible, it's
not just a real feel good sentiment, it is powerful. It is
something that we are to break down.
So I believe there's three key parts to this
verse. Love being the first,
holiness the second, and righteousness the
third. And as we break this verse
down, we're gonna I'm gonna ask you some questions, and I want you
to be real with yourselves before anything else.
So dig deep. What's the one thing
that you need to let go of? What's that one thing?
This is our one thing conference. Right? So we're going to need to dig deep
and think about what's that one thing in my life,
and go more than just the surface, go more than just
a vague word that encompasses a lot more
whenever you really dive in, because I
know that the Lord is bringing it to us right now. Even now as I'm
speaking, I know that the Lord is bringing it to us. What's that one thing
that we need to let go of? And the second question is what's the one
thing that might be separating you from an even deeper,
more intimate relationship with the Lord.
Do you want an intimate relationship with Jesus?
Yes. Your answer should be profoundly yes. So do you want
an intimate relationship with Jesus? Yes. Yes.
Yes. That is what we strive for.
So let's start with the first part. Love is to be
sincere and active. The word here in the
original Greek is agape. Now I'm If
you've been coming to church for a while or if you've been a believer of
Jesus, you know that this agape love is the
highest form of love. Right?
It's not any you know, if we can forget about the emotional I I
I Chelsea, I love those shoes over there. You are sporting them, girl. The
I love Cole, that jacket, come on, man. I love that.
Man, I I really love pizza. Pizza's good.
I love it. As a culture, we throw around this word
love like it's just kind of, you know,
anything and everything. But agape
love is so much different than that. It is sincere
and active. Agape love is complete.
It's willful. It's not just a fleeting feeling. It's a
conscious deliberate choice. See, everybody, we
have a choice to make. We can choose to love.
We can choose to hate. But the one thing
that we have is a choice. We can
choose righteousness, or we can choose wickedness.
These are choices that we're all gonna have to make. And one
day, whenever we're standing face to face with the Lord, He's
gonna ask us about those choices. He's gonna say,
I don't I'm just I'm gonna I'm gonna think about this is what I think
the Lord is gonna say. What have you done with the life
I've given you? And then He's gonna say, what have you
done with the life of my son
whom I sent for you?
It's a choice. We can choose.
It's about actively seeking the best for another person
regardless of what they deserve or even about how
we might feel at the moment. Feelings are fickle.
Feelings are caught up with emotion. So it
doesn't matter how we feel, we are called to love
regardless, called to put others before our
own selves.
Think about it. God's love for us, it's sacrificial.
He came and gave His life for each one of us. It's
unconditional. He loves us regardless
of what we do. Does it hurt
Him? Yes. But He's right there to pick us right back up, dust
us off, and welcome us with a warm embrace.
He loves us unconditionally. He
is constantly pursuing our ultimate good
even when we wander away. That's agape love.
But Paul doesn't stop there. Remember, he
says we ought to love what? Unhypocritically.
Unhypocritically. The church has gotten a bad rap for
being hypocrites at some point and sometimes. There's a lot of people who are turned
away from coming to church because sometimes they see
Christians doing one thing, saying one thing, and doing
another. That's the definition of being a
hypocrite. We're supposed to love unhypocritically
without our desires, without something that, well, what's in
it for me? Right?
Let that go unhypocritically.
Agape love is transparent. What you see is what you truly
get. So why does this authenticity
and love, why does it matter so much?
Guys, we are people. We are hurt. We are broken.
We can easily put on a facade.
Right? And then also, we can easily be ones to determine,
oh, that's fake right there. Right? That's why it's
so important for this love to be authentically
lived out step by step each day, because authenticity
is the real currency
as a believer. We
have to live what we believe. And if we
believe that he is who he says he is and he came
and he set us free, guess what? We better live that
way. We better let other people see that we
believe that, and they better hear it coming out of our mouths
because that's what's gonna bring them to make the choice to follow
Jesus. Authentic
love resonates. It transforms.
That love, my friends, it reflects the very heart of God
himself. We are his
image bearers. So let's be honest with ourselves.
Is our love always? That word always is bold
for a reason. Is it always sincere and active?
Is it always looking out for the best interests of others?
Is it always authentic, genuine?
And if it's not, what needs to change? What
are the things that we need to course correct as
we're living this life? It's a tough question,
But honesty, that's the first step.
See, honesty, it will go beyond
what we do, what we say. It has to
be the very first thing. Are we honest with ourselves?
Am am I truly the person that I believe I
am, the person that I am letting other people see?
So here's our challenge this morning. Let's intentionally examine
ourselves. Think about your interactions with your families,
your workplaces, in your church communities, in your neighborhoods.
Do your neighbors know you? I'm in
a we're in a day and age in which, man, I don't know if the
people across the street or to the left or the right if they know my
name. Go bring them a
meal, break bread with them, Go introduce yourself.
Ask them about their life. Get
real with one another. We are
people. We are made and created to be personable, to
be, interactive, to share with
one another. God designed us specifically
for community. And when we say we're a believer, we
will live it out sincerely and actively
pursuing God, pursuing his
heart for others. If that means I'm gonna go bake some cookies and
bring it to my neighbor because I don't know him, then that's what I need
to do. Amen?
Amen. So I want you to
ask yourself, am I actively seeking the good of others even when
it's inconvenient for me, even when it's
challenging? I might have to go out of my way to bake those cookies
and bring it over to my neighbor. I might have to set aside a
portion of time to do this,
but is that what you're called to do?
Is that what's gonna bridge the gap between someone
knowing the Lord and not? It could
be the simplest of phrases. It could be one word
that speaks to their heart that the Lord uses and says, come
to me.
Alright. Let's strive for that authentic
agape love in everything that we do.
Let's move on to the second part of this verse. Hate what is
evil. Oh. Oh. Does anybody get chills when they hear that
word? Hate. Gosh, I was always told
whenever I was younger, don't hate. You should never have hate
in your heart. I was always told
that hate is not a good thing. It is
actually the opposite of good.
But the Bible says to hate what is
evil. So it so we are supposed
to have hate. Right? We are supposed to hate
the evil. Right? That's what the Bible says.
Hate what is evil.
Listen to the strength of the original Greek word here. It's not just a
mild dislike. It's an intense revulsion
too. It's to detest, to abhor,
to shrink back from. This is
what the word hate means. It's
a strong active rejection. We're
not Or we are called as followers of Jesus to have a gut
level disgust for evil, for wickedness,
for the things that don't belong in the kingdom.
Now, I'm not talking about people, because people will pick
up this wickedness, and they will carry it, right, and
they will live it out continually throughout their days.
And we are not called to hate people.
People are just conduits. People are shells,
our bodies. Right? We are called to
love people, see past what
they do, the wickedness that is is produced
in them and called to love them beyond it.
To hate what the enemy is doing in their life
is appropriate. To hate the evil that is
plaguing this world is right.
Love the person. God
loves everyone.
Evil here is ungodliness
in all forms. It is more
than just a word. It is more than just something that we do.
It is anything in opposition to
God, anything that opposes Him, His precepts,
His Word, anything that is in opposition
to God. So this brings
us to a really important first question. What is the one
thing that you need to let go of?
What is the one thing that is in our hearts
that is maybe it's something that we're doing. Maybe it's a thought
process or an action. What is the one thing that we
were called to let go of?
First John one nine points us directly to it.
Boom. Sin. Big, bold
sin. I couldn't get the words any bigger than that on
the screen. I wanted to make sure that
it was as big as we can make it because it
is the one thing that we need to let go
of. Now, that is an all encompassing
sin, and I pray this morning that the Lord
speaks to each one of us and reveals what that sin
is. What is it in the workings of
our minds, our hearts, the things that we're doing
when nobody's looking? What is that sin?
God, speak to us. Reveal it to us. First
John one nine says, if we confess our sins to Him, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us
from all wickedness. All of it.
It seems so easy, doesn't it, just to to hate sin?
Seems easy. Hate the sin
out there. So easy to point fingers,
to judge, to say, I can so easily see your
sin and I'm gonna call you up out of it
because I know that you're better than that. Right?
How easy is it to point here?
The sin that is in our own hearts, the sin that
works through us in our minds, the sin that
we're maybe afraid to share with anybody. How
easy is it for us to do that, to succumb to that type
of level? But that's
what we're called to.
The secret sin, that habit,
that pattern of thought or action that we make excuses for, that we tolerate
because it's not so bad, is it? It's not really
so bad. Look at everybody else, they're doing it.
We make excuses for it. We justify our actions and we
say, you know what? I think God might be
okay with it. I think I can probably get away with
this. He sees
everything. He knows us through and through,
every fiber of our being.
He knows every hair on our head.
Why would we think that we can for one second get
away with something from God.
Remember what sin is? It's it's ungodliness in all forms.
Anything in opposition to God. So if it doesn't line up with
His Word, if it's not a characteristic of His
heart, should we be carrying it? Should we be doing
it? Or should we turn like the Bible
says and run as fast as we can away from
it?
I pray that he's urging us in this way to
hate the sin. God is calling
us every day to
come to Him at a deeper level. Lord, I
pray that You would use this to flesh out any sin that
still remains. The Word
talks about in first John one eight, it tells us plainly
that if we have no sin, we deceive If we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Remember
what I said about being honest? The first thing
is to be honest with ourselves, to be honest
about the sin that we're carrying.
Acknowledge the sin. We have to acknowledge
it in our lives, acknowledge its grip
on us, acknowledge what it produces in
us, and turn and run from
it. See, denial is not
just a river in Egypt. Denial,
denial I learned that from VeggieTales, by the way.
Denial is pretending.
It is pretending it's not a problem.
That's our enemy number one, denial.
Honesty first. Always. Honesty
first. Second, we need to know God, know
Him deeply. We need to know Him and and what
He desires for us. Guys, if you have problem
with coming to know God, pick this up
and read it. His truth tells all
about who He is. It shares stories of
His goodness through and through. It is a
book of His faithfulness in generation after
generation. The
Word of God is living and active. It's sharper than a double
edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing of
soul and spirit, joint and marrow. The word of
God is our truth. It is
the only offensive weapon that we have in this world,
and it defends us from the fiery
darts of the enemy. Pick up the word of God
and apply it to your lives every day. Be
in it and live through it.
Amen? We need to know Him.
Psalm 29 says, honor the Lord, you heavenly beings. Honor the
Lord for His glory and strength. Honor the
Lord for the glory of His name. Worship the Lord
in the splendor of His holiness. The splendor. What
is that? The splendor of His holiness. He
is holy, and that looks like something. That looks
like this incredible gift that we
have to worship Him. He is all
encompassing. God is good,
and His goodness will prevail over any wickedness.
The more we know God, the uglier our own sin will inevitably inevitably become in
comparison. See, when we come to know Him, right,
opposition to God. That's that's something
that doesn't agree with what I just read. This is
the the splendor of His holiness is right here and so it does not
line up with what is right here, what is what is going
on right here.
Spend time in His Word. Communicate with Him in prayer. Draw closer
to His radiant light, and any darkness in our
own hearts will become undeniably more apparent.
It will be highlighted. This doesn't belong. This
darkness that's in here, I need to get it out because
I'm in here, because He's taking me deeper, because
He's showing me the splendor of His holiness.
Third, we must understand the devastating consequences
of sin. Well, if I do this,
it's it's not really gonna matter in the long run. It's not hurting anybody.
It's not really, is it? The
devastating consequences of sin,
it enslaves us. Sin
separates us from God. Sin ultimately
destroys us. Understanding
the true eternal cost of of sin should
fuel our hatred of it. When we
realize that as we walk in sin, we are
walking continually down a path that
is away from Him, that is continually separating
away from Him. When we realize that, and
that one day, we'll have to give an account,
one day, we're gonna spend eternity either here
or here, the eternal cost of what
sin does in our lives.
Then we might change. Then we might
see this is more than just for the now, for the here.
This is an eternal weight.
Next is we must love God deeply.
We must love God with all of our hearts. We are not our own.
We belong to Him. He gave us the very breath of
life, making you fit for Himself. Okay.
Ephesians four thirty says this. Don't grieve God. Don't break His
heart. His Holy Spirit moving and breathing in you is the
most intimate part of your life, making you fit for
Himself. Don't take such a gift
for granted. I love the message
version of the Bible. It really brings it to
another level of who He is.
If we truly love the Lord, we will hate the very sin that breaks His
heart. So let's commit to doing some
truly so honest soul searching today. Take David's powerful
prayer and make it your own. Search me, oh
God. Know my heart. Test me and know
my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that
offends you and lead me along the path
of everlasting life. I pray
that God will reveal that one thing that needs to
go.
Second part of this is to hold on tightly to what is good.
To hold on tightly.
It's God's goodness. God's goodness,
his righteousness, his very character that we are called to
cling to with all our mind.
How do we cling to God's goodness? How do we know his
character? Read the word. By passionately
pursuing goodness, by choosing to cling to his righteousness.
Wait. I think I did it.
We are actively drawing ourselves closer to God, bridging the gap that
sin creates and stepping into the fullness of relationship
that he longs for us to experience with him.
The one thing that separates us from an even deeper more intimate relationship with the
Lord, guess what it is? Sin. Sin is a relationship with the Lord. Guess what
it is? Sin. Sin
separates us from an even more
intimate deeper relationship with him.
So how do we go about
letting our love be sincere, hating what is evil
and clinging to good,
Fall down on our knees in prayer and say, Lord,
you know what's going on in my life.
God, I pray that you would root it out. I pray
that you would give me people to come
alongside me and help hold me accountable
to show me these areas so I can
depend on you, Lord.
In everything that I do, not just in my words, not just
in my deed book, God, in my very heart,
that you would live through me, That I would be
used for you.
Love must be sincere and active,
real in real tangible ways. We have to have
a an intense hatred for evil
starting with the sin in our very own hearts.
And then we have to cling to good passionately.
Pursuing his righteousness with all of our
might. And remember, we
don't have to do this alone. We don't have to do this in our own
strength. Because Jesus left us with the
Holy Spirit. Our helper. The one
that walks with us through this life,
we are called and empowered to do it in His
strength, deeply rooted in
the unshakable love of God.
And with his hope that Jesus is gonna come back one
day. He's gonna split the sky and he's gonna call us home.
That hope at the forefront of our minds.
So that one thing that we're called to let go of.
Sin. I pray
that as we've talked this morning that the Lord has
highlighted what that sin is in each one of
us. I know as I was preparing I
was so hesitant to share what that sin
is or was in my life, but I think it's
necessary. I was
called to the Lord when I was eight years old, led in prayer of
salvation from pastor Jerry Bryant right down the road in
Antioch at a church called the Vineyard Church. And from a
very young age, I was in a family
that pursued the Lord, was in church.
We actually came here when it was Smyrna assembly. I was baptized by
miss Margaret Mink in the in the old sanctuary.
But something happened. I started to choose
selfishness. As a freshman in high school, I
started smoking weed and it separated
me from the Lord.
And I continued in this pattern, this
sinful selfish behavior pattern over and
over again for the next fifteen years,
it separated me from my
father. It put a burden on my family.
It made me desire the things
of this world and forget about the better things that
he had for me.
The Lord brought me out of that. And he drew
me close to him. And I was able to see
those patterns of selfishness. And I'm
so thankful for it. If
you're in a deep pit
in your own mind or in entangled in some
sin and you don't know how to get out of it,
he is with you. He wants
you to come close to him.
To get rid of those things that the world offers
and say, I have better.
He is so much better. He
is so much more. There are things
that He has to offer that no man,
no nothing in this world can give.
So Lord, I just pray God right now that you would
illuminate the things that don't belong God. That you would rise
up an intense hatred for in us for those
things that you detest, God.
That you would fill us completely with the things that are good.
Your goodness, your mercy. God, that
we don't have to rely on our own
strength. And that we don't have to
once we rid of those things be empty, but we can be filled to
your good. Let us
cling to them with all of our might.
I pray that you be glorified,
Lord, and that we would begin
to let go of that sin
in Jesus name. Amen.
Now, Stan, we're gonna finish with some worship.