"God Started It with Love" By Brother Parrish Lee January 26th,
2014
What a glorious, awesome, wonderful,
great time for none other than the Lord our God.
Don’t we serve—honestly, honestly, we don’t
got to beat around the bush—don’t we really serve a great God? A real present help in a
time of need? God
knows how to minister. I
served a God who was no God, so I know what
I’m talking about. A
God Who knows how
to give you what you need, and knows how to be on time, on time. That’s the God that we
serve.
Giving honor to God, that same God,
that wonderful God, that ever present help in time of need, that
all-answering
God. That great
Spirit that charges the
angels with folly, and says that the stars themselves are not pure in
His
sight. That God. Giving honor to Him, Who
is our Maker,
Creator, our God. Giving
honor to our
founding pastor and his family, for their labor and their work, our
bishop and
his family for their labor and work, for those who have come before us,
here,
Pastor Wilson and brother Kenneth and his family, for their labor. Giving honor to God for
all of y’all, all of
y’all who attend and say, “Lord, I’ve come to worship you and to
receive from
you what you would have for me, that we might all be benefitted in You. Amen. ”
Giving honor to all of y’all.
Our theme for the month has been
simply, “It Starts with Love.” It
starts
with love, saints. It
really came from a
little excerpt that our bishop said to the group that was meeting with
him, he
said, “It starts with love.” That’s
been
our theme for the month, and our Scripture theme for them month is: John
13:35
By
this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one
to
another.
We’d like to start that same theme,
that same message, that same thought, going to the book of Genesis, our
Scripture thought for today: Genesis
1:1-5 In
the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. And the
earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters. And God
said, Let there be
light: and there was light. And
God saw
the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness. And God
called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And
the
evening and the morning were the first day.
If you could bow your heads with me
for a moment. God,
we thank You for the opportunity
to come before You and Worship You this morning, Oh Great God. Oh, God, the only God, the
only God, the
righteous God. We
thank You fro this
opportunity to praise and worship Your Holy Name that You have revealed
unto
us, unto those who would accept it, Lord.
We pray, Lord, as You have ministered to us in song,
as we offer our
praises and our sacrifices unto You that, as we come to the part of the
message
where we go into Your Word, that it would do exactly as You have said,
in the
Book of Isaiah, that it would not return unto You void, but that it
would
accomplish surely, that which You have sent it to do, that we might al
be
benefitted, that we might all be nourished.
Lord, that we might all go forth to do more with a
closer relationship,
a more wondrous walk, to be able to shine unto others that light that
You
poured in our lives. We
thank You for
all these things, and everyone said, amen.
So, pretty quick, we have talked
about how it starts with love. Our
first
message of the month, that’s what it was titled, “It Starts with Love.” There were four subjects
there: “Love From God,” “Love For God,” “Love For Yourself,” and
“Loving Others.” That
was our first message of the month,
talking about it starts with love.
Our
second message, from Brother Chris Ulrich, he had talked about the
stranger. To
caption it, one of the
Scriptures that he went to was in the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, and
he
captioned it by saying, “When saw we thee a stranger...” (Mathew 25:38)
When
saw we thee, a stranger, Lord? and how the negative connotations about
a
stranger in this world would go against what the Lord had said, and to
open up
our hearts for those people that we might call strangers, because,
really, stringers
are just friends we haven’t met. Last
week, of course, we had the message from our general pastor, who said
it’s
nothing but love. If
I could share a
little bit about what he said, he said if you have love one to another,
then
people will know that you are Christ’s disciples.
If you don't have love one to another, then
people won't know that you are Christ’s disciples.
Now, this idea of loving one another is a
very interesting thing, isn't it? In the church, we can get to a place
where we
find fault with each other. But,
if we
love one another, we're going to be able to work with each other in a
way that
shows the love of Christ. Just
a brief
recap of what has gotten us here to this point. Genesis
1:1-5 In
the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. And the
earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters. And God
said, Let there be
light: and there was light. And
God saw
the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness. And God
called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And
the
evening and the morning were the first day.
We see here how God set things up from
the very beginning. In
the beginning,
God created the Heavens and the Earth.
I’ll tell you the truth:
I know a
lot of people say, “I want to get to the end of the story. You know, I want to see
how everything ends
up.” They want to
get to Revelation,
because that’s the heaviest book in the Bible.
You know what? I would put the Book of Genesis up to
Revelation. You get
a good taste of what God was up to,
and our little minds can’t handle the universe, come on, now… They send probes out to
get a clue; they send
machines out to send pictures back of what it might be.
Satellites, Voyager, whatever, they keep
sending things out there because they want to get a taste, a clue, and
they
keep getting surprised at what they find out.
“Oh, it’s like that.
We thought
it was like this, but it turns out, it’s like that.”
They keep getting surprised, because our
little minds can’t fathom the creation that God has spread out
throughout the
universe. The solar
system, the galaxy,
whatever you want to call it, whatever we try to measure it like. We try to fit that into
this six inches
(gesturing to his head), maybe five-and-a-half, I don’t know, sometimes
I’m not
as smart as I was the other times.
It
says here that, “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the
Earth.” So, we see
that, from the start, God
created. God
started this thing
off. He started it
off first with Heaven,
and then the Earth. So
first God started
off the spiritual, and He followed it up with the natural. He doesn’t take a whole
lot of time on Heaven,
in this part, but, in verse 2, it says that the Earth was without form,
and
void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.
The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters,
so we see that the
earth, at the beginning, it was void, it was empty, it was without
form, and it
was dark. We would
say that that’s
undefined. The
Earth didn’t have a good
description about it. It
was without
form. They didn’t
know what it was; we
know what it is now. In the beginning, it
didn’t have all of the
things that it has now. we
would go on
to see in verse 3, God said, “Let there be light.”
That must have been an awesome sight. Can you imagine how that
must have been? That
must have been an awesome sight. The
universe, all created, and then God said,
“Let there be light.” Can
you imagine
being one of the angels, and God’s starting this thing off? The angels had to go,
“Wo-o-o-o-o-ow! You
go, God!
You are the man!
Yeah, you,
God. You, You, You.” In verse 4, we see that
God saw the light
that it was good and that God divided the light from the darkness. He saw the light, that it
was good, and He put
a division between the light and darkness, so that the two won't dwell
together. Either
it’s going to be light, or it’s going
to be dark. They
don’t dwell together;
there is forever a separation
between
light—yeah, I’m getting to a point, here, and, yes, the message is
still “It
Starts with Love.”—God put this separation, because the light is
for—the light
brings understanding, the light brings knowledge, the light brings
wisdom. The
darkness, the darkness is to rival the
sun, the darkness is the great mystery.
He divided the light from the darkness.
He called the light day, and the darkness He called
night. The evening
and the morning were the first
day. I’d really
love to get into this,
but I only have a bout twenty-five more minutes.
So, I have to cover a lot; so I have to skip
through a lot of creation—I hope that’s okay.
If we were to skip down to verse 26, in the
beginning of that, we would
see that all throughout that, God created these things.
He created the Earth, and He put the light in
there, and, can you imagine He put the clouds there, and the whole
atmosphere,
the stratosphere, the ozone layer, and all the layers that come to
protect
us. God put fowls
in the air, and
creeping things, and cattle, and sheep, and all that legged stuff He
put on the
ground, and then He put fish, all manner of fish in the sea. He put big fish; He put
small fish. Fish
with shells, and fish without. He
populated the sea. Then
God did something really special.
God created something really special, it says
down here in verse 26. He
created
something very special: He
created man. Genesis1:26-27
And
God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the
fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in His own image, in the image of
God created He him;
male and female created He them.
I heard somebody say, “That just
shows that there’s more than one God:
There’s all the Gods there, because he said, ‘Let us
create man in our
image…’” Like God has a committee, and they’re all reaching the same
decision
at the same time. Yeah,
you’ve got the
Gods of the different continents, and the different understandings,
because, after
all, people say, “We all worship God in our own way,” and that’s only
true to a
point. If you
really want to worship
God, ask Him how. Ask
Him bout the
worship that He will receive. He
will
give us understanding; that is the God that we serve.
He is able to do that.
And He clears it up in verse 27:
“So God created man in His
own image…”
In His image; in His likeness.
He
created all of us. It’s
real special to
know that only us does it say He created in His image.
I want to get a little bit more, a little bit
in tune with this (still talking about, “God Starting It with Love.”: Genesis
2:7
And
the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a
living soul.
So, in chapter 1 it says the He
created, He created man, but, you move on to chapter 2, it says that He
formed
man. Now, there’s a
little bit of
difference between creating something and forming something. When you create something,
you put some of
the particles into place, and you create it, and there’s all kinds of
ways to
do it. You can
create a car by building
the machines and they’re doing it.
He
said, “Who made that?” well, Ford made that.
“How did he do it?” well, he put all these machines
together and they
built the car. Somebody
built a cake or
a house, or, there’s all kinds of ways to create, and some things they
create
by accident. They
do things and they
thought it was going to turn out one way, and it turned out a different
way;
they created it. There
are so many
things that they’ve got now that they created something by accident. They were trying to think
of a way to sweeten
something without sugar, and they say they created it by accident—they
didn’t
even know it was there, but they “created it.”
But the Bible says that the Lord formed
man; now, when you say ‘formed’ you’re getting so much more personal
about
it. Formed means to
fashion it, to take
out time, to specifically want it a certain way.
Talk to a sculptor, “No, no, no, I had to
have it in my mind, and I had to know this thing, exactly how I wanted
it to
turn out. It took
some time and then I had
to make the grooves just right, and I had to build it up in certain
parts just
right. You say,
‘formed’ and you get the
impression that the hands are used, and you had to get your sleeves
rolled up,
and you take some time with it, and it’s a whole different level of
affection. A whole
different level of care. A
whole different level of attention. The
Lord God formed man of the dust of the
Earth, the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of
life.
So forming shows a personal type of
affection, of care, of attention.
He
didn’t just form us any old way; He formed us in His image. So, just imagine this;
imagine God doing that
whole creation, and all the angels in attendance, watching, “Go, God,
go!” There were
clouds formed, and different
levels of atmosphere, and He formed the oceans, and the green grass and
the
shrubberies, and all of them are formed, and the creeping things, and
the
flying things, and the swimming things, and they were all formed, they
were all
created, and then God takes His time, and forms us.
He forms them personally, and then He puts
them in that creation. Can
you imagine
what that air must have smelled like?
What that water must have tasted like?
Wooh. The
he took man, and He put
him right there in the middle of it.
In His
image, to have dominion, to have power, to have authority, that he
rules—we’re
not even the biggest animal around;
Elephants are bigger than us; giraffes are bigger
than us; horses are
bigger than us—He could have given dominion to anybody, but He chose us
in the
middle of His creation. That
is a Godly
kind of love. He
created all this, and
then he gave it to us. Special. That is a Godly love You ever get a present
from somebody? It
means something different if they run out to the store, and they, you
know,
just picked something off the shelf, and they said, “I got to get them
something, because it’s December 24th, and all
the stores are
closed. Hey, wrap
it up, send it in, you
got something for Christmas.” You
might
get something from somebody that you know they took out time for. You know that they looked
all over; they
waned to get the right color, the right size.
They wanted to know what would make you happy, what
would make it
intense. When they
come, and they give
you that gift, you only can say, “Wow!
This is special.
This is
awesome. Wow!” This is what God did for
us. So, God did all
of this, and put us in the
middle of this creation. Can
you imagine
how much love that must have taken? Philippians
2:5-7
Let
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not
robbery to be equal with God: But
made Himself
of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made
in the
likeness of men:
Let this mind be in you which was
also in Christ Jesus. So,
according to
this, we can have the mind of the Lord.
According
to the Scripture, we can have the mind of the Lord.
Now that’s not saying that you can run out
and say, “You’ve got to do what I say, because I’ve got the mind of the
Lord. Look, you’ve
got to do what I tell
you to do, because I’ve got the mind of the Lord.
Listen to me.
It’s me, me, me, me.
I’ve got the
mind of the Lord. I’ve
got the
authority; I’ve got the power.” No,
no,
no, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, and, verse
7, made
Himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant. Took upon Him the form of
a servant. This
mind, that we are to esteem to have,
that is of the Lord, this same mind, the mind of Christ, we’re not to
make ourselves
of no reputation, not to think of ourselves as any more special than
anything
or anybody else, but to have that form of a servant, that form of
giving. You know,
you can see that in the Scripture
that we have here, that all men will know that we are His disciples by
our love
one to another. That
form of a servant;
one to another. The
Bible doesn’t say,
one for another, it says, one to another.
There’s a difference, there’s a
difference. The
word, ‘for’ would be a
little easier to understand; I could have love for something, and
nobody might
not know it. It’s a
preposition; it doesn’t
denote, necessarily, an action. But
‘to,’
a love one to another, that is the
root
of the infinitive, it’s the root of the verb, it’s at the beginning of
the action. To
play, to think, to run, to jump, to
fall… ‘To’ is the
root of the infinitive;
this denotes action. My
love to you; my
love to you; my love to you (gesturing towards different people in the
congregation). What
we find, is that
love one for another, you kind of
have to get up close to see it, but
I
can see your love to somebody from
a
distance. I can see
your love going to somebody from
afar. We can see
His love to us from two thousand
years ago, still pouring down, still pouring out to us.
Our next Scripture is going to be
from First John, chapter 4—I kind of thought Arman was hitting the
message up
here, listening to him and Phil, as y’all were testifying… Good
googly-moogly. For
crying out, man, what are you going to do
with God’s people? They’re
trying to
take the message away, and all the songs that they were singing, and
they were
singing, you know? 1
John 4:7
Beloved,
let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth
is born
of God, and knoweth God.
Now, see, the world gets this part wrong. The world gets this part
of it wrong. The
world would have you say that love has got
to be conditional, it’s got to be measured, your love is kind of hard
to come
by. “You can’t
freely give that stuff
up; that’s yours, that’s precious.
Don’t
be giving away your love; it’s yours.
You’ve got to keep your love to yourself. Measure it out; only give
out little parts at
a time. That way,
you keep it protected;
you keep it safe.” God
turned that thing
upside-down. God
made it so that,
instead of being all secure, and holed up, and measured, and
conditional, God
made it free. God
made it so that it
could be measured out to cover everything we’ve got going on, and
everything we
will do. I need a
lot of love to cover
the stuff that I’ve done. “It’s
yours.” I need a
lot of love to cover
everywhere I’ve been, and, Lord, there’s some secrets there that I
ain’t
telling nobody. “It’s
yours.” You know
what? I need some love to help me with
what I’m going through. “It’s
yours.” So, the way
the world would have
it, they would have it all restricted and tight.
The way the world would have it, they would
have it all secured up, hard to get to, almost like a buried treasure
you need
the right map to find, searching and looking and Wooo! all this effort
just to
get some love! 1
Corinthians 13:4-5 Charity
suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth
not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave
itself
unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no
evil;
Now,
I used to get this wrong. When
I first
became a Christian, they would tell me that this is the love chapter. I read it, and I remember
thinking, “I don’t
see love in here anywhere. It’s
talking
about charity. You
know the way charity
is, that’s the kind of thing that you give to under-privileged people. That’s the kind of thing
that you give away
and you don’t expect nothing back.
That’s something, but I really wouldn’t call that
love.” That’s
because I hadn’t come to the
understanding, and I had that worldly love going on, not that Godly
love. 1
Corinthians 13:6-8 Rejoiceth
not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the
truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth
all things. Charity
never faileth: but
whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues,
they
shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
Charity suffereth long, and is
kind. Charity
envieth not; vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up… Real,
true,
honest, Godly love. This
is the love
that came from God. This
is the love
that God sent. He
didn’t put all these
conditions, “I’ll love you, if…” or, “I’ll love you when…” His love is pure. Suffers long…
You know what? I could be a testimony—I could
testify to this. I
get the longsuffering of God when I have to
plead for repentance, plead for mercy, plead for forgiveness, and BAM!
Something about that blood of Jesus that can save you from a multitude
of sins.
Amen.
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her
own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil… Thinketh
no
evil. Learning how
God saw it, and I
used to see this love without being able to do this.
It used to amaze me.
I used to wonder where they got it from. I would wonder, “How do
you get like
that? I don’t know
if I want to be like
that, but, you know?” I
put conditions
on myself because if you do the wrong thing with your love, you can get
hurt. I wasn’t
looking to get hurt. But
you walk into an understanding of God’s
love when you see something that is a covering, healing, comforting
thing, and
it never runs out. In
verse number 8, Charity
never fails.
God love never lets us down. 1
John 4:8
He
that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
Let us love one another for love is
of God, it says in verse 7. Everyone
that loves is born of God and knows God.
He that loveth not, the Scripture says in verse 8,
knoweth not God... If
you have your Bibles, would you read that verse with me: He that loveth not, knoweth
not God; for God
is love. What an
amazing discovery. What
an amazing source. What
a truth to be had for us all: God
is love.
Is love Continues
to be
love. God is love,
is still love, and
will always be love. His
love pours out
from
Our next to the last verse: Romans
12:9 Let
love be without dissimulation. Abhor
that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Let love be without
dissimulation. Dissimulation
simply
means feigning, or pretending, disguised.
Let love be open, honest.
Let
love be sincere. Let
love be without
hypocrisy. Let love
be without things
that God didn’t intend to be in there.
I’ve seen brothers and sisters, old
and young, do things for somebody and get a hurtful, and sometimes a
hateful
response, when their best intents were to do something good. I’ve seen them get their
feelings hurt. Their
purist motives got trampled on. Now,
see, their hearts would get broken to
the place where, “I could never feel this way again.
I don’t want to suffer like this.
The hurt is too much.
I can’t love like this any more.”
I’ve seen it happen.
I’ve felt that way myself, sometimes, and I
know I’m not alone in here. I
know I’m
not alone. When you
give, but your hand
gets slapped away, or what you esteem precious for somebody, but they
turn
their nose up at it, or discard it, not giving account for the time and
the
effort and the sacrifice that you give as a Christian.
You give because of the love that God had
poured into your heart and your life to give to someone else. I’ve seen it happen more
than once. It would
make you think, “Yeah, that’s how I
have to be like. I
have to be like that;
I can’t afford to take that chance another time.”
There is a comfort in God’s Word, it says: Hebrews
6:10 For
God is not unrighteous to forget your work and
labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have
ministered to the saints, and do minister.
God is not unrighteous—somebody else
might not care a whole lot, but God is not unrighteous.
Somebody else might forget the sacrifice and
the offering that you did fro him, or for someone else, but God is not
unrighteous. Somebody
else might not
care, and what does it matter if the whole church doesn’t see it or
even know
about it, because but God is not unrighteous to forget your work and
your labor
of love which you show, and that you minister to the saints. Every prayer you
pray—“Nobody saw me on my
knees!”—God saw it! That
glass of water
that I went to get somebody because they were thirsty, and they almost
acted
like they forgot about it, but God didn’t forget.
Being able to give somebody a hug, being able
to visit somebody when they’re a little shut-in, a little sick, and
maybe they
say, “Oh, I forgot all about it,” but God has not forgotten your work
and your
labor of love. Everything
you do, every
offering, and every time you give in the name of love.
According to the Scripture, God is not
unrighteous to forget—it is stored up and we shall receive our just—the
Bible
says—our just recompense, a reward, because we minister to the saints,
and do
minister. Just a
quick example here: A
couple of weeks ago, I met a few people at
McDonald's, and we were just sitting there talking, and I don’t know
how long
we were talking, a couple of minutes, and it just dawned on me that
they weren’t
eating anything. It
just dawned on me
that they weren’t eating anything. You
see, I’ll be honest with you, in my natural state, I am surprisingly
selfish. In my
natural state, when it
comes to food, my arms become a wall.
In
my natural state, it ain’t about sharing.
Once upon a time—I’ve got five brothers and five
sisters. I’ve got
five brothers and five sisters. Sometimes,
when we were all together, living
in one house at one time, there was one pot of food.
I was the oldest, so I got served first. Actually, I got served
second when my oldest
brother was there; when he wasn’t there I got served first. It would go around, and,
usually, by the end,
they wouldn’t get a whole ton. If
somebody else was hungry at the table, “Well, you know, if I give you
some of
mine, then there might not be enough for me, so shame on you. I’m sure that you can live
on less because
you’re not as big as me.” Yeah! In my flesh.
So, in my nature, in my character, in my persona,
it’s not about
sharing. I’m
getting better, God’s been
working on me non-stop for thirty years…
So, here I am, at the table, with these people,
these wonderful people,
at a McDonald’s, and we’re talking, and it just dawned on me, it just
dawned on
me, “Hey, they’re not eating anything.
I
wonder if they’re hungry.” So,
I asked
them, “Hey are y’all hungry? Y’all
want
something to eat?” and they both said, “Yes,” just like that. Boom.
“Oh, well, I’ve got a couple of dollars, so here.” They went and they got it,
and they ate. They
never let that deter them from the path
that they were on, and the path that they were on was a Spiritual
path—I need
to say that. It
never deterred them that
they were hungry. Chris,
the message
that you preached two weeks ago just seared my heart because you said,
“I was
hungered and you fed me not.” When
saw
we thee an hungered? There
I was at the
table with two people. They
were hungry,
and I hadn’t even thought about it.
When
saw we thee an hungered? right there.
Right there is when I saw you, and I’m guilty. Lord, please deliver me
from me. Please let
me have a heart that I can see
when you’re hungry, that I can see when you need a visit. Let me have a heart where
I will be able to
get out and be Your servant, and I will minister to your people like
You have
called me to do. Call
me as a man to do
what You would have me to do. Lord,
let
that be my testimony. “You
can't feed
them everybody, you’ve got a limited amount of resources.” That's true, I can’t feed
everybody, but, the
truth of the matter is, I can do what God shows me to do. The truth of the matter
is, I might not be
able to buy you a steak, but maybe we can get something off the dollar
menu. Lord, let me
give; as much as I have
received, let me freely give.
So, in closing:
Saints, God is not unrighteous to forget your
work and your labor of love which you show toward His name and that you
minister to the saints, and do minister.
Let’s give the Lord a praise. Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd |
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