Jesus points out, He says, look, if you just love people that love you, everybody does that.
But when you begin to love people that aren't loving you or even hating you or speaking ill of you, that's when God's supernatural power can manifest itself in your life and love. We want to let you know about an outreach opportunity that could bring hope to countless prisoners. This month, Cross the Bridge is teaming with men and women like yourself in order to provide Pastor David's devotional book, Cross the Bridge Every Day, to inmates. When you call today and help support the ministry with a gift of $25 or more, we'll send you a book and also provide one to a prisoner in need. To take part in this important outreach, call 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508.
Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now here's David McGee with part one of his teaching, Love the Great Quest. Chapter 14, 1 Corinthians. At first glance, you think that the predominant thing in speaking about is tongues, but if you really look at it, it's talking about strengthening the church. And how do we do that?
Well, there's a continuation from 1 Corinthians 13 talking about love. So let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for each person that's listening right now. Wherever they are listening from, God, I ask that you would speak right to them. Lord, soften our hearts and we might listen to what you would have to say to us. And Lord, as we discover you and get to know you more and more, may we not only love you more, but love each other more and more.
And may that be a witness, a powerful witness to those who don't yet know you, those who are on the fence or those who have wandered off. God, we ask that you would open our hearts to your word and open your word to our hearts. In Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen. Amen.
Praise God. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 14. And the title of this message today is Love the Great Quest.
Love the Great Quest. 1 Corinthians chapter 14 says, Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. When we talk about love, this is something that, you know, we can all relate to.
You know, if I start talking about a foreign city or an American city you've never been to, that's hard for you to relate to. When we talk about love, we can all relate to that in that we love some people and some people love us. And the Bible talks a lot about love. As a matter of fact, it doesn't indicate that our righteousness is the greatest symbol of us following Jesus Christ. That may surprise some of you, but it's our love. You've probably met people that seem, I don't know, we use the word self-righteous, and yet they lack love. They say they're following Jesus Christ, but they're not walking in love for other people, for other believers, and for those who don't yet know Jesus.
And I would encourage you to be very careful. And what we need to do is check our own lives and ask ourselves, you know, are we continuing to grow in love towards people? Now, this book, we call it an epistle or a letter, is written from Paul to the church that's at Corinth. Corinth is in Greece, and this was a very Greek society as opposed to a Hebraical society or Jewish society.
So there's a lot of Greek influence here, not as much Jewish influence as you would find in Jerusalem or some of the cities in Israel. And one of the things that's happening is they're really getting into the gifts of the Spirit. As a matter of fact, I think it's safe to say that they were placing an unhealthy emphasis on the gifts and the manifestations of the Spirit. The timelessness of the Bible is incredible because, of course, there's some churches today that would probably qualify in that. And what we want to do is make sure that, again, we're taking a balanced approach to the gifts of the Spirit, to tongues, to all these things that are biblical issues. And a lot of people, you know, a lot of churches just avoid the whole issue altogether because some think this, some think that. And, you know, our goal is to have biblical balance in everything that we approach.
And we want to make sure that, you know, it's just not some handbook from somebody that were, you know, well, we believe this because some guy told me I'm supposed to believe that and believe everything he says or she says or whatever, but to go to the book. Amen? Amen. And the Amplified, verse one says, eagerly pursue and seek to acquire this love, make it your aim, your great quest, and earnestly desire and cultivate the spiritual endowments or gifts.
That's part of what it says in the Amplified. So pursue love, eagerly pursue love, make it your great quest. That's what the Bible says. Each and every one of us is supposed to be on this quest to make love a powerful force in our life. Does that happen naturally?
No. It doesn't. To some degree it does, but not the kind of love that we're talking about here. We're talking about God's agape love. That's unconditional love. That no matter what you do, no matter what you say, that love is still there. It's a very powerful thing. When we talk about agape, you and I are not able to naturally manifest this agape love, but through the Spirit we can. We can walk in this supernatural, unconditional, eternal love, but you need to understand, we all have our priorities in life. Some people say, well, I would do this, but I don't have time to do that.
I would do this, but I don't have time to do that. Now, what are we saying when we say that? Well, we're saying it's not really a priority.
Because you see, it's not like I get 24 hours a day and you get 23 hours a day, somehow you get ripped off. We find the time to do the things that are important. Love is important. And we need to realize that.
We need to talk about it. And it's one of those things that's discussed throughout the Scriptures. And it's one of the things that when we go through our mental checklist, our spiritual checklist, you know, am I attending church? Am I reading my Bible? Am I tithing? Am I praying?
We should include this. Am I loving? Am I loving people? Life lesson here is let love be your highest goal, your greatest quest. Let love be your highest goal, your greatest quest. Now, it's interesting because we're tempted with this first verse to kind of, you know, because it ends talking about prophecy. Everybody's going, prophecy, prophecy, let's talk about prophecy. No, no, no, let's talk about love. Because love is the more important thing in this verse.
Now, we're going to talk about prophecy in just a second. Pursue love. Love as described in 1 Corinthians 13 is hard. It's hard. It was interesting a couple of weeks ago, I was teaching and seeing one of the ways that God grows us in our love is he brings people into our life that do and say things that are really unloving so that we can supernaturally, spiritually manifest this agape love towards them.
I should have known when I said that that there was going to be a really tough week coming up. Amen? Because that's what God does. God brings people and I said, okay, I want you to grow in love. You know, two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, you wouldn't have loved this guy.
You'd have smacked him. So now you've got to, you need to manifest the love of God. Did I say that out loud? You need to manifest this love of God. And Jesus points out, he says, look, if you just love people that love you, everybody does that. That's in your best interest.
That's in your self-interest to do that. But when you begin to love people that aren't loving you or even hating you or speaking ill of you, that's when God's supernatural power can manifest itself in your life in love. And it's a beautiful thing. Now, notice it says, pursue love. And I read out of the New King James and I will often refer to the New Living Translation and also to the King James, which I still love the King James. I've got a Bible that I've had for, wow, almost 30 years that is just marked. And I don't carry it around because it's falling apart and stuff, but it's in King James.
I love the poetry of that. But you often want to look at other versions to see how they can develop a thought within Scripture. And you should always, let me encourage you. And I've thought about doing something on how to study the Bible sometime. But one of the things you want to do when you're reading the Bible is don't let the first thing that you do in studying or reading the Bible is to pop out a commentary. Don't do that. I've got great commentaries.
I've got some old commentaries and stuff, and they're awesome. But I don't want to read what God through His Spirit said to another man about the passage first. And so when I'm studying, I actually will, I want to read the whole chapter and really dig in.
And 75% of the teaching is within that timeframe. And then I'll open up a commentary. It says, pursue love. And then it says, desire spiritual gifts. So let's understand, Paul, the Word of God, the Spirit of God is telling us to desire spiritual gifts. And when we're talking about spiritual gifts here, we are talking about, in the Greek it's karasmata, the manifestations of God's Spirit, supernatural Spirit in our mind. We are to desire the gifts of the Spirit. That's what I'm to do, that's what you're to do. Now maybe you sit there and go, yeah, but you know I was watching television one night, I was watching television, and man, there was some stuff going on there, and they said it was the gifts of the Spirit, and it was just weird, and you know, I'm not sure I want to do that.
No, wait a minute, time out, gang. Just because you've seen a unscriptural, perhaps, representation, or maybe not unscriptural, maybe just kind of an excessive representation of the gifts of the Spirit, don't back away from that. Don't back away from the Holy Spirit. Because if the enemy can somehow get you to back away from those gifts that we so desperately need, he'll do it. This says we're supposed to desire these spiritual gifts.
You're listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. We'll be back to the teaching in just a moment. This month we're focusing on prison ministry, and I have the chance to sit down with Pastor David. Pastor, we know that sharing the Word of God is always important to you, and why is it so important to get God's Word into the prisons as well? Our prison system is built around trying to change the lives of people who've made bad decisions, and yet you can't change a life without changing the heart, and that's where God's Word and God's Spirit are so powerful. They can change a life.
They can change your heart. They can share the Word of God with somebody. You can help send us into the prisons to share the plan of salvation, see that prisoner get saved, and then begin to disciple him and teach him the Word of God, so that when he gets out, he is different than when he came in.
Thank you for sharing, Pastor. If you're listening and agree with David about our need to help those in prison, we would love to hear from you. You can call 877-458-5508.
That's 877-458-5508. And when you give $25 or more, we'll send you a copy of Cross the Bridge every day. Not only that, but we'll match your gift by sending another copy of David's devotional to an inmate in need. Also, your gift of $200 or more will provide a case of 10 books that will be used to help change lives for eternity.
Again, that number is 877-458-5508, or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now let's return to Pastor David's teaching. Let's understand, this verse is incredible because this is pursue love and then desire spiritual gifts. Let's understand that God is the giver of the gifts, but also that we're walking the fruit of the Spirit, which is love.
We walk in it. So you ask God, God, give me these gifts, and then part of our responsibility, if you will, is to walk in the supernatural love. And what's our love? You know, okay, God, help me to love. Love what? Love Chick-fil-A?
Love pizza? Love what? Four things, a love for God, a love for people, a love for the Bible, and a love for the lost. This is really important.
If you take a note, you want to jot this down. A love for God, a love for people, a love for the Bible, and a love for the lost. God, people, Bible, lost. You're going to love God because, you know, let's admit it, God's easy to love, amen? Amen. People?
It can be challenging. And that's why John, in the first, second, third epistles of John, he talks about, you know, don't talk about how you love God while you're not loving a brother or sister. Don't talk about how you love God if you're slamming another brother or sister or gossiping or maligning.
Don't say that. If you love God, you're going to love people. And also, I believe there's going to come a love for the Bible.
Why? This is God's word. There's going to become a supernatural hunger for God's word and a love for it.
And also a love for the lost. Because as you love God and you love people, you begin to care for the people that don't yet know. It's heartbreaking to hear how people in the church, followers of Jesus, talk about people that don't know Jesus. That they're just so messed up and they're so this and they're so that. You know, we as a body, we need to be loving these people.
And that doesn't mean candy-coating and when they're doing something obviously wrong, you go, it's good you're doing that. But they become important in the scheme of things. Our lost, our people, when I say lost people, that's such a descriptive term in it. They don't know where they're going. In other words, at the end of this thing that we call life, they aren't aware of how serious it is they don't know Jesus.
They're lost. How important are they to you? Is it just kind of important? Is it an afterthought or is it more about our little club and click here?
Well, hopefully not. You know, a lot of things that we do here, we do to care for the people that don't yet know. Certainly we could build the whole thing about catering those that already know. That already know Jesus Christ. But you know what?
We can't do that, gang. We as individuals, we as a church need to continue to grow up in the things of faith and continuing to care more for others. Growing up. Growing up in our love for each other, not fighting and devouring one another and loving the lost. Let's talk about the love portion.
Because again, it's coming out of verse, you know, coming out of chapter 13. And it really is, we talk about love. We're not talking about just some ethereal, non, you know, well, you can't really know what it is and who can really sense love. No, love is pretty easy to identify.
It really is if you think about it, isn't it? A lack of love is fairly easy to identify. And let's understand that according to the scripture that people fall into two camps, the loving and the unloving. And if you sit with somebody and talk with somebody, you can figure out within a few minutes if they're being loving or unloving.
You should be able to figure out if you've been loving or unloving. 1 John chapter 3 verse 10 says, So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously, and watch this, and does not love other believers, does not belong to God.
Wow. Anyone who does not live righteously and anyone who does not love other believers. The Bible's very clear that when we're loving other believers, we're following God. And when we're not, according to the scripture, we're acting like children of the devil.
It's a little gray, I'm not sure what John's trying to say here. But you know what, it amazes me sometimes when I know somebody or see somebody that I feel like is a fairly mature Christian. But they will sit and they will tolerate very unloving conversations. They will pursue unloving conversations, pursue unloving people. And that's just not a mark of a mature believer.
And on the other hand, I see people that I think are young in the Lord, but they are solid in this loving other people. And of course, sometimes we come to these situations and conditions that help us to identify if we're being loving or if people are being loving to us. Two instances that you'll find in life, anytime you have either success or failure, you figure out quickly who loves you. Let me say that again, anytime you have either success or failure, you will be able to identify who loves you. Because when you mess up, some people will bail on you.
They will be fair-weather friends, they will take off on you. Sad, but that's obviously not the type of love that we're talking about here. So that's an unloving thing. And by the other token, if you are blessed and the favor of God falls upon you and he opens doors and you're promoted and you're blessed and whatever, some people have a hard time with that.
They will become envious, they will become jealous. And obviously, that's not very loving. So in those two situations, look and you'll be able to see. And then John, in 1 John 3, verse 18, he tells us, Dear children, let's not merely say that we love each other.
Let us show the truth by our actions. Walking around the campus today, the love of God is powerful in this place. As you walk around, there's people right now that are caring for your kids. There's people that are in the parking lot that welcome your family and friends when they come in here.
There's people in the cafe here to serve them. It's a manifestation of the love of God. They're not just saying, hey, I love you, they're saying, look, I'm going to love you by watching your kids, by cleaning the church, by serving you in the cafe, by helping you find a seat. They're not just saying they love you, they're showing they love you. Amen?
Yeah, praise God. Why is that important? Because isn't it pretty easy, let's be honest, isn't it easy to say I love you?
It really is. Have you ever had somebody say I love you and then not really mean it? That even though they said they love you, maybe the actions didn't line up with what the words were saying? That's probably just me.
Probably never happened to you. And then what do we do? A lot of times we will make excuses about why we're not loving somebody. There's something wrong with them and I got to, so I can't love them, I'm going to hurt them and say bad things because I think they're wrong about something.
Now, why is that so damaging? Because we're all wrong about something. If I subscribe to this cop-out that if you're wrong about something, I don't have to love you, guess what? I don't have to love anybody. All I got to do is get to know you enough to figure out one or two of your areas of faults or weaknesses and I have to love you.
Off the hook, man. And then the other problem with that is knowledge is always incomplete. You never know a person or a person's situation exactly. You're never aware of all the details of stuff. That's what's so important in counseling, ministry, to figure out the details of what's going on because you want to gather all the information so you can be knowledgeable about the situation.
You know, in the last chapter it spoke about that, 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 13, it says, Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity and all that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. And maybe, you know, if you've been with us for a few weeks or whatever, you're going, man, you are really going off on this love thing.
Yeah. Apparently, God thinks it's kind of important. I think the rub we hit sometimes as Christians, we think, well, you know, I want to be loving, but I really think I should emphasize being righteous, like the two are at odds.
The two are not at odds. And we're supposed to be more like Jesus in what we do and what we say and becoming more righteous. But let's remember Jesus, who we say we follow, said, look, you can wrap up all the law in this. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Now, either Jesus was way off the mark when he said that, or he really is summarizing for our benefit to help us understand what we're supposed to be doing. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?
You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.
And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.
Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.
You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. God is using Cross the Bridge to impact lives across our country, including the lives of those currently serving time in our nation's prisons. While materials provided by Muslim organizations continue to increase within our prisons, our distribution of Pastor David's book, Cross the Bridge Every Day, has been making a significant impact for Jesus with prisoners. And you can help continue that outreach by calling today. When you call today with a gift of $25 or more, we will send you David McGee's devotional book and then match your gift by sending a copy to a prisoner in need. And if you're able to give a gift of $200 or more, we will send a case of 10 books to inmates who are without hope. Help us reach those in prison. Call today at 877-458-5508.
That's 877-458-5508. Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Also, if you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 9 and 1130 Eastern? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There you can watch Pastor David teach from his home church, The Bridge, in Kernersville, North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us next time as we continue to cross the bridge.
