Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. When it comes to pride and humility, the key is love. How does a proud person become humble, love, agape?
They love God with everything they have and they love everybody else like they love themselves. There's a solution to pride. You will never ever overcome pride if you don't love. You never will. And you'll never be conformed to the image of your Savior while on earth.
You will live your whole life in pride, which God says he hates. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. How do you show your love to your brothers and sisters in Christ, your neighbors?
How do you do that? Or do you at all? You see, that's a very important part. You see, when it comes to pride and humility, the key is love. How does a proud person become humble, love, agape?
They love God with everything they have and they love everybody else like they love themselves. That's the solution to pride. You will never, ever overcome pride if you don't love. You never will. And you'll never be conformed to the image of your Savior while on earth. You'll live your whole life in pride, which God says he hates. It's an amazing thing.
I can still remember how shocked I was the first time I went to conferences with a lot of other pastors from around the country. And really, when you just sit and listen to the conversation, so much of it was simply one upmanship. Oh, you have something to brag about? You know what? I have to brag about. Let me tell you what I've done. I can tell you what you've done. Nothing.
Same as me. This is Jesus Christ. We're all susceptible to this. Turn with me now to First Corinthians, chapter 13. This is an amazing set of verses in light of what I'm talking about this morning. I'm sure most of you know this, but what was the Church of Corinth like? It was, by a mile, the worst church in the New Testament. In any area it could be wrong, it was wrong.
And when you read the whole book, guess what Paul is able to illustrate? What was the root of all their wrongness? Pride. They were man-followers, name-droppers.
They were everything you could be. They even took spiritual gifts, graces from God, and made them an issue of pride. And Paul's like, what are you doing? There is nothing in our experience or lives as important for you and for me as to love God with everything we have and love others like we love ourselves.
There's nothing more important than that. That's what Paul's going to tell us here in chapter 13. He said, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I become a noisy gong or a changing cymbal. And what's he mean here? Ironically, some people in our culture have said he's talking about the modern day tongues, and that's angel language. That's not at all what Paul is doing, not at all. Paul is going to use extreme hyperboles to make something that could exist a thousand times bigger than it is. But with all these, without love, they all come out to the same thing, nothing.
That's just the way it works, nothing. He said, if I could speak like angels speak, what would that be? That'd be a source of pride to the Corinthians. He said, it's noise.
It means nothing to God at all. He said, if I have the gift of prophecy, and I'll watch, and I know all mysteries and all knowledge. Now, let's look at that for a moment. Who knows all mysteries and all knowledge? All. Who? God. Who else?
No one. Just God. He said, but if I knew all the mysteries, and I had all the knowledge that exists. He said, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains. That's a great line by Paul. Remember Jesus said, if you had a mustard seed of faith, you could move a mountain.
Paul says, now how do I extrapolate on that? How do I use hyperbole with that? Okay, what if you had enough faith that you could remove a mountain? You just looked at it, I have enough faith, I believe that, and now there isn't a mountain.
I didn't move it, I removed it. You can see the hyperbole that he uses here. If I have all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith, but I do not have love, I am nothing. Absolutely nothing. If I give all my possessions to feed the poor. By the way, if you gave all your possessions to feed the poor, you'd be poor. And you'd have to give some to yourself. But he said, if I gave everything I had just to feed the poor, but that's a nice benevolent act. Depends what motivates you. He said, if I gave all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, if I martyred myself, but I do not have love, it profits me nothing.
There's no profit in any of that. If I had spiritual, if I knew the mysteries and the knowledge and the prophecies and faith, and I had great social, but I don't have love, I'm zero. God said, that's how important this is.
Without this, you are nothing. That's what love is, always agape. And then he starts in verse four. After he tells us the preeminence of love here, he talks now about the practice of love.
Now this is interesting, at least to me. In English, it looks like he's telling you a bunch of adjectives that describe love. Love is, and that's the adjective. There's no adjectives in Greek, it's all verbs. In the Greek, it's verbs.
What's that mean? It's not a description of love, it's what love does. This is what love does. You see, it's not a description of what love is, it's what love does.
And so, he starts out and he gives us 15 different actions, 15 actions that love does. He said, love is patient, long-tempered. For those of us who are impatient, that's a tough one to start with.
You see, I want you to think about this though. Whenever you're impatient, well, let me ask you this. How patient is God?
How patient is he with you? Okay, when you are impatient, what does that say about you? Where does that come from? Pride. That comes from your pride.
I had expectations that weren't met. No, you need to be patient. You know, that's an important thing. He said, love is patient.
And then he says, love is kind. That's patience in action, isn't it? How does patience look?
It looks kind. It's very important for us to be patient and kind. Listen for a moment as I read from Luke 6.
You don't have to come to it. Jesus said this. He said, if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you're good to people who are good to you, so what, Jesus said. Everybody's good to people that are good to them.
You don't even have to be a believer. What would you want credit for that? What's his implication? What about if you do good to people who don't do good to you?
Ah, that means something else. Now, notice verse 35, love your enemies and do good. He said, and lend expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high himself. He said, for he is himself kind to the ungrateful evil men.
I love what he says there. Love your enemies. I thought we just love the Lord. Yes. And we love our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Yes. But Jesus said, love your neighbor. Among that whole group, even inside or outside the church, you could have enemies. He said, you have to love them. If you love your enemy, he said, God will reward that. If you love those who love you, so what?
Everybody does that. You see, that's the point. You are to love your enemies.
That's what he says. That's not what I hear among Christians. Christians pick out people that they don't love. They pick out nations they don't love. I hear Christians pick out parties, political parties they don't love, and they make them the enemy and show them no love whatsoever. And I'm proud of that. I'm afraid you are. But I can tell you that's not of the Lord at all.
That's just of you and your sinfulness. We're to love our enemies. He then goes on and he says, love is not jealous. Love doesn't want what other people have. If you know people that have things that you want, you're not loving them. He said, that's not true. That's not loving them. And then he goes on and he says, love does not brag. That's pretty clear.
Only time that Greek word is used in the New Testament. Why don't we brag? So others will notice what we have, what we've done. Let me tell you what I've done. It's amazing to me over the years how many Christians have told me that over and over again.
Let me tell you what I've done. That's just pride. Paul said in Romans 12, do not think more highly of yourself than you ought. Do not think more highly of yourselves than you ought.
How should you think about yourself? What about Paul? Remember, Paul said, well, I can tell you the way I used to be. I used to be proudful. He said, if any man in Philippians, he said, if any man has a right to boast, I have it as far as men go.
What do you mean? I'm Jewish. Tribe of Benjamin, the best tribe. I'm a Pharisee, not just any Pharisee. I'm a zealous Pharisee.
I could brag and brag and brag. But now in Christ, what does Paul say? How does he assess himself? Here's his great words. I am the chief of sinners. No bragging there, is there?
I'm the chief of sinners. See his humility? Why does he say that? He loves God with everything he has. He's seen God for who he is, and he's seen himself. And he loves other people, and he considers all of them as more important than himself.
You see, that's the point of this chapter. So he goes on and he says that. Then he says, love is not arrogant. Clearly, that word is proudful.
Love is not arrogant. If you just turn back to chapter four, the same, back to chapter four, verse seven, here's what he writes. He said, for who regards you as superior?
He's talking to the Corinthians. He said, who regards you as superior? He said, why do you, he said, what you do have you. He said, what do you have that you have not received?
He said, and if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you didn't receive it? See, what are you as a Christian? What are you as anything? You're the result of the gift of God to you. When you were born, where you were born, your attributes, your physical gifts, your IQ, your salvation, what did you do for these?
Nothing. So he said, why do you think you're superior? Why do you live with pride? God hates pride. He then goes on and said, it does not act unbecomingly. It's not rude. It's not easily offended. He said, it doesn't do that at all. It does not seek its own. What do we call that? Selfishness.
By the way, what do you think has been the root of so many church splits over the last 400 years? I want this to be my way. Selfishness.
That's what I want. Galenski said this, if you cure selfishness, he said, you've just replanted the Garden of Eden. It's right there with pride.
It's right at the root of everything. But see, why are we selfish? Because we're proudful.
I have expectations. I want what I want what I want. It's pride. It does not seek its own. There it is right at the heart of pride.
It does not seek its own. Let me tell you, as brothers and sisters in Christ, every time through this you say, my rights. That's what you're doing. You're seeking your own. This is about me. And I'm going to assert what I believe.
No place for it. He goes on then and he says that it is not provoked. It doesn't rouse the anger. I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm pretty even-killed by nature.
Probably even before I became a Christian. But sometimes I get a little bit heated. And I realize that when you do, what's motivating that? Why am I heated in a situation like that? And somehow something has been an offense or an affront to me.
As though anyone answers to me. You see, we have to be so careful with that it's not provoked. It doesn't do that. That's not love. It does not take into account a wrong suffered.
What's that mean? It forgives. If you aren't a forgiver, you're not a lover.
You see, you're not. That's a very important factor for us. It doesn't take into account. That's a tough phrase when you think about it. It's not like saying love forgives.
I take it into account. I bury it deep down, but I'm going to bring it up and remember it. He said, no, love doesn't take it into account. So I can't keep it. I can't put it on my emotional or spiritual ledger.
I can't have a spreadsheet of everybody who has wronged me. See, that's not love. He said it does not rejoice. He said an unrighteousness better rejoices. He said with the truth.
Moffett writes this. He said love is never glad when others go wrong. You ever been happy to hear bad news about somebody?
Gives you a little, oh yeah. He said love doesn't do that. The Apostle Paul, I remember in the book of Acts, he's talking to the Ephesian elders and he's hugging them and kissing them. And he says to them, I admonished you with tears.
Paul had the courage to point out their sin and he held them accountable for it. He said, I did it with tears. He didn't do it like, don't you know who I am? I'm an apostle.
I'm telling you, you're wrong. He wept. What did Jesus do when he saw Jerusalem? He wept.
There's Jerusalem, those ungrateful. He wept. That's what love does.
Then he goes through this series. Love bears all things. Love bears all things. That word stay go for bears means it protects everything good of God.
It means covers like God covers our sin. That's really what it means when it says bears there. He said love bears all things. It believes all things. He doesn't mean that it's naive or cynical. He doesn't mean that. He means in the sense that it what is true, love believes. If God has said it, I believe it. And in this case, if God said to me, I'm the love everybody else and consider everyone else more important to me, I believe that.
I don't believe anything else that somebody else would tell me. He then says it hopes all things. Love is optimistic. Love is not pessimistic. It's optimistic and love endures all things.
By the way, under all things there, does that include pandemics? I think it says love endures pandemics because love endures all things. So back at verse four, when he said it is patient and as kind as not jealous, it does not brag and it is not proud for or arrogant. He goes down at the end of the chapter in verse 13 and says, but now faith, hope and love abide in these three. But the greatest of these is love. It's the greatest thing.
So how do I overcome? And he also says love never fails. I love that in God's eyes, when you love, it never fails.
Doesn't matter how anyone else responds to it. God will always reward it. How do I overcome pride? Loving God with all I have. And loving others. As I love myself. The cure for pride is love.
And don't forget this. The presence of pride in your life means there's an absence of love in your life. Don't let the circumstances we're under now be a crucible for pride to grow in your life. It won't bring any glory to God.
It'll destroy you and you'll have no effect on others except negative. It's really simple. Just obey our Lord. What's the most important thing in the Old Testament? Love.
Love God with everything you have and love everyone else as you love yourself. Love destroys pride. Let's pray. Father, the problem with this sin of pride is we're so used to it. We carry it around with us every day in our lives that we don't even recognize it in ourselves. But I pray, Father, on the basis of what the word said to us today, some of us are convicted by this. And realize that the statements that we make and the feelings that we have through this pandemic are simply issues of our own pride. Father, it's our desire to love you as you've loved us. And to do so, Father, we have to drive pride away from us. That's my prayer for all of us. That we follow our Lord in His example and we become lovers of God and lovers of all people.
In Jesus' name, amen. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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