Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church that we've dealt with the last two Sundays. In charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Today, we're gonna be dealing with the subject of charity, but in so doing, we're gonna kinda finish this verse. After charity, he says, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. Now, I literally could spend a Sunday on each of those, but it is so important of what I'm sharing today that I feel that these other ones need to all be in the light of what I'm sharing today. Charity is what makes the difference in all of these things.

Now, I spent time on word and on conversation. What you say, how we live, those are very important things. But I want you to notice in verse 12, the first three things, word, conversation, charity, those are three things that show up on the outside. If you'll notice these last three things, these are things that show up on the inside. Our spirit, which is our attitude, in faith, which is our assurance, or what we believe, and then in purity, which is our actions.

Those are things that inside control and dictate what shows up on the outside. When we are to be an example in spirit, or an attitude, in literally our attitude and our spirit about things. Now, get this, my words are not gonna be right, and my actions are not gonna be right if my spirit isn't right. Do you understand that? So, these three things, and by the way, everything in verses one down through verse 11, if my faith isn't right, if what I believe isn't right, then none of those things can be right. But these are things that have to be settled on the inside. My faith is not what I just tell people I believe. My faith is what I live.

So, it's on the inside, and it comes out on the outside. But I want you to notice in verse 12, he says that we are to be the example in word, in conversation, and in charity. You're gonna understand what I'm saying about this in just a minute. Let's pray, let's dig in. I know our time's a little short today. I'm gonna be mindful of that.

But we do wanna give God's word its rightful place. And I, obviously, am gonna be very respectful of that. Lord, I love you, pray that you'd bless our, thank you so much for the music, the song. What a wonderful encouragement just to remember. You're coming back. And, Lord, you've not left us alone. You've given us the Holy Spirit, the comforter. But, Lord, we are excited to see you. And, Lord, I just pray that you'd bless us as we strive to be faithful till you come back. And, Lord, we love you.

Bless me today. I believe that your word is important in every passage, every word, every jot, every tittle. And I believe this to be very important for our church. So, I pray that you'd help me.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Now, the word love in the Bible, this word, obviously, used in this passage is the word charity. This is the word agape. Now, if I can, just for your own reference, let me give you the four words used for love. When you see the word love or charity in the Bible, it's gonna be one of these four words. And I want you to know the different meanings so you'll know the different loves that the Bible speaks of. And many of you are familiar with this.

Some of you might not. The first Greek word used for love is the word eros. It's where we get our word erotic. It is a sensual love. It is basically a physical desire type of love.

And that is one uses. The second uses is the word storge or storge, as they would say. It literally means family love. It means literally the love that you have with kinfolk, is what it says. It means that we're family and so that there is a love that you naturally have. We all know with family it's a love-hate relationship, but deep down when you take your two children that are arguing and you make them sit there and put them all in one t-shirt and cover over them so they're stuck with each other like that and you say sit there for an hour. They learn to get along.

You know why? Deep down there is a love. Now sometimes it's really deep down, but there is a love. But it's this kind of love that kind of family members have with each other. That's that word. The third word is the word phileo.

And obviously the city Philadelphia is where it gets its roots, the city of brotherly love. Phileo means natural love. It means that it's a love that you just naturally feel for certain people. There are certain people that you're gonna be around and they're just easy for you to love. There's just certain things that you just connect to. It just comes naturally. They're easy to love. You just enjoy them.

It's not something you've had to learn to do or work to do. It's just natural. You'll meet people like that in life. It's just there's some people you get along with better than others. And by the way, when we're to love each other, you say, well preacher, I don't feel love. Listen, the Bible doesn't say that we always have to feel love for others. Sometimes it's hard to, but we need to show love to others.

It's that decision, you understand. Now the last word is this word in verse 12 is the word agape, and you're familiar with that. This word agape is a godly love. So eros is a sensual love, storge is a family love, phileo is a natural love, and agape is a godly love.

You say, what makes this difference? Agape love is literally something that only God can give. It is making the choice to love even when it is not easy. This word means to love even when it's not returned. It means to love even though it may not be deserved. And this is the hardest type of love to show. It means that literally there is a decision inside that although I don't naturally love this person, I am going to love them because God commanded me to. There is that decision that although they're doing things right now that I don't love, I'm going to love them.

Everybody understand we're on the same page? That's what this word, we are to be the example in agape love. So if we're gonna do that, we've got to, and here's Paul writing 1 Timothy, so we've got to go where Paul really defines what charity is.

It's gonna go very quickly, but I want you to now turn to, obviously, can anybody tell me where we're going? 1 Corinthians 13. Oh, it's like it wasn't on the screen.

Okay, I just want to make sure if it was already on there, you would know. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And this is all part just to make sure you understand. And we were sharing with our Kerwin Connections class this morning, our Sunday school class, our church history, how thankful we are. And you know, because our church has history, I told them things are different here. And they're different here because we have had a church for, you know, since the early 1940s. And that means over the years, our church has seen some things that work, some things that don't work, some things that look good right now, but we've been around long enough to see kind of where those things lead to. So because we have a history, we're not just a new startup church trying a bunch of new things.

We have a history. And so that means that we're not necessarily one tended to just kind of go grab at things because they look good. It doesn't mean we think those things are wrong. It just means that we've seen a lot over the years and we respect our church's history.

And a lot of what God has taught us to do here and to adhere to here is an example. It means that we've gotta create a level that people trust and it's stable. It doesn't mean everybody has to agree with it. It just means that there's not just, we're not have these things in place just to be mean. It means that we are to be the example.

If any church should be the example, Kerwin Baptist Church has been here since 1941, we should be an example. In other words, everybody understand that. It doesn't mean that anybody that does things different with us is wrong. Absolutely not.

Are you kidding? But we have been around for a while. And so we want to make sure that people understand and it's stable here and we want to have, if we don't have a standard, then we have no standard.

So we're just, this is the level God's brought us and we're just trying our best to honor him. So we've got to be the example. But here's where a church has been around for a long time like ours. This is where a church like that may struggle a bit. And that is to be the example in charity.

A lot of times the church has been around for a long time. We know how to be example in word. We've all heard preaching. We know an example about our actions and how we live. The problem is we have sometimes not been necessarily the example in charity.

Now I'm getting ready to show you why that changes everything. Now notice if you would, and instead of reading the passage and then going back to save time, I want you to notice the first thing this passage teaches about charity. Number one, charity validates our words. Look at verse one.

Please, please, please, please. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Did you hear that? Even though I speak the words and even though I would say the right words, and not only that, he said, even if my words were literally from the tongue of men and of angels.

But if I don't have charity, then all my words are worthless. Now we were just at men's prayer advance a couple weeks ago with some of our staff guys and Dr. David Gibbs was speaking and he brought up this particular verse and he talked about the fact that I'm become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And he gave an explanation of that. I'm gonna be honest with you, I had not heard. Now I thought, you think to a point, kind of heard everything. Some of you might have heard it, just somehow coming down through the filters, I never heard this.

I've heard a lot of explanations, but literally in Middle Eastern countries, and some of you have been there and you'll know, when you go to the grand markets there where everybody has tents set up and they're all selling goods, they've got to get your attention because there's a lot of things. So a lot of them will play noise, they'll hit cymbals and if you can just imagine yourself maybe watching an old movie and somehow in the old movie there's, in the scene, they're in the middle of a market in Egypt or India or something like that and you hear those noises, the cymbals banging and the little metal kind of flute horns playing and they do that. It doesn't make sense and it's not good music, it's just making noise so that it gets your attention. And he said that the right words without love literally is something that just gets your attention but it's not good. It's just noise. And we have a generation of people that, in our churches, have only heard noise.

And it's sad. We were saying the right words. We were the example in what to say but we weren't the example in love. Charity validates my words. Notice secondly, charity validates my knowledge. Sometimes we think, well I'm just gonna know a lot and if I educate a lot, look if you would at verse two. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand, notice that, all mysteries and all knowledge, wow. Notice what he says here. And though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains and have not charity, I'm nothing. He said if I can prophesy, understand mysteries and have all knowledge but I don't have charity, then that knowledge doesn't mean a thing.