 as the hippie culture moved, as all fads and trends pass. So that passed. Now if we continued to try to minister to that movement, then we would have been locked in that era and would not have, you know, you would have been forever then let's build the three tents and let's set up our memorials here and we don't go any further. But now those hippies are changed. They've become the yuppies. You have their kids to contend with. What are the kids facing today? What are the issues today that are the real problem for the kids? And so we need to keep the gospel relevant to the age and to the people to whom that we are ministering and not try to lock into a liturgy or into rituals that once communicated to people so many years ago. One of the dangers in the Calvary Chapel movement that they have to face is institutionalization now because I believe in my own teaching that institutionalization sets in after three generations and we're seeing second generations in the church now and third generations coming and so I think one of the things that the Calvary has to do now is to renew, be in a renewal mode so that they don't slip into the institutionalization. And this is one of the problems in the church is that they've been following a liturgy or a ritual for hundreds of years and where it may have been very effective years ago. No, it's no longer communicating today. It's like trying to communicate to a person with Morse code. Nobody knows Morse code anymore. It doesn't communicate to people. They're used to TV. They're used to seeing the picture with the words and all and thus if you try and communicate in those old ways to the people today, you're going to lose them. They're not going to understand what you're saying. I think an important thing is when we would say where we have been as a movement, where we are as a movement, where we're going as a movement is how much this generation, fortunately Chuck is still a workaholic. He still almost brings his lunch to work in a bag with him, sort of a thing, if he eats one. And he's still long hours, he still goes and keeps a wonderful pace that models for us out there and if we can keep our heart in the same place, if we can keep ourselves really and truly, keep us on the cutting edge, retirement is heaven. When we get home is when we'll relax. The issues of the kingdom of heaven, if they become a burden on us and the ones the churches were planting, as intently as they were modeled for us, if God can keep that on the cutting edge, I don't see an end in it. But if we start to say, hey, let's relax, let's enjoy what's been done, let's believe some of the press clippings, let's just realize that we're a part of this great movement. Hallelujah. And go back and just meditate on it rather than saying, God, the work is so far from done. We haven't begun to do it. If we can do that, we can go on. And if we don't, well, we'll just be another blip in church history that came and went. There's only one real cause for being in the ministry and Paul said, for the love of Christ constrains me. People are dying and they need to know the Lord to be damned. And this love of Christ just drives me, it pushes me, it constrains me. And that's the only real reason to be in the ministry and never for, you know, well, I have this particular need in my life to have recognition or whatever, you know, and to fulfill some. And unfortunately, Mike, there are a lot of guys that are in the ministry because it does fulfill a psychological need in their life. I don't encourage anyone to go in the ministry who's not sure that that's what they should do because it's like marriage. If you're going to go into marriage or go into the ministry, you've got to be prepared to go for life. And, you know, people have all kinds of motives as to why they want to be in there. They look at the size of the church, they look at the power, the glory, but they don't look at the responsibility and the personal devotion and discipline that's involved. Spiritual success does not come easy and also spiritual success is not measured by your bank account or the numbers of people you have. It's by how faithful you are to what God has given you to do. And I think Calvary Chapel's ministry is a fruit of people and a pastor who have been faithful to what God has given them to do. When a pastor begins to, again, feel that he's got to have a prestigious car. He has to have a prestigious watch. He has to have prestigious suits or prestigious shoes or whatever. Any of that thing that, you know, that the world looks at as marks of success. When a pastor begins to follow those same things, I begin to worry that their hearts are not in the right place. Being willing to pay the price through prayer and through preparation, that is, of course, in the study of God's Word, and then being prepared to whether whatever storms or controversy or fiery darts the enemy may shoot at one's life to ruin their credibility, to shoot them down, to get them in a snag or whatever. And a lot of times that can happen with people who are very young in the ministry because they see God using them and then they assume that the reason why they're being used is because of them rather than by the power of God's Holy Spirit. And there are many ways by which the enemy attacks. And of course, attractive women is one way that the enemy has destroyed a lot of ministers. Money and getting into the finances has been a very successful weapon that Satan has used to destroy many ministers and many ministries. And then glory, where you lift it up and you're beginning to think that you are something and people tell you, oh, my, you mean so much to me. Your ministry has done so much. Oh, and you start listening to that. You start thinking, well, I guess I am something, or I guess I am, rather than realizing that it's the Lord. And recognize that anything that, as a value that comes forth out of my life, from God, what have you but what you have received? And if you've received it, then why do you glory as though you didn't receive it? And so you have to recognize that I am inspired by the Holy Spirit to give that message. If that message has been a blessing, is it really sprung to someone, then the glory doesn't go to me. I'm just the vessel that the Holy Spirit used to bring his message. He's the one that put it in my heart. He's the one that inspired my thoughts. And thus, I can't take the credit or the glory from it. And I can't allow the people to give me the glory. I have to just keep pointing them to Jesus. Even today, I listen to every one of these tapes. I make all of my leadership, all of my staff listen to his tapes so that we can be of one mind and catch the same philosophy of ministry. And this is how God has blessed it. I would encourage every young pastor to spend more time in prayer. I think as I look back over the 63 years and more of my ministry, if there is one thing that I would change, it would be to spend more time in prayer. There is nothing that can take the place of that personal communion with the Lord to get your own heart blessed and the anointing of the Spirit upon you to understand God's Word and then to be able to preach it in the power of the Holy Spirit. And instead of getting into programs and then to getting into education and seminaries, man, get on your knees and ask God what he really wants of your life and to trust him for everything. I think as the secular media attempts to chronicle the phenomenon that they like to call the Jesus movement and what have you. Chuck, whether he likes it or not, has become the symbol of that. It's very much a part type of this. Back to the Bible, grassroots return to fundamentals. Surely this will go down as one of the movements of God's Spirit in the church that has brought this whole new love for the Word of God, love for the study of the Word of God, love for fellowship and that mark of fellowship within the church, love for prayer and love for just the things of the Lord and the music. Surely that has impacted and affected the church. I go around the world and I hear the choruses being sung in the churches that grew out of the church here. And that style of just worshiping the Lord in choruses is something that has revolutionized the, you know, it's gone into the mainstream of church worship. Well, it certainly saved the hippie movement from being completely of the devil and going off into the ways of sin. The Calry Chapel movement may not make a huge indent, in my opinion, of the traditional church history books and that's probably because they'll spend too much of their energies reaching people and not building buildings or trying to affect political structures. History's going to look back and see a guy with a mainline Pentecostal background who became, in some ways, the crusader against where Pentecostalism went. You know, he's a unique guy because he's not a critic on the outside, he's a critic on the inside in one sense. Chuck Smith, I believe, is going to be regarded by modern church history as a man who did what a lot of people wished they could do in their churches. As we look back historically on many movements that God has raised up, many of them have died with the death of a leader or have stopped when he stopped. And with Calry Chapel, I think that Chuck has successfully and effectively passed his legacy and influence and philosophy onto another generation. If you look at the legacy of a man, you see the legacy of that man in the lives of so many other leaders, men like Wayne Taylor, Richie Furey, like Macintosh, Greg Laurie, Raul Reese, the list goes on and on. These are common men who have caught a vision from a leader who have emulated that vision and now are in many cases surpassing that vision in areas all across the world. And so you see the legacy of a man in the lives of so many other people. In rather psychoanalytic language, the father does not castrate the sons. The father does not infantilize the sons. And I think that that has made for the development of very strong leadership within a number of these Calvary chapels. And had Chuck Smith been more controlling in his leadership, then I think that the entire movement itself would not be as strong. If Calvary continues to be sensitive to those fundamentals, and I think they will be, then I think it's going to be looked upon. In fact, already is. Many people are studying it. I've been interviewed by several people from major universities who are trying to study, typically from departments of religion. And when they interview me, I just almost have to laugh because the issue is not what Chuck Smith is doing. The issue is what God is doing and the packaging he happens to use. He always puts new wine and new skins, I think. Doesn't put the new wine and old skins. And that's what I think the denominations haven't woken up to yet. It's, I think, going to be difficult to evaluate the place of Calvary Chapel in church history until we see what happens once Chuck Smith retires. Because the place of Calvary Chapel is going to depend on whether or not, at the point of Chuck's retirement, these different chapels become independent churches or whether they become a movement, a denomination. Probably one of the greatest weaknesses is that right now the spiritual stability seems to come from Chuck Smith and eventually he will be gone from the picture. And so it will remain to be seen where the stability will center in after Chuck is gone. Now, if they become a denomination, even if it's a denomination that is relatively free and open in terms of the style of leadership, then I think Chuck Smith is going to be known as the person who had the original vision God inspired that gave birth to this denomination. As you stand back and look at Chuck, you know that he's not only non-denominational, he, like myself, harbors even anti-denominational feelings because the denominationalism has taken such a penalty in some of our lives. And it's ironic because that's his biggest nightmare is that for Calvary to become a denomination in its own right. And I sit back and smile at God's sense of humor because Chuck, whether he likes to admit it or not, is now sitting in what's probably the largest denomination in the United States. And he works very, very hard to keep the pieces separate, unaffiliated, except in a spiritual sense. And so I think that therein lies its health. Organizationally, we'd call it decentralization, but it's deeper than that. And again, it's just responding to the spirit. What we aim for is not so much trying to take a fellowship and cause them to become a clone of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. More so, we seek to fellowship with those who are already being moved and directed and sculpted into that form and people of like vision by way of the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit actually moving upon their own hearts, upon their own lives. And like they say, birds of a feather flock together. People of like mind and like heart will always somehow or other find each other, especially when God is the one that puts it together. So we're not in any way, shape or form, ever trying to franchise out our style of ministry or our type of church, so much as Calvary Chapel as being an organism is always welcome to receiving other bodies and fellowships and people who are like-minded to us and like-hearted to us. On the other hand, if there is a splintering of the current fellowship of churches at the time of Chuck's retirement or death, then my suspicion is that Chuck may get a long footnote within the annals of American church history, but it will be a footnote that will primarily relate to the Jesus movement and the important role that he played in terms of providing a church that people with long hair and sandals and beads could attend. So I actually, with whole judgment at this point, I think there's tremendous potential in terms of Calvary Chapel occupying a very important role in church history, but it will depend a lot on what happens in the next 10 years or whenever Chuck may choose to step down. There can be speculation as to who could ever take over for Chuck Smith, who would his successor be, and I think it's almost irrelevant in that Chuck has many successors. He has many that he has passed this vision onto that are carrying the work on in different parts of the country, and I think that that's a great example for all of us to follow. God has blossomed it out and that's what's been taught here like the scripture says, teach other men that they can go teach others. So they've done it here and God has said, my word would not return to me void, it'll accomplish what I sent it to do. If you stay within that word and don't get into programs and all those other junk, that'll sidetrack your strength and your time and your money and stay with what's central, what did Jesus Christ do for three plus years? He taught. How can you improve on that? I'm combining the last two segments of the ventures of faith into one. And so let me share a couple of things with you. The future of Calvary Chapel and what makes Calvary Chapel what it is. I had an opportunity in my own spiritual life in my own walk with the Lord to get to know Pastor Chuck in a personal way. I had opportunity fairly early in our ministry to have him come and he'd share and I had chances to talk to him and visit with him that grew over the years to the point where I could have personal conversations with him, ask him questions and I looked at him as more than simply a pastor of a good-sized fellowship. I looked at him as my pastor and I looked at him as a model in ministry and I trusted him in his wisdom and experience. And I can still remember asking him on one occasion, Chuck, what do you expect to happen? Are you expecting to retire? So this segment we saw today where they were kind of talking about what Chuck would or would not do. I had personal conversation with them related to that and had asked them what his plans were and so I was able to be part of those kinds of things over the years with him from fairly, when he was still fairly young, young in the sense of him being in his 60s and moving towards the consideration of retirement and all and I sat across from him at a particular conference, had conversation with him, had chances to travel with him, had chances to go to Israel with him and minister in conferences with him and eventually became part of his board and he had what is called the Calvary Chapel Outreach Fellowship Board and our responsibility and I was part of that was to basically oversee all the Calvary Chapels in the world and so what happened was Chuck, it was determined that his health was failing and all in what Pastor wanted to do is he wanted to hand ministry over to those whom he referred to as his sons in the faith and so that's what he did. He ultimately put together a meeting with Don McClure and Joe Foch and a couple of other guys and he said, this is what I want to do because the question here that we were watching on the Ventures of Faith video was the future. What is your plan and so I can tell you what that turned out to be because what he wanted to do is he wanted to give oversight of the Calvary Chapel Ministries to a group of men that he considered faithful to the original vision God had given to him and he initially began with eight men. I was one of those eight men and I take that as a very high honor to have been one of the eight men that he chose to be a leader in the Calvary Chapel movement for the future but he never wanted it to be a denomination. It is not a denomination. We are not a denomination. We're still non-denominational. We're independent churches that are associated not because we call ourselves Calvary Chapel but associated because of something greater than that. We're greater than a denomination in this sense. We are not forced to have fellowship with one another as Calvary pastors. We love one another and we have relationship on a love basis and what has made Calvary Chapel what Calvary Chapel is as you can see it and we've seen the ventures for several weeks now but the things that are important to us you will know if you go to this church or a Calvary ministry. You'll know it. The things that are important to us are very basic. One, the word of God. The word of God to us is very important. That's why we spend time and that's why I've been longing to go back to teaching verse by verse because that's really what I love doing. I wanted to give you a series but I prefer doing a verse by verse study. I've been doing verse by verse studies since 1973 and that's what I want to continue doing and so we'll be doing that when I come home. We'll go through the gospel of John together. The word of God. Secondly, the power of the Holy Spirit. We don't believe that organizational things. We don't believe that getting together and trying to market the church and getting together and brainstorming how are we going to get people in and looking at the trends and saying, well look at certain people like to dress in a certain way. Therefore, I'm going to start dressing like that. We never did that. We never went to a how to be cool school because we really believe that you have to be who you are. You can't try to be somebody else because if you're trying to be somebody else then one of you isn't necessary and so what we have to be is ourselves. We are by the grace of God who we are and so you take the word and you share it as God puts it in your heart and that's why you can see different men with different styles. They're all Calvary chapels but they have different styles. You can see the Greg Laurie style of ministry. You can see the Raleigh style of ministry and I could name so many that you're familiar with and we all have a different way of approaching but the thing that is important to us is God's word and the power of the Holy Spirit and we also believe that we need to be one in the spirit. We need to love one another because that is the mark of a believer. See when I went to Calvary for the very first time as a non-believer I was ambushed by the experience I had when I walked into that small chapel. It was a small in terms of building a very small but it was overcrowded with kids from all the aisles and up in the steps and it was an amazing experience the first time I walked in and the thing as I've shared with you before that I saw there was worship because they had worship they sang and praised the Lord I saw that that they taught the Bible so there was a word of God that was being presented to somebody like me that was a very important thing to hear God what God has to say but there was something else and it was the fruit of the Spirit and it was love and Jesus said in John 13 34 and 35 a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another why this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another Jesus has a way of offering people what they need most there's a thirsty woman who's by a well and Jesus begins to speak to her and he says if you're thirsty and you drink this water you're gonna thirst again but if you drink the water that I shall give to you you will never thirst again she was there for physical water he offered her what she really needed what she needed most wasn't physical water alone it was living water when people were hungry Jesus offered himself to them as the bread of life when there were people who were sitting in darkness Jesus was the light of life and he offered them light to people who were lost Jesus became the way to people who were lonely he promised never to leave them to those who were tired he offered them rest to those who were outcast he offered them love during the time of the Jesus movement if there was anything characterizing that movement it wasn't the long here it wasn't the fact that we were a bunch of hippies and long hairs and drug addicts and alcoholics and you name it getting saved it wasn't just that that wasn't just the thing that characterized it that's what the world checked out that's what the world began to speak about that's what the world was saying this is a new phenomenon these outcasts, these hippies are coming to faith in Jesus Christ and they categorized the youth in a certain kind of class hippies but there wasn't just hippies getting saved I mean if you went to Calvary Chapel there'd be the older people people in their 30s there were older people in their 40s they were ancient and when you would go in there there was a time that you would actually go to I remember in Bible study that one of the guys on the stage area he asked how many of you how many of you brought a mother or a dad to this Bible study and then I still remember this guy raising his hand up and he says well introduce who'd you bring and his mom stands up and she's all kind of shy and like oh in the midst of all of these hippie kids and we all started cheering for mom you know mom was probably 38 years old and we're all cheering for this old woman so it wasn't just just hippies yes there were many hippies who were getting saved and yes there were many of the social outcasts who were getting saved but it was not just targeting a group you see that's one of the problems in the church today is we're starting to target groups and we're starting to say oh the revival is going to come through the youth but the revival didn't come through the youth when I got saved the revival came through older men and women especially Chuck who were older to us but were in love with Christ and it was the power of the spirit and the power of the word and it was a welcoming spirit to us it was an atmosphere where you were loved and that's what it was if there's anything that characterized that day and if there's anything we need today it's once again to return to those basic things including love again the small chapel was filled with the presence of God and it was thick and it was heavy and Bible studies were filled with a sense of love and concern for one another and it wasn't the love of the world love that we were familiar with it was a deeper kind of love it was a kind of sense that made you think that people actually cared about you it wasn't emotional it wasn't a love that's rooted in sentiment it was deeper it was rooted in a love for God it was rooted in a desire to follow God's word and you need to understand this about the Jesus movement we were quick to correct one another we didn't do it in a mean-spirited way we realized that we were our brother's keepers and we wanted to protect one another because we knew it was easy to stray away from Christ and so we actually kept one another in check this sloppy agape that the church with today didn't exist we were not if I had a friend who was fornicating we would talk to him and we'd say you know what man you know the word of God says that isn't right if one of our friends was going back to smoking marijuana we would speak to him we didn't just let him go off and do it we would confront him we would talk to him we'd say this is wrong if they went out and they started drinking they would have no liberty in Jesus we said you're stumbling other people it's wrong for you to do that you were hooked on that and look what it got you and why are you returning like a dodge of the vomit that's how we were and it wasn't unloving to speak the truth it wasn't wrong it's because we loved Jesus and we wanted people to love him too and we didn't want his name dragged through the mud we came into Christ looking like we were hippies we were the ones that people didn't like we were the outcasts, the off-scouring we were the ones that had no hope Chuck himself said that he said why don't you take a bath, cut your hair and get a job that was us so we weren't about we weren't about to let somebody just go off and make Jesus look bad so we had a loving accountability we were willing to speak the truth to one another and we did and it wasn't judgmental and it wasn't harsh we knew we were being corrected out of love because we wanted to be like Jesus Christ and so the love of God was very present and that's how the Lord kept us united and we knew that people helped us and corrected us when we went astray I actually appreciated my older brothers for correcting me in verse 1512 a scoffer does not love one who corrects him nor will he go to the wise I didn't want to be a scoffer I wanted to be in the right way and so thank God for friends who tried to keep our feet to the fire and moving us in the right direction you see the love of Jesus and the love of the church family was something I began to learn immediately and Jesus is saying that this kind of love is the lack of a believer it's what he calls his new commandment now it's difficult today and being a believer is a constant war it was also difficult in the beginning Jesus would be saying to his men something very important he's saying before I die I'm going to give to you something that will enable you to continue my work I'm going to equip you to do works of service that will last and that you might be a testimony to the world to be effective Jesus my spirit is going to equip his disciples that they may be able to share his message and so he makes a series of promises this night to his people for example he says I'm going to give you something you need I'm going to give to you my peace in John 14 27 peace I leave with you my peace I give to you not as a world gives do I to you neither let it be afraid I'm giving you my peace and secondly he said and I'm going to give you something else that will be effective I'm going to give you my joy in John 15 11 these things I've spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full so I'm equipping you I'm giving you peace and I'm giving you joy but I'm also going to give you that which will make it possible for people to receive my message the kind of love that I have for you and that kind of love will enable you to work together because my love will keep you united and my love will make it possible to remain one through anything now he speaks concerning a new commandment notice in verse 34 how he says a new commandment I give to you that you love one another it's interesting how he speaks of it as being a new commandment we see that kind of command in the bible in the Old Testament well when you look at the law the law standard wasn't that demanding in the Old Testament book of Leviticus 19 verse 18 it says do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people but love your neighbor as yourself I am the Lord so Jesus raises the standards by commanding them to love one another as he loved them now how did he love them? he laid down his life we know that self preservation is the strongest instinct yet Jesus voluntarily demonstrated his love you know I think of that on occasion not always but on occasion I wonder about this instinct to self preserve and this love that you might have I might have for others and all and I know that if I were driving and my wife will say who I love number one love in my life outside of my Lord I've got my girl with me and if we're driving and a car comes out of nowhere and comes straight at us you know I would like to believe that I would take off my seat belt and dive across her to preserve her I suspect I wouldn't I suspect I wouldn't move the car put my hands up self preservation that's what it is that's wrapped up in us we take care of ourselves and when the time comes the instinct for me is to live the instinct for me is to stay alive and yet Jesus laid his life down this love he said is a mark of a believer to lay your life down you see the Bible's revelation in its simplest is that God is love that's what John said in 1 John 4 verse 8 God is love you see Christians are to be identified by the love of God in their lives and God's love is a characteristic that identifies a person as a believer in Jesus Christ I am telling you and I don't know how clear I can make this I have great concern for the church today in a way that I can't say in a way that is understood I watch the church and I see the people they follow after and I see the people on TV that are popular and I listen to the messages that they give on occasion to see where they're at and they have thousands of people who follow them and thousands of people who donate to their ministries I was reading something on Instagram just a few days ago where a young man who's become popular posted something he and his wife and he posted something on his Instagram and it had over 23,000 people who viewed it and they're all just giving the thumbs up kind of thing and as I read it it was obscene and it was coarse what he wrote it was coarse what he wrote and I see all of these people saying write on that's so good and I'm telling you it grieves my heart it grieves my heart you see because many people are following younger ministers who cannot minister to older ministers that younger minister cannot minister to me he can't minister to anybody he's got to have a depth that reaches in a spiritual sense and he doesn't have that you know I asked a friend of mine would you go to this guy for marital counseling no 23,000 people think he's solid but he's not and all of these young people are lining up behind me I could name names I won't I don't want to do that I'm not afraid to I just don't want to but I can tell you there are people that are making millions of dollars and giving nothing you know my my kids when they were small my grandchildren also they liked lots of sugar they liked cotton candy cotton candy can be fun but not for a main meal and you can't subsist on that you can't live on cotton candy but the church is right now and that's one of the reasons why that song is so important to revisit because we are asleep in the light when you have people who can't sit through a bible study because it's not interesting or they don't understand it it's a sign of the church the church's weakness and so I'm concerned for the church because the church has been entrusted with the authority to proclaim a message that saves you from hell but we're so caught up today trying to be made to feel better about ourselves and that kind of sickness has entered in to the church that that sense of don't say anything to me that disturbs me I need to go to church and feel better about myself not necessarily sometimes I have to know what I am in order to be healed of what I am so that I can feel better in him that's called Christianity I have to see that I have to understand the whole council of God is filled with blessings as well as buffeting and I have to take it all so I can be formed into the image of Christ but not everybody understands that so we need to understand that and so in the church we need to be well taught we need to be well fed we need to live for Christ and God needs to have preeminence in our life and God's love is the characteristic that identifies us as a believer in Christ you see the love of God and the love for one another has been called a mark of the Christian a Christian historian a church historian his name is Philip Schaff and Philip Schaff said this he said Christianity is primarily not merely doctrine but life a new moral creation a saving fact first personally embodied in Jesus Christ the incarnate word the God man to spread from him and bring it into saving fellowship with God in the individual believer it begins not with religious views simply it comes as a new life as a creative fact and experience taking up the whole man with all his faculties and capacities releasing him from the guilt and power of sin and reconciling him with God restoring harmony and peace to the soul and at last glorying the body glorifying the body itself you see a new life as a chief characteristic and it's love it's love for God it's love for others and I'm telling you if there's anything conspicuous about love in the church it's its absence there are people that haven't learned to love one another and learning to love one another begins loving God we have a tendency of putting ourselves before everybody else but God says no he says you are to love me with everything within you and love your neighbor as yourself because once you see yourself in the light of who God is you realize that you are a sinner saved by grace and if you're a sinner saved by grace then you're able to extend grace to others who are also sinners then you learn how to love others but again in our society today it's been twisted around I have to be happy with me before I can be happy with you but the Bible teaches us one thing about love it's revealed in sacrifice and God demonstrates that to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son the whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life that is demonstrated as sacrifice so again in verse 34 Jesus said love one another as I loved you so God revealed the depth of his love through the giving of his son sacrificially we were helpless we were unable to save ourselves yet God gave his son to rescue us and as a way of illustration let's put it like this let's imagine that you are on death row various religious teachers are now visiting you here comes Buddha through the door and he speaks to you and Buddha says you must remember one thing all is misery work out your own salvation he leaves here comes Muhammad Muhammad says you must come to realize that this is simply the will of Allah he walks out here comes Krishna Krishna taught reincarnation so he simply says better luck next time well finally the jailer approaches your cell and he opens the door Jesus steps in the jailer says Jesus paid the price for your freedom and he came to take your place that's what Christianity is Romans 5 6 through 8 at just the right time we are powerless Christ died for the ungodly very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died for us so God's love was most clearly revealed when he gave his son to die for our sins he loved his disciples the man verse 11 said I'm the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep in John 15 12 and 13 my command is this love each other as I've loved you greater love has no one than this that he laid down his life for his friends so this kind of love is evident to all people Christians love one another the pagans of Rome church had a phrase where he was behold how they love one another because that's what made us different is we loved each other how is this love shown well the bible gives us a lot of information about how our love is shown I was going through the one another it's in scripture today and this is how love is shown we are kindly affectionate to one another we give preference to one another we do not judge one another we are like minded with one another we receive one another we admonish one another we greet one another we're courteous to one another we care for one another serve one another we bear one another's burdens we bear with one another we speak truth to one another we are kind to one another We forgive one another. We comfort and edify one another. We assemble together with one another. We do not speak evil of one another. We consider one another. We stir one another to good works. We are hospitable to one another. We submit to one another. We fellowship with one another. Christianity isn't lived in isolation. Christianity is lived in community. We need each other. We have to have one another. We learn how to love by being with people that are difficult to love. Have you ever said, God, I want to learn to love? And then you start encountering people that are difficult to love? You might even marry them? I mean, you can have, you can have some hard times in this. God help me. God help me to love. I have discovered that. I have discovered that when I've said, God, make me into your image. He brings circumstances, sometimes individuals, into my life that, that press me, that, that put me in a position where I have to make decisions concerning what I'm going to do. And I have to learn to take my Christianity and put it into practice. See, love is the mark of a Christian, not just an emotion, not just these, these little feelings that we have. It's much deeper than that. It's making decisions of the will to do the right thing on behalf of somebody else. I do not think that Jesus giggled to the cross. He embraced it because it was for others. And that's Christianity. It's laying our lives down for our friends. It's laying our lives down for our mate. It's laying our life down for our children. It's laying our lives down for our parents. It's laying our lives down for others. It's learning to put others where they should be, preferring them, honoring them, respecting them, sacrificing. It's getting together. It's getting along. It's not forsaking the assembling. It's not running from place to place because place I went to isn't perfect. It's got imperfect people. Therefore, I'll keep going till I find the perfect church. And then when they find the perfect church, they ruin it because they're not perfect. That's kind of how it works. So we have to learn. We have to learn to love each other. We really do. We have to learn to care for one another because I'm telling you, and you know this, the world hates Christ and the world hates those who love Jesus. And if there's ever been a time when the church needs to unify in him, not some silly sentimentalism I'm talking about holding fast to one another for these last days are evil. It's now. It's now that we need to be united. It's now that we need to learn to give and to serve and to love and to care because the world is dark. And when people walk in the doors of this fellowship or any church that preaches Christ, I pray that they experience what I experienced first time I walked into church and I was loaded and I'd been drinking and I was barefooted and I walked in expecting to get thrown out, but I was ambushed by something I didn't expect to find in a church. I was ambushed by the love that I sensed. It was so thick and so real. I couldn't deny it. I couldn't deny it. And I said to myself something's different about this place. I didn't know what it was, but I'd gone to church off and on for a long time in my life at that point. I didn't know what it was, but I came to find out what it was. It was the power of the Holy Spirit. It was a love for the Word of God. It was a community of sincere believers who wanted to do their best for Christ's sake. Bunch of young hippies who had been discarded by the world, rejected by people, told that we would never succeed, that it would never happen. We couldn't do it. Look what God has done. Look what the Lord has done. He transforms lives. So by this, shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love, one for another. May God help us to love in truth one another. May God help us to do that, because love is the birthmark of a believer.