Lord, we do turn to You. Oh, we have been facing You, but we turn our hearts again.
Lord, we know that You have an anointing for us by Your Holy Spirit. We know our Lord Jesus is high and lifted up. And Lord, we claim the fact that He has been given as Head over all things to the church.
So we believe today that You will give us to hear and to see: to have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand and respond. Oh Lord, give us this. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. We ask for His sake, for our sake, that He may be glorified in His people and that His inheritance in the saints may be increased. Amen.
You know, brothers and sisters, you were saved individually, but you were called corporately. The reason for that is manifold, and I do not pretend to know all of it. But I know part of it: the purpose of our great salvation is that we may express Christ.
The problem is that He is very great. Now, He may be expressed among us individually, of course He may. But He may fully be expressed among us all. That is the intention of God, and that is worth the rest of your life. Frankly, nothing else is.
Sonny said some wonderful things yesterday. I hope you heard him. Someone asked me, “Did I like the message?” I said, “Well, yeah—like an arrow in the heart.” And it is true. It is true.
You see, we just have a little time. We have a little life. What we do not see is how important it is. It is a day of small things, not a day of great things. So we say, “Gee, you know, this is an unimportant day. I’ll take a day off. I’ll just sort of glide through it.”
But your days are numbered. And who knows? If the Lord remains, and if every one of us decided to come here next year, and the Lord gave grace for another conference, who knows those of us who would be with the Lord between now and then?
Better than even odds, somebody will go to the Lord this year—someone who is in this room. Did you know that? I do not know anybody who is sick or has any problem. I am telling you, brothers and sisters, this is the real deal here.
You have life. You have been given life. You have been given abundant life. So have I, and it is great. We are called to use that life, to build with that life, to build the house of God.
What is on my heart today is to speak about practical matters. I think that was on Sonny’s heart yesterday, and it is on the hearts of Matt, Chip, and Stephen, I know. Practical matters. We are speaking of practical things.
Let me just tell you this: it is not complicated. It is simple. It is not easy, but it is not complicated. If you hear something that is true, know it is the truth, and act upon it, it becomes yours.
If you hear the truth and do not act upon it, it becomes an idea. It becomes a thought. It becomes a theory. It becomes a theology. But the reality, the life, is gone from it. What happens to you is that you become hardened.
Brothers and sisters, you have paid a price to be here. Praise the Lord for that. This thing that you offer up to the Lord this weekend, He will most certainly receive. He most certainly will be an abundant provision.
The question is: you have come here from a long way, or a short way. Will you go how you came, or will you go differently? That is the question.
Now, I want to read some very familiar Scriptures. I do not think I am going to say much that you have not already heard. But there are a few verses. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 3:10.
According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it.
But let each man be careful how he builds upon it.
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,
each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.
If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.
We are talking about the practical matter of building the house of God—building together.
Every one of us is called to build, I believe. If you are hearing my voice, you are called to build. Actually, everyone is building, because this building is all about relationships.
The relationship between you and the Lord is primary. Amen to our brother: there is a place that only belongs to God. But the Scripture makes it very clear—indeed, it makes it clear all over the place—that you cannot love God who is in heaven and despise your brothers on the earth.
How can a man say he loves God whom he has not seen when he does not love his brother whom he has with him? That man—that is not true.
Your relationship with the Lord Jesus and your relationship with one another: as you build those relationships, you build the house of God, if you build rightly.
Gold, silver, precious stones; wood, hay, stubble. Let us talk about the wood, hay, and stubble. All this has to do with the house of God.
Turn with me to 1 Peter 2, beginning with verse 4.
And coming to Him, as to a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it is contained in Scripture,
Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious:
And he that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame.
For you therefore that believe is the preciousness.
Let us stop there. The house of God is built up of His people—living stones. If you are saved, you are alive, and you are a stone. When the living stones come together in a place, the building work begins.
Now, this is not something you have to put off until you move to Jerusalem, or wherever Jerusalem is for you, because there is no assembly where you are. This is something you may begin this moment. It is something you can continue when you go home, or you could ignore it.
But, brothers and sisters, do not ignore it. You are called to develop relationships with your brothers and sisters. If you do that, you will come to the right place.
Again, it is not complicated; it is very simple. Do you have understanding? Good. When you act upon that understanding, you get more understanding. When you do not act upon it, you lose it.
To him who has, more shall be given. To him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away from him.
Brothers and sisters, it is very simple. When you act upon what you know, the Lord will lead you in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. You are not just called to deny yourself, take up your cross, and wander along. That is not the deal.
If it were not to follow the Lord, none of us could deny ourselves and take up our cross. That is asceticism, and it is not our cross. Basically, we follow Him. He leads us, and it works.
What I am saying to you is very, very practical. There are two parts—two questions, really. One is: how do you regard one another?
I look around the room. I do not believe any of you live in a place where there are no Christians. How do you regard the people around you?
Gold, silver, precious stones. Those things are expensive. Those are things you do not leave out in the yard. Those are things you put in a safe place and treasure. Those things are important to you.
So tell me about your brothers and sisters. Are they important to you? Well, some of them are. Some of them are, no doubt.
Let us talk a little bit about wood, hay, and stubble. In the Scripture, gold speaks of the divine nature: the love of God, that which is imperishable, that which is eternal, that which is He Himself. If we walk with Him, we get more of that.
Silver always speaks of redemption in the Scripture. As we walk, as we come into more of the practical reality of our salvation—“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”—that is what it is talking about. It is all there; you just have to work it out.
If you are born again, there is gold and silver that you have. You could not be born again without salvation. When you were born again, the Holy Spirit came inside you. Boy, if there is any gold greater than that, there is not.
You are a living stone, and God’s intention is that you should become not merely a living stone, but a living precious stone. Precious stones in the Scriptures are always associated with the house of God.
Whether with the high priest’s raiment, the stones for beauty and glory on his breast, the onyx stones on his shoulders, the precious cornerstone, the New Jerusalem, or even the imitation—the harlot who clothes herself and adorns herself in a similar fashion—it is always related to the house of God.
Wood speaks of man, of humanity. Hay speaks of the glory of humanity. The Scripture says man is like grass, and his glory is like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off, but the word of God remains forever.
Hay speaks of things that look good in our humanity. Stubble is that which is left when it is cut, left outside and trodden upon.
The Scripture says we are to regard no man after the flesh. But wood, hay, and stubble speak of that. We can have relationships with each other based merely upon natural preferences: people who like what I like, think like I think, and want to do what I want to do.
When we have such relationships, they are clubs. There is nothing wrong with a club—I do not think there is anything wrong with a club—as long as you do not hit anybody over the head with it.
In the Lord’s house, we do have some affinities, and they are not bad. I will come to that in just a little bit. But if we pick the movers and shakers, or the non-movers and shakers—the people we have an affinity for—and if our relationships are simply human relationships developed because we like each other, we miss the mark.
All that stuff will burn up. It all goes through the fire. The whole deal goes through the fire. Whatever you build with goes through the fire.
I am not speaking of pleasantries here. I am talking about what you build with, where you spend your strength, where you spend your energy. It is all going to be tested, and the day will reveal it, for it will be tried with fire. Again, this is not complicated.
But when we have disputings, favorites, and when we give people a place because they are smart, pretty, or talented—oh, brothers and sisters, are we not acting as mere men? We are building with the wrong stuff.
Do not do it. Do not do that. It will burn up. It will be gone.
How do we build with gold, silver, and precious stones? I will tell you how we do it: we look for it.
There are brothers and sisters who do not appeal to our flesh very much, but they are brothers and sisters. Here is my question: how much energy do you expend looking for the gold?
How much grace do you give to your brothers and sisters for the silver? We have been redeemed and forgiven so much. The Lord has forgiven us so much.
Boy, am I glad that I woke up this morning and could say, “Lord, take it all.” And He says, “I took it all. It is finished. It is over.” To wake up clean—how wonderful that is.
But, brothers and sisters, do we give it to one another? Do we allow our brothers and sisters that same grace that we received so freely?
Our brothers and sisters sin against us. They sin. How do we deal with that? You understand what I am saying?
We are talking now about what you look for in someone, what you see when you look at them. If we look at the same standard for everybody, some of us look good and some of us do not look so good.
Some of us were saved out of a wonderful background. Some of us are not particularly bothered by our personalities, or were not subject to craziness, depression, or insanity—and some of us are.
Some of us have had a good spiritual education and know how to use the words, the lingo. Some know the reality of the lingo, and some just came to the cross yesterday.
Brothers and sisters, bless one another. Look for the silver. Look for the redemption. Look for what this person has been and what he is becoming.
Do not regard one another after the flesh. My goodness gracious, you will miss some of the greatest saints that were ever here. We could spend the whole weekend talking about people we all acknowledge as great men of God and great women of God, who at one point in their lives you would have looked at and said, “Man, this person…”
Every one of us in the room—look at our own lives. Frankly, if we know one another well, every one of us can look at one another and see how much we have been saved from.
A lot of the time, what we look at is what is left. There is one particular edge about you that cuts me every time I get next to it. I am always offended by it, and I keep saying, “Lord, deal with this edge in this man.”
And the Lord—He is God, you know—never minds me asking Him. He always answers, and He laughs a lot. Not because He takes me lightly, but because He knows His end. He is delighted in what is going on, in the process that is going on in me.
He has changed in a hundred different ways, but I am looking at the one way in which he has not been changed. How can you see what you do not see? Until the Holy Spirit shows you. Or what if the Holy Spirit shows him and he does not do it? So what? How many times has the Holy Spirit shown you something and you did not do it?
We must forbear with one another, brothers and sisters. We must look for the silver. We must look for the practical salvation that is there. It is there. It is there. If they are saved, it is there.
If we do not, we will demean one another. We will consider one another not precious. Stubble is something you walk on.
We either want to hold each other up because of some lofty human reason, or we disregard one another. I am not opposed to these things, but they just do not have any reality, and we do not have time for them.
There is just a little time left. If you have fifty years, sixty years, or seventy years, there is just a little time left. There is much work to be done. There is much of the glory of the Lord to be seen, enjoyed, revealed, shared, and shone forth.
There is not time for contempt.
Stubble—something to be walked on, something to be disregarded, something to clean whatever is on your shoe off with.
Now, brothers and sisters, I hope I am shaking you up a little bit. I want you to think about this. Think of your relationships. Not just the words I am saying: are there those you hold in contempt?
It is wrong. It is sin. You ought to confess it, repent of it, and be done with it.
The Lord gave us a new commandment: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.” How did He love us? He got us there, did He not? He did not say merely, “Love one another.” Oh, we could fake it.
But He also says, “Love one another fervently from the heart.” There is another arrow.
You are not under the law, okay? We are not talking about a set of legal rules. We are talking about things like gravity, the laws of motion, the things that hold the universe together. They are not man-made. They are not even put in the Bible for you to obey. They are facts. They are eternal realities.
One of the eternal realities is that we are to bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. It is not like the commandment, “Do not steal; do not kill.” It is an eternal reality, and it is how you build.
You build by holding the precious as precious. If you consider your brothers and sisters precious, you will bear their burdens. You will look for their burdens to bear.
If you see in them, when you look deeply, a little flicker of the light of God, a little salvation, a little silver—then you will treasure it.
When they built the temple, that wonderful, glorious building, I calculated not too long ago that it cost about $256 billion—the temple Solomon built with what David had provided. That is a lot.
But there is ten times as much silver as there is gold, because, buddy, we need the silver. You understand what I am saying? We need to be generous to one another. We need to build with that.
When you find yourself thinking, “Ah, this one has done that. I do not want to get that on me,” look in your own life and see the silver the Lord has given you.
Sometimes it gets a little tarnished, brothers and sisters, and we have to polish it. Unlike gold, which does not tarnish, silver does. You have to stay at it. You have to keep at it. And you have to keep looking for it.
If you see that we are living stones, then you have to believe that the Lord’s desire is to convert us into precious stones, which He does with heat and pressure in the dark places of the earth.
When you see it in a brother or sister, it is holy ground that you are standing on. When you see a brother or sister being dealt with in difficult circumstances, oh, brothers and sisters, you are watching God work on one of His very favorite people.
It is a holy thing that you are seeing. It ought to arrest you and make you take the shoes off your feet.
We are all in the building business, and we are all also the material for the building.
How do you get the gold? You get it by walking with the Lord and being born again. The more you yield yourself to the Holy Spirit, the more it increases inside you.
How do you get the silver? You are given it. Salvation is a free gift. But as you walk in it, as you give it a bigger place in your life, it is like coming into the promised land. He said to Joshua, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it.”
Every place you put that great salvation you have been given, He will give to you, and it increases. As for precious stones, all we can do is be living stones and come together to become that.
But when we are talking about you—not your brother, not your sister—there is a process. There is a process.
I am going to read you a few verses. You do not have to look them up.
The words of the Lord are pure words;
As silver tried in a furnace on the earth,
Purified seven times.
—Psalm 12:6
The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold;
But the Lord trieth the hearts.
—Proverbs 17:3
Behold, I have refined thee, but not as silver;
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
—Isaiah 48:10
You see? You have got it, but you have to increase it. It has to be refined.
Again, it is not complicated, but it is not fun. You are refined in the fire of affliction. You are refined when the Lord tests your heart, and He will test every one of you.
He lets everything be tested. He wants everything to be tested. Why? Not that it will be proved false. It is not false. You have good stuff in there. He has put it in there—eternal, strong, clear, clean. It is in there.
But there is a lot of other stuff in there too that has got to go.
In that city which is to come, the gold is clear. Go figure. Twenty-four-karat gold is not clear. Of course, it is only ninety-six percent pure. Go figure. It is solid, but it is clear. It has been refined.
Here is another thing:
And he shall pass over to his stronghold for fear,
And his princes shall be afraid at the ensign,
Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion,
And whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
—Isaiah 31:9
You understand? His fire is in Zion, and His furnace is in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the place of the house of God—the New Jerusalem.
The temple is built upon Mount Moriah, where Isaac was offered up by Abraham: a place of sacrifice.
You remember how David was given the place where the house was to be built. He had sinned in numbering the people. God gave him a choice, and the Lord went through the land with a plague. David looked out his palace window and saw the angel of the Lord with a sword drawn over Jerusalem.
He fell on his face and said, “Lord, not these people, not these poor sheep. Put it on me and my house.” The Lord heard him and stayed the plague.
David hurried out, and it was on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite that the angel was standing. A threshing floor. The house of God is built on a threshing floor.
You want to build the house of God? You come to a place of sacrifice. Then, after that, you come to a threshing floor.
Have you ever seen wheat threshed? Some of you have, because when some of you were about that high, we did it. We grew a plot of wheat in Larry Davis’s backyard. We planted it, watched it, and reaped it according to old rabbinical tradition.
It took us a year to do that. The next year, among young people—the oldest were about seven or eight and the youngest were three or four—we beat out the wheat. We threshed it, crushed it, sifted it, made it into flour, and actually made the bread for the Lord’s table out of it one Sunday.
But it is a threshing floor. You see, it is not just the one sacrifice that you make. It is the everyday that is done.
The question is: are you going to increase that which you have been given? Is it going to grow up in your life? Do you have a private life with God, where you have dealings? And do you receive that which comes from the outside?
No one—absolutely no one—likes the fire of affliction. No one likes his heart to be tested, because He does not test you where you want to be tested. He tests you where you need to be tested.
His purpose is to show that which is done. But that which is done He leaves pretty much alone, and He works on that which is undone. There is a lot that is undone in all of us.
All this is actually preparation. We could talk about that candlestick, which represents the church of the Lord, the house of God. It is a beaten work. Even that which is eternal is formed, shaped, and beaten.
Are you willing to submit yourself to the hand of the Lord, to receive everything that comes from Him? Can you realize that what came to you today, what is coming to you this afternoon and tomorrow—the offenses, the pain, the trouble, the difficulty—is for two reasons?
First, that you may be made complete in Christ. Second, because you have come to the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite; you have come to Mount Moriah; you have come to the temple of the living God, where our God, who is a consuming fire, wants to burn up the dross.
He wants to make you so pure that His Son can be seen so clearly in you. Let me tell you, brothers and sisters, it is painful, but it is so profitable. It is so wonderful, even in the pain, because He does not just throw you in.
You remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? You remember the fiery furnace?
I love what they said before they went in there. The king had said, “You must worship this idol, and everybody who does not is going to be thrown in the furnace.” Of course, they did not do it.
He said, “All right, I will give you one more chance now, and this is it.” They said, “Look, king, know this: our God is well able to deliver us. But whether He delivers us or not, we are in no wise going to worship your idol.”
They were thrown into the furnace, and the men who threw them in were consumed by the flame. In a few minutes, the king looked in and said, “What is that? We threw three men in there, but there is a fourth one in there. He is walking, and He is like a son of God.”
It was the Son of God. Brothers and sisters, in the furnace of affliction, you are not alone.
I do not say that you will not feel alone. Part of the affliction sometimes is feeling alone. Loneliness, as our brother spoke of, is not bad. It is painful, but it is only for a moment, and it is always for a purpose.
The Lord knows your loneliness. Let me tell you, the loneliest times in my life were when I was a young adult—between when I was fifteen and when I was twenty-five, absolutely.
It is real, and it is not to be trivialized. But it is profitable. It is worthwhile. It will bring you the very thing that you long for inside, even if you do not know what it is. Praise the Lord for that.
How do you regard your brothers and sisters? Do you look for that which is precious in them? Do you treat them as that which is precious?
And what are you doing yourself? Are you having dealings with God? And, just as importantly, are you accepting all things from His hand?
A lot of the time, it is one thing when the Lord tells you, “Do this, do that,” and you do it—or even when you do not do it. But then something comes up, and you say, “Lord, what about this?” You do not hear anything. You ask Him again, and He says nothing.
What do you do?
If that happens to you, it means that God is of the opinion that you have grown enough that He does not have to treat you like a two-year-old. He does not always have to say, “Okay, this is Me. This will be.”
He simply says, “I will leave My son, My daughter, in the hands of the Holy Spirit.” And He gives him over as His servant.
Job was given over. “Have you considered My servant Job? There is none like him on the earth”—to be tested.
We do have an enemy. We have enemies, and they are stronger than we are. So there. They are all defeated, but, gee, a lot of the time they do not look so defeated.
The question is: what do you believe? What are you going to believe? Are you going to act as a believer? Are you going to act in faith, or are you going to be unfaithful?
Oh, wait a minute now—hold on. What is unfaithful here? Unfaithful is simply not believing what the Lord has said and not acting upon it.
By the standard I have just given you, we all are unfaithful. We are all unprofitable servants at our very best. That is why we need one another: to increase our faith.
One of the great things about being around brothers and sisters is that I will wake up and be in another world, doing different things and thinking about business or almost anything. Then I will see a brother or sister, and immediately I know who I am. I am reminded of what I am about.
That is why it is so important that we have relationship with each other—not just with the brothers and sisters with whom you have a natural affinity.
I have been talking about how we regard one another, because that is very important. There is another thing that is important: how we treat one another.
Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13. First Corinthians 13, of course, comes between 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14.
The last verse in 1 Corinthians 12 says, “But earnestly desire the greater gifts.” The first verse in 1 Corinthians 14 says, “Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts.” It is a parenthesis.
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul has been speaking about all the gifted ones in the house of God for the building up of the body of Christ. We are given gifts for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the work of service.
The apostle who has just written this wonderful chapter about the gifts says there is a better way. He speaks of the excellency of love.
This is one of those chapters we pass over because we have all heard it a bunch of times—at weddings, funerals, christenings, and almost any time somebody wants to say something nice and non-controversial from the Bible. They quote from this chapter. It is a devastating chapter.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
—1 Corinthians 13:1-3
This is speaking of the importance of love. It is the truth—really important. God is love.
Verses 4 through the first part of verse 8 are what I want to concentrate on.
Love suffereth long, and is kind;
Love envieth not;
Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;
Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth.
—1 Corinthians 13:4-8
There are eight things said about love that are positive, and eight things that it is not.
Love is patient, kind, rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and never fails.
Love is not jealous, does not brag, is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, and does not rejoice in unrighteousness.
Brothers and sisters, I would like you to consider this matter. I would like you brothers to consider love, and I would like you sisters to consider respect.
How many in this room are married? Raise your hand. Okay, so the majority of us are not married, and some of us are married. This will work in both cases.
Many of you who are not married have been, are being, or will be prayed for by your husbands or wives. Many of you have been prayed for many years. All of you who have such a desire in your heart should be preparing for such a time.
Those of you who are married, oh, brothers and sisters, you need to be working on that relationship. It is true in the larger sense with all of us, but it is particularly true in that one. Why? Because that is the closest relationship.
Human relationships are not bad in themselves. I do not think they are. But they are only a starting point.
We have to have relationships with one another. Sometimes, frankly, even spiritual relationships are easier to develop with some people than with others. It is important that we do that—not to the exclusion of the other, but for a reason.
Love is patient. Now, I can be patient for about five minutes. But the word is not merely “patient,” as though you were waiting for someone to bring your meal at a restaurant.
The word actually means “long-suffering.” It means one who suffers long. Mostly, for the most part, we are pretty much short-sufferers—real short. But the Scripture is clear: love one another fervently from the heart.
It is by faith and patience we obtain the promises. Let me tell you something: deep, real relationship with your brother and sister is so precious, and frankly, it is so rare.
It is rare even when there is a lot of it. It is just rare. There is nothing like it. Each one is different. Each one is individual. Each one is so precious. And each one is costly.
Patience. Kindness—what a trivialized word.
If you wanted to damn someone with faint praise, you would say something like, “Oh, he is kind.” So it is listed second. Patience is listed first because without it you will not get any of the other stuff.
But being kind—being thoughtful of one another, looking to the needs of one another—goes back to how you regard one another.
If you regard one another as stubble, you will not be kind to them. If you regard one another as lofty, you will not be kind to one another. You may be fawning to one another, but not kind.
Kindness is giving the needful thing, doing the needful thing at the right time, to bless.
Let us take these in order. Love is not jealous. Now here we come to three things: not jealous, does not brag, and is not arrogant.
One of the problems with these things is that I have never heard anyone confess that his problem was that he was a braggart. “My problem is that I am jealous of my brother. My problem is that I am arrogant.” Have you ever heard that?
Have you ever heard people come to you and say, “You know, I have this problem. I brag”? Let me put it differently: we know people who brag, people who are arrogant, people who are jealous of another’s position and place.
You go to such a one and say, “You are jealous.” “I am not.” “You are bragging.” “I am simply telling the truth.” “You are arrogant.” “Why are you arrogant?” “I am the humblest guy you ever met.”
You remember that relationship I spoke to you of—the easy one? This is where it goes in. You can only receive this from someone that you love, someone that you know loves you and is committed to you. And you probably will not receive it even from them. What you will likely do is bite them.
But it is the purpose of that easy relationship: to go to your friend.
Let me put it in a clearer context. Husbands, you have been married a couple of years now. You come home from a party, and this woman who loves you, who has given herself to you, says, “Boy, what you did tonight…”
You say, “What do you mean?” She says, “Man, you were all over the place, bragging on yourself.” You say, “When?” You know when, but you say, “You always say that.”
She says, “When you were talking about all the things that you were doing for the Lord, or how great a bass fisherman you are, or whatever.”
If this woman loves you, she will do it because that is the purpose of the relationship: to say things to you that nobody else can say.
Here is what we do, guys. Hear me out. First we say, “I did not do it. I did not do it.” Well, “I will consider it. I will pray about it.” We consider it and pray about it, and we may even come back and say, “Okay, yeah, I was.”
But what we do is punish her. We withdraw our love. We take it back. We withhold it.
Women have a need to be loved. Your wife needs to be loved—really loved. That is why it says, “Husbands, love your wives.” It is not an option.
It is a very subtle way that a man can get back at a woman. He can do all the right things. He can take the trash out, bring home the bacon, clean up after the dog, change the baby. But he can withhold that love.
It is not something that you can point the finger at all the time, but it is as real as a dagger. It is mean, nasty, and wicked, and you ought not to do it.
Those of you who are married have no business doing it to your spouses. But those of you who are not married, we still do it.
The relationships you have now are not the same as marriage, but you know what I am talking about. When someone offends me, I withdraw from them. When somebody does not like me, okay, I will not like you. There are other people in the world. You people do not like me in this place? I will go to another place.
We have freedom to do that—not once you get married—but it is wrong. It is wrong before you are married. It is wrong after you are married. Do not do it. Do not do it.
Is that what you want? Do you want a peaceful coexistence? Do you want merely a place where somebody can fix you dinner and clean your clothes? Brothers and sisters, that is not what it is about.
This relationship that you begin when you get married—and that you begin learning how to have before you get married—there is so much work you can do now.
Those of you who are not married have a wonderful chance that your brothers and sisters who are married do not have: to develop relationships. I am not talking so much about relationships between men and women; I am talking about relationships with one another.
You have time. Guys can stay up all night and talk about the deep things of God, or take a weekend off and go together. Women can spend lots and lots of time with one another. You can get to know one another.
Here is the deal: the relationships that you build now with one another will remain with you forever. The relationships will be different from the ones you develop after you get married.
I am not saying relationships after marriage are not good. Of course they are. But they are not the same. Do not waste it. Do not waste this time. Do not trivialize it. Do not waste this weekend.
Coming back: guys with guys, men with your wives—the way we respond when we are aggravated is usually not by complaining, particularly when we develop a little more sophistication about the deal. We just withdraw our affection.
We do it from men as well, but this is the clearest place. Oh, brothers, let us recognize that snake for what it is and be rid of it.
Because if you do not, you will remain in superficial relationships. Is that what you want? Is that what you signed on for? If you did, you are stupid—with respect, I say that.
Who wants a superficial relationship? We are talking about oneness. The Lord Jesus prayed in John 17, “That they may be one, even as We are one.” The same oneness the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have, we are to have with each other. Do we trivialize it?
Sisters, what about respect? Do you respect your brothers? If you are married, of course you should respect your husband. In fact, it is a commandment. But sisters, you are also to respect your brothers.
Most sisters are sharper than most brothers. Many of them have their acts better together. Almost all of them are more articulate at arguing and pointing out things. There is plenty among the brothers to be contentious about.
What are you looking for? What are you looking for? How are you considering your brothers? Wood, hay, and stubble? That is wood, hay, and stubble.
The old gold miners—the Forty-Niners, they called them—went out to California, to the rivers, with big pans. Have you ever seen a pan for gold? Big pans, heavy, with ten or fifteen pounds of sand. They would swirl it around in the water, let the water flow through it, and wash away everything. The heavy stuff would stick at the bottom.
Then they would get another pan full of sand. On a really good day, they might get three or four ounces of gold after going through perhaps half a ton of sand.
Those miners never complained about the sand. They never said, “Man, that is sand. There is too much sand in this place. Let us go somewhere else.”
What about you? Too much sand in your brothers? What are you looking for?
I am not talking about the special brothers. I am talking about all your brothers. There is gold in there. There is gold in there. No kidding. There is preciousness.
But the way sisters often respond is with contempt. A man who treats his wife by withdrawing love, unless she is really a spiritual woman, will get contempt from his wife. He will not be respected.
I will tell you something else, sisters. Hear me out. If your habit of life is holding brothers—any brothers—in contempt, that kills love.
It is not so much what you do; it is what you become. You become a contemptuous person. You become a person whose response is contempt.
Do not do that. No kidding, do not do that. Be done with it. We are talking about the house of God. We are talking about building relationships. We are talking about how we are to treat one another.
We are talking about how we gain intimacy, fellowship, relationship—something that will go through the storm, something that will go through the fire, which is most certainly coming and is of God.
If a woman really loves her husband, she will tell him when he is out of line—things that no one else can tell him—even at expense to herself.
Brothers, it ought not to be too expensive. If you make it too expensive, she will stop, and then you will lose your best helper that the Holy Spirit has.
I am telling you, nobody is more committed to you than your wife. Nobody. Sisters, nobody is more committed to you, when you are married, than your husband. If you are married in another way, then you need to reevaluate that deal, go back, and do it right.
Eternal things happen, but you have got to be ready for it. You have got to quit being who you are so you can become who you are supposed to be.
Another way to say it is, “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” All this is part of denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, love does not take into account a wrong suffered.
Lists. Many married couples have lists, and many unmarried people have lists.
You want to know the day and the time you offended me last? Or do you want to know the first time you offended me? Would you like to know the time I was most offended? Or would you rather have the day you offended me the most times? I have a little book.
That is funny, but do we not do it? Do we not keep up with it?
I was talking with a dear lady not long ago who was having memory problems. She said, “Oh, I am grateful that I can remember so many things.” I said, “Yes, and I am grateful I can forget so many things.”
We ought to remember much, and we ought to forget much. We ought to forgive much. We ought not to account a wrong suffered. Instead of keeping a list, get rid of the list.
If you are a woman and you are married, and you are keeping a list on your husband, and you can tell me what he did the first year, the second year, the third year of your marriage—or the first month, the second month, the third month—or the first decade, second decade, third decade, whatever—get rid of the list.
It is sin. It is wrong. It is contemptuous. It allows you to have a place of superiority. It is wrong. Be done with it. Be done with it.
Do you want to have a superficial relationship? That is what is at stake.
Same thing with one another.
When does my list personally come out? When another brother excels in a particular area. I can think, “Well, now, yeah, but back in ’04, or back in ’97, or back in ’82…”
You know what we ought to do at such a time? We ought to laugh at ourselves. We ought to brush it aside like kicking some dirt off our shoe—forever.
We ought to give the same salvation to our brothers and sisters that we take for ourselves. If we do not, we cannot grow in relationship.
If we cannot speak the truth in love to one another, how can we grow in relationship?
The people with whom I am developing the closest relationships—there are a number, and I am so happy for them—are the men who straighten me out, who tell me when I am wrong, who love me and are committed to me, but who tell me.
Who else can tell me but those who love me? Who else will I hear? We ought to hear it from anybody, but we do not. Let us make it easy on each other, brothers and sisters, to change. Let us bless one another.
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness.
Have you ever heard something about a brother or sister and something in you said, “I knew it. I knew it. I knew it all along”?
Did you ever disagree with a brother or sister and say, “Aha, see? Now God is vindicating me. I told him. Oh, I tried.”
When I say it out loud, it sounds so rotten. It does not sound nearly as rotten as it really is. It stinks. It is wrong.
You are a holy priesthood. That is what I am going to talk about next time: functioning in the house. You are holy. You are called to be holy, even as God is holy.
Not religious. He is not religious, but boy, is He holy. He is righteous, and He is good.
That is what you are called to: to share in His holiness. That is the purpose of discipline, according to Hebrews.
Turn to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 is right before Hebrews 13.
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against Himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls.
Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin:
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which reasoneth with you as with sons,
My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord,
Nor faint when thou art reproved of Him;
For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
It is for chastening that ye endure; God dealeth with you as with sons.
For what son is there whom his father chasteneth not?
But if ye are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them; but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.
Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees;
And make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed.
—Hebrews 12:1-13
Oh, brothers and sisters, let us not grow weary and lose heart. Let us not let one another grow weary and lose heart.
All discipline is sorrowful, not joyful. But afterward, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. The purpose of discipline is that we may be partakers of His holiness.
Your brothers and sisters are under discipline. Job said to his friends, who had come to him and were heaping coals on his head, that when a man is tried by the Lord, when he is disciplined by the Lord, he deserves kindness from his friends, lest he forsake the fear of the Almighty.
Brothers and sisters, we ought to be kind to one another, particularly when we are being tried, particularly when we are being exposed, particularly when that which is wrong in us has been brought to the top.
We ought not to give up on one another. We ought not to forsake one another. We ought not to participate in sin or shovel things under the rug—that is wrong.
But to love one another in such times, to be kind to one another, to bless one another in such times—how precious that is. None of us would come through if it were not for it.
Let us be such people, brothers and sisters. Let us not rejoice in unrighteousness.
Love covers a multitude of sins. It does not conceal sin; it does not sweep it under the rug. But it covers it with the same grace that we have been covered with.
And it is quick to help. That is why, right after this, He says, “Strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”
We are talking about the body of Christ. You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. We will talk about that a little more later.
But when you do this, you actually, in point of fact, minister to Christ. You minister as Christ because it is His body.
Brothers and sisters, I tell you, this is a time. This is a great day that we are in. It is a time when the Lord will give us the thing that we ask for. I am sure of that.
I am absolutely certain that this weekend, if you and I determine that we are going to have the thing that God has shown us—not something that some guy stood up and said, but the thing that God has pierced your heart with—He will give it to you.
Then all you have to do is walk in it. Christ the Lord.
Let us pray.
Oh, dear Lord, You are such a good God. You have made every provision for us in Christ Jesus. Lord, we do love You, and we do love one another, and we are all such a mess.
How could You possibly love us? Yet, Lord, You proved Your love for us. The Lord Jesus did die, and He is raised at the right hand of the Father, and He does intercede for us.
Oh Lord Jesus, intercede for us even now, that we may have this thing that You have shown our hearts by Your Holy Spirit, that we may be different people.
Lord, let this weekend not pass us by and leave us unchanged. And not just changed, but changed, Lord, for the better.
Oh Lord, we will give You all the glory, for all the glory is Yours. Bless us, Lord, for we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.