Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the necessity of spiritual hunger and the importance of being empty vessels for God's love to flow into our lives. He calls for a deep introspection to identify what fills our hearts and distracts us from a genuine desire for God's presence. The sermon highlights that true love, as exemplified by God, bears all things and requires us to be vulnerable and transparent in our relationships. Beach encourages the congregation to seek a renewed hunger for God, reminding them that love never fails and is essential for spiritual maturity. He concludes by inviting everyone to confess their need for God's love and to pray for a fresh outpouring of His Spirit.

Thank you for your nearness, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for your presence. Lord, we so recognize that you are attracted to true worship. You are attracted to spiritual hunger and poverty. You are attracted to the desperate heart, to the crippled, to the blind, to the lame. Lord, you are attracted wherever there are those who have died to their pride, have died to the concern of what others think and have put on display before you their hunger for you. Oh, God, make that real in us now. Make that real in our heart now. Lord, create hunger in us for you. Blessed are they that are hungering and are thirsting after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Woe unto you who are full. Oh, Lord, help us. Help us in this hour that we live in, Lord, to be emptied of those things that have filled us, that we might be filled with that one thing that alone can satisfy us. I would challenge you now by the grace of God in His presence to ask the Holy Spirit to show you, Lord, what has filled my life of recent time? What has filled me? What has given me a sense of fullness? What has given me a sense of fullness that has, in a very subtle way, taken my hunger from you away? What has given me a sense of fullness, Lord? That's the very thing that stands between you and the intimacy that the Lord longs to have with you. That very thing. Could we ask the Lord this morning? Could you ask the Lord this morning before Him, Lord, deliver me from this fullness. Deliver me from this thing, Lord, that has satisfied me, and it's not you. Lord, heal my heart from this. Lord, I long for the day when my heart yearns after you, when my soul pants after you like a deer in the desert with no water. Lord, I long for the day when I lay my head down at night and I say, Oh, God, oh, God, I am so hungry for you. Oh, God, I'm so hungry for you. I long for your presence. I long for the touch of your Holy Spirit. I long for a greater revelation of you. Lord, I long for the day when I can awake in the morning and the first thing that comes to my mind is, oh, God, oh, God, I need you today. I want your presence today, Lord. Nothing else matters, oh, God. Nothing else matters. Lord, restore back to me, restore back to me, Lord, a sense of hunger. Brothers and sisters, God's Spirit is moving in the land today among those that are called by His name. And He has a searchlight and He's shining that searchlight into our lives, into every area of our life, into every area of our home. And this is what the Holy Spirit is doing. And He's doing it with each and every one of us here. He's discovering those things in our life that has given us a sense of fullness, which has taken from us a hunger for Him. And He's asking us what do you want? Fullness in Him or fullness in something else? He longs to put a hunger in our heart for Him. You remember the story in the Old Testament where the prophet Elijah came to a widow and she had a debt and the creditors wanted her to pay the debt and she couldn't. And they threatened to take her and her son as payment. And she began to cry out. And the prophet Elijah came to her and this is what he said, go into your house and listen. He said, I want you to go to all your neighbors and I want you to collect as many empty vessels as you can find. And the moment she began to collect empty vessels and bring them into her home, oil started pouring into them. And every time another empty vessel came, more oil came. Listen, as long as there was an empty vessel, the oil continued to pour. And then all of a sudden, the widow said to the prophet, there are no more empty vessels, the scripture says, and immediately the oil stopped. Why has the oil stopped? Why isn't there an abundance of His outpouring and His presence? And beloved, I'm not talking simply about here at this time when we gather. I place very little value in any so-called move of God that occurs when saints gather in a particular location that doesn't continue in the car and at home and with one another. And so I'm talking about the flow of oil in your car and the flow of oil at home and the flow of oil in the morning and the flow of oil during the day and the flow of oil at night. The Lord needs emptiness in our lives. Emptiness into which His fullness will ever, ever, ever flow. There's a lot of things that rob us from a sense of emptiness, a sense of desperation, a sense of, oh, God, I need you. Oh, God, I can't live without you. And the Holy Spirit wants to create back in us a hunger for Him. And as soon as that hunger begins to occur, do you know what the Lord does? He begins to give fresh outpourings of His Holy Spirit. Fresh outpourings of revelation of Himself. Fresh encounters with His unspeakable presence. You're never the same. Never the same. Oh, dear Lord, please make us empty vessels. Empty us, Lord, from our pride. Empty us, Lord, from a heart that is pursuing after things and the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches. And, oh, God, put back into us, Lord, a sense of desperation for you, a sense of hunger for you. A sense of, oh, God, I need you more than ever before. Lord, we pray you'll do this in our hearts and in our lives today. Do this in our hearts and lives, Lord, we pray. When the Lord took Israel out of Egypt, they were very dependent on Him. They faced great tests, great trials, great difficulties. And the thing that the Lord was wanting to do in their heart while in the wilderness was put in them an unquestionable realization that they were utterly dependent upon the Lord for everything. And He warned them, and listen to what He said, He warned them and He said, now listen, Moses told them when they stood right at the bank of the Jordan River ready to go in and possess the land of Canaan, He said, beware, lest when you go into the land of Canaan where there's prosperity, where there's a fruitful land, beware at that time, lest you forget the Lord. Lord, your God, have we forgotten the Lord, our God? Oh, God, restore our hearts. Give me a passion for you, a love for you. Help me, Lord. Help me, Lord. Help me, Lord. Heal our hearts, Lord. Heal our hearts, Lord, and put deep hunger in our heart for you. Please, Lord, we pray. He is wonderful. He is so wonderful. Help us, Lord. Let's just in our hearts pray. Oh, Lord, I look to you. I look to you, Lord. I confess, Lord, that I have been filled with things and my hunger for you has suffered. Lord, heal my heart, Lord. Put hunger back in my heart for you like the deer has for water in the desert. Oh, God, call me afresh back into your presence. You have such a longing to fellowship with me, Lord. You have such a longing to make yourself known. Lord, please. Remember a few Sundays ago, the word that we brought was stretch forth your hand. Don't hide it. Stretch forth the withered hand. This is a withered part in all of our lives. This is the greatest battle the church in America is suffering right now. The greatest battle. And that is a battle to stay hungry for God. Not religious activity for God. We don't need God, do we? We don't need him. We've got so many other things that can occupy our heart and occupy our mind, right? Oh, may the Lord, may the Lord himself awaken our hearts to our need to hunger for him. Hunger for him. Offer this part of your life to God. Don't hide it. Offer it to him. Say, Lord, I stretch forth this withered part of my life, my heart that is filled with things that don't satisfy. I offer it to you, Lord. I can't conjure this hunger up. I can't fake it. I can't substitute for religious activity. It's got to come by you, Lord. We give it to you together, Lord. We pray you'll create this in our lives, Lord. And in our homes, what message are you giving to your children or what message are you giving to your friends? You don't have any children. What message are you giving to your friends when they get by you? Do they sense a hunger for God? What do your children see when they watch you? Not what you tell them. What do they see? Do they see a hunger for God that excels anything else? Someday, each and every one of us are going to stand before the Lord. And do you know one of the things he's going to show us? How we affected people. Yeah, that's part of it. The scripture says that when the disciples walked in their world, those who watched them said this. We took note that they had been with Jesus. Who do people take note of when they are with you? Do they sense coming through your personality, coming through the uniqueness of who you are as a person, coming through the uniqueness? Do they sense a hunger for God or something else? What's your life passion? What's your heart passion this morning? What's the most important thing to you this morning? Your career, your future, your reputation? Oh God, make it true in our heart, Lord, by your grace, by your power. I trust we can sense something of the Lord's heart, something of his cry, something of his longing this morning to ignite our hearts with passion for him. Thank you, Lord. Win our hearts today, Lord. Win our hearts today, Lord, I pray. Give us tender hearts, hungry hearts for you. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. We need you today, Lord. We need you today, Lord. Search our hearts. Search our homes. Put passion in our life for you, that we might be a peculiar people that show forth the praises of you who called us out of darkness into your marvelous light. Yes, Lord. May we be a peculiar people, Lord, characterized by hunger for you, hunger that's seen in all that we do and all that we say. Now, we're going to move on here in a few moments, but I believe that if you prayed in your heart during this time and you said, Lord, rescue my heart and my life from fullness, from being full with things other than you. I believe with all my heart today that if you prayed that prayer, God will answer it. So, I want to encourage you to expect him to, okay? Expect him to do that. Expect him to put hunger in your heart for him, greater hunger. How many desires that today? We all do. Hunger for you, oh God. Hunger for you. Now, we have for quite some time been talking about God's love, and we've learned that God's love is very different than our life. It's a different kind of love. It's a different source of love. And we've learned over the months that this love ever being expressed through our lives evidences spiritual maturity. And we've been talking about Hebrews chapter 6, let us go on unto perfection. And we've talked about all the different features of God's love over the past couple months. The very revelation of God's love, the very understanding of God's love necessitates that we be emptied. That we be emptied of our pride, we be emptied of our sense of dignity, we be emptied of our sense of I'm right and you're wrong. In order for Jesus to have preeminence in our life, we must lose preeminence. In order for Christ's patience to be perfected in our life, we must pour contempt upon our conditional patience. The patience that we have when everything goes nice in our way. You know, the fake patience, the human patience. What is God using right now in your life to show you your own poverty? What is He using right now? What is He using? What circumstances? I'll never forget a few years ago when I had chickens. God used chickens to show me my poverty, to show me my tendency to complain. Chickens! What kind of a difficulty are you in? What kind of a situation are you in? What's surfacing? What's coming out of your life from it? Do you like what you see? Does it bother you? Listen, the Lord has got you right where He wants you, right where He wants you. He knows just what it takes to surface in you those attitudes and thoughts and feelings that He knew were there all along. He knew they were there all along. And you say, well, what do I do? Confess it to Him. Acknowledge it. Tell Him. Stretch forth Thy hand and He'll heal you. He'll heal you. He's put you in the cooker. He's done it. And so we've learned about all of these divine attributes. And I love the love chapter. I can't get out of it. I can't get out of it because I find that in it reveals the beauty of Jesus and my heart so longs to know Him. And so we've learned that love suffers long. It's kind. It doesn't envy. It doesn't brag. It's not self-inflated. It doesn't behave itself unseemly. It's not selfish. It doesn't seek its own way. It's not easily provoked. It's not easily irritated. You see why we need Him? It thinks no evil. It doesn't remember. It doesn't take meticulous notes about those who have hurt it or offended it. It releases people. It doesn't hold them. It forgives. We learned that love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth. And during that time we gained insight that when God's love begins to grow in our minds and in our hearts, we cannot be entertained by evil. We cannot be entertained by lawlessness. One of the evidences of the smallness of God's love that's working in the church today is seen by the church's ability to be entertained by lawlessness. To be entertained by evil rather than mourn. You remember what Paul said to the Corinthians? 1 Corinthians 5. He said, It is reported commonly that among yourselves there is a gross sin of fornication. And rather than mourning and weeping and wailing before God and begging God to purge this iniquity out, you're puffed up. He said it doesn't bother you. It doesn't bother you. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. And so Paul actually had to take action and commanded the Corinthians to join together in spirit and deal with this immoral person, recognizing that a little leaven can leaven the whole bunch. How we need God's love, how we need God's spirit, how we need the Lord to make these things known to us. Love is not entertained by lawlessness. Be careful what you watch. Be careful what you read. Be careful what your children watch. Love is not entertained by lawlessness. Now in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we're coming to the closing section of the qualities of love. And we need a special impartation of God's grace this morning because it is the absence of this quality of love that is the root to so many of the problems that are going on in the church today. We just haven't come to grips with the fact that we don't have in ourself what it takes to make it. Look at the person sitting next to you right now. Just look at him. You don't have to say anything to him. Just look at him. Look at the person in front of you. Think of the person that you're with at work. Have you come to realize that without an explosion of God's life and God's presence and God's grace, you will not make it in the long run with that person? You might think you can. You might think you have the goods, but you don't. Some of us have come to see that standing in our own strength and in our own goodness, we miserably fail when it comes to our capacity to walk together with others for any length of time. It doesn't take any grace to go on a honeymoon, does it? No, it's easy. Everything is nice. Everything is hunky-dory. But when the honeymoon is over and real life sets in, we begin to realize our corruption and our brother's corruption. We begin to realize our sin and our brother's sin, and then we are placed into a valley of decision. What will we do? Will we do like the world? See, the world walks together with its own as long as they're in agreement. But when something happens, we're out of there. 1 Corinthians 13, beginning in verse number 7. Love bears all things. This word comes from a word that means to roof over something, to cover. 1 Peter 4, verse 8. Have fervent love one for another. The word fervent there means to wrap around like bark is wrapped around a tree. Have fervent love one for another. Love bears all things. This specifically relates to the divine capacity to put up with, to bear each other's faults and shortcomings. Are we hearing what God's Spirit is saying to us today? Love bears all things. God's love puts up with our shortcomings. God's love puts up with our faults. God's love puts up with us. And without God's love, we cannot walk together for any length of time. What's going on in your relationships? Have you come to the end of your ability to bear? Have you come to the end of your ability to put up as your friend, your spouse, your aunt, your uncle, your mother, your father? Are they irritating you? Thank God for it. Thank God. Thank God that you are being given a divine opportunity to discover your own poverty, your own littleness, your own inadequacy, to demonstrate the capacity to bear with your brother or sister. Thank God you're being given the opportunity. Stretch forth your hand. Stretch forth that withered part in your life. Don't be a phony. Don't be a hypocrite. Don't pretend everything's alright. Tell God. Say, God, I've been discovered. I can't bear this anymore. Be honest. Be transparent. Jesus said, I've not come to call the righteous. Jesus says, I have nothing to do with those who, in hearing my word, stand righteous in their own eyes and say, well, bless God, I don't have that problem. Jesus said, I've come to seek and to save that which is lost. He said, I'm the great physician and I come to heal those who are sick. Adam, where are you? Adam, where are you? Remember a few weeks ago? Adam, where are you? I hid myself, Lord, because I was naked. You see, being naked before God and one another, not physically naked, but spiritually naked, doesn't bring shame to us when there's nothing to hide. When there's nothing to hide. When there's no corruption. But when there's corruption there, we tend to hide, don't we? We tend to sow fig leaves. And when the Lord begins to speak to us, we tend to run behind the trees. Lord, I was afraid. I heard your voice. I was naked and I don't like what I see. I don't like what I see now. Before when I was naked, listen, everything that you are going through right now is being designed by God to show you where you're at and when you see your corruption. And specifically, we're talking about your inability to bear up with your spouse, your mother, your father, your children, the boss at work, the circumstance. When you find an inability to bear up, you begin to get resentful and angry. You begin to get impatient and unforgiving. You begin to say cutting words, don't you? Of course. But here's what the Lord is saying to us this morning. What are you doing with that withered part of your life? Are you hiding behind religion? Are you hiding behind pride? Are you hiding behind religious activity? Pretending everything is okay, when in fact there's a withered part in your life that you won't bring before the Lord. Adam, where are you? Where are you? Listen for him to call your name. Where are you today? Stretch forth your hand. Jesus, thank you for what I'm going through and I found that in myself I can't make it. I've been exposed, Lord. My children. Come on, moms. My children, try me to the max. You don't have to hide this morning. You don't have to hide this morning. You can show forth your crippled hand. You can come to Jesus and say, have mercy on me, thou son of David. I've seen that your word is true. I've seen that I am inadequate. I need your power. I need your spirit. I need your grace. I need your word to become real in my life. Lord, I need a hunger for you. Some of you have been deceived by the wicked one and you have taken your withered hand and you've hidden it. You've hidden it. You're afraid. You're afraid. You're afraid for whatever reason it might be. Don't be afraid. Jesus is saying, don't be afraid. Stretch forth your withered hand. Be vulnerable one with another. Be vulnerable. And Jesus will heal you. So love bears all things. Love believes all things. Hopes all things. And endures all things. Love from God births in our heart of faith toward God. And it is a faith toward God. In the belief that with God all things are possible. So when the scripture says love believes all things, it's signifying that God's love births in us a divine faith that enables us to look to God and say, with God all things are possible. Divine love births in our heart the capacity to believe in the God of impossibility. When we see our corruption, love enables us to look to God and believe that with God all things are possible. God can take this corruption, this earth and flawed vessel, and show forth the beauty of His Son. All things are possible. Love hopes all things. A commentary on that is Romans chapter 4. Abraham believed in hope against hope. When God made a promise to Abraham, and all the circumstances were against him. His wife's womb was dead. He himself was past the age. But yet he had the capacity to hope against hope. He had a hope. Brothers and sisters, you are going to need in your Christian life a hope that is birthed from God. A hope that is ignited by God. Because someday, sooner or later, if it hasn't happened yet, you're going to be put in a situation where all hope is gone. And it's going to look like it's all over with. And if God doesn't come on the scene, you won't be able to go on. And it's at that time that the devil will say, give up. The devil will say, you see, God is not faithful. The devil will say, you see, it's not true. But the Holy Spirit will whisper in your heart, if you will spend time with Him, and He will say, rejoice, child of God, for this is God's hour of victory. There's nothing more that delights Heaven. It's when they see a hopeless situation, confronting one of God's sons, one of God's daughters, and through the power of divine love, they are able to have hope in the midst of hopelessness. Hope in the midst of that situation that seems like all hope is gone. You will be brought to the place someday in your life, if you follow on to know the Lord. You will be brought to the place where there is no hope apart from the God of Israel. No hope. And in this hour of testing, you won't be able to conjure up hope. You won't be able to confess hope. You won't be able to muster it up singing songs. You will be brought to destitute. You'll be destitute. You will have to cry out and say, God, I don't have hope anymore. Birth in me divine hope. Birth in me divine hope. Are you there? Have you seen this yet? Have you touched it a little bit? Thank God for the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Divine hope. Just because something has become hopeless, it doesn't mean God wants you to give up on it. Some of us think that as long as there's hope, we believe. But once there's no longer any hope, then we say, well, it must not have been the Lord. Brothers and sisters, true faith cannot be on display before God and before the world until there's a hopeless situation. The very nature of faith requires a hopeless situation. Why do we feel that when God lets things get hopeless, all of a sudden now He's against us and He's failed us? No! That's the time of Heaven's greatest victory when there's no hope. Some of you base your actions on what you see with your eyes and that's why you're fickle. Back and forth and back and forth. One day you see hope. The next day, you don't see it. One day you have faith. The next day, you don't have faith. You know what God wants us to do? He wants us to realize that we can't live by what we see or what we hear. We've got to live by His Word. His Word. Lastly, and I love this, love never fails. Love never fails. I want to read John 13. Verse 1. This is the greatest commentary on the statement that Paul made in 1 Corinthians 13. Love never fails. Here's the commentary. Verse 1, chapter 13, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father. Listen carefully. Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. Love never fails. Love never fails. He loved them unto the end. He didn't give up on them when He saw in them their corruption. He didn't give up on them when they were arguing who would be the greatest among them. He didn't give up on them when they wanted to call fire down from heaven and destroy the Samaritans. He didn't give up on them when they all forsook Him. He didn't give up on them, namely Peter, when three times he disowned his Lord and Master and cursed. He didn't give up on them when they counseled him not to go to the cross and were being used by the devil himself. He didn't give up on them when they murmured and complained. Love never fails. Love never fails. Love never bottoms out. The word fail means to drop away, to be driven away from one's course, to become deficient. Love doesn't bottom out. Love is in it for the long haul even to the end. This is not in your heart or my heart. Do you know that? This kind of love, listen carefully brothers and sisters, this kind of love does not have strings attached. If it does, then when is the Lord going to cut your string? If you want to love with strings attached, then you tell God that's the kind of love that you want Him to love you with. Conditions? I'll love you if... I'll love you because... Where would we be today if God loved us with those stipulations? Just answer the question. Where would you be today? We need God's love, don't we? We need God's love bursting in our heart, bursting in our life, overcoming all of our conditional love. Love never fails. Now I want to ask you, where are you at today? Where are you at today, beloved? Jesus is here and He wants to give us what we don't have right now. He wants to give us what we don't have. Let's look to Him. Let's look to Him. Father, we thank You for Your Word. Lord, we can trace so many actions and words that we have spoken to other people that have done damage and that have been hurtful. And even to this day, some of the hurts have not been healed in the hearts of those that we spoke these words to. And Lord, we trace it now because of Your Word. We trace it to our lack of unfailing love, our lack of being able to bear all things. We acknowledge this sin and we thank You, Lord, for the grace and mercy and forgiveness that is available to us through Your precious blood. We pray, Lord, that You will heal our heart, enlarge Your heart in ours, enlarge Your grace in our heart. Brothers and sisters, if God by His Holy Spirit has spoken to you today and you want Him to enlarge your capacity to know and demonstrate this divine love that bears all things, that hopes all things, and that never fails, if you want that, I invite you today to respond to God's call. Pray with someone. Pray with someone that you love. If you want to come forward, come forward. But we want to spend the next few moments asking God to do this. Asking God to begin today to enlarge our capacity. There is a healing. There is a freedom that comes when we can see Jesus has what we don't. Jesus has what we don't. Let's pray, Lord. Confess, confess. Maybe the person is not here. Go home. Get on the phone. Begin by confession. Say, Lord, I'm sorry. And brother, sister, husband, wife, mother, father, I'm sorry. I hurt you. I shouldn't have said what I said. I lashed out at you because I just don't know God's love yet the way He wants me to. I'm sorry. Would you pray with me? Because I am determined by God's grace to ask Him to fill my heart with His love. How many have gotten really dirty one time in your life? Soccer, wrestling, football, working in the garden. And on top of that, it was real hot. So you got dirty and sweaty. What did a nice, cool shower feel like? Wasn't that awesome? Well, you know what? You can be washed today. And you know washing begins when you confess your need to God and say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are you used to saying I'm sorry? Or is it hard for you to say it? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you. Then after you say I'm sorry, together, you look to Jesus and say, wash me. Wash me with your Holy Spirit. Wash me with your precious blood. Heal me, Lord. Oh, what can happen. Do you know how to play on the guitar what can wash me white as snow, nothing but the blood? Yeah. She's not here. Let's just sing that song together and listen. It's not even 1230 yet. Let's just hold steady for a few moments. Let's give the Holy Spirit some time here, okay? The invitation is still open if you want to come and pray for washing, for enlargement, for healing. You want this love. Jesus loved them to the end. That's what we need. Let's all sing together with Norm, all right? Let the Holy Spirit move. Come on, anyone else want to come forward and we'll pray together? We need this so badly in our life. Lord, thank you for the cleansing of your blood. Thank you for the washing of your word, Lord, in our hearts and in our souls and in our minds. Together, Lord, we just lift our hands up to you now, Lord. We pray that you'll release us, Lord. Release us, O God, in our hearts, Lord. Release us from our own depravity and our own corruption. Release us, Lord, from our failure, Lord. Release us from ourself and bring us into the wealthy land, into the abundant land of Jesus Christ where there is unfailing love and unfailing mercy and unfailing forgiveness. Lord, we receive it in the name of Jesus. We pray, God, you'll break the power of sin. You'll break the power of Satan. You'll break the power of flesh through the presence of Jesus Christ. Yes, Lord, in Jesus' name, we look to you to do it, Lord. Everyone together now, let's sing this song and let's let him fill us with that great love so it can flow out into our relationships with our families. In Jesus' name, do it, Lord.