In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of love as the universal language that everyone can understand. He shares a powerful story of a Christian prisoner who selflessly sacrificed his own food to feed and care for his non-believing friend, ultimately leading him to inquire about Jesus. The preacher also highlights the significance of being the salt and light of the world, making others thirsty for Jesus and drawing them towards the light. He emphasizes that it is not about us, but about the one who lives in us, and encourages believers to demonstrate the compelling love of Jesus through their actions. The sermon concludes with the preacher suggesting that the lack of witnessing and sharing the gospel may be due to a lack of love, as people naturally talk about what they love.

This morning, the second Corinthians, chapter five. Second Corinthians, chapter five, and. If you've been here since Friday, you know that we've spoken about the attributes of God, we declare different attributes of God, we've spoken about his glory, we've spoken about his goodness. Brother Frank spoke to us about the vastness of God, the glory and majesty of God, the holiness of God. This morning, we're focusing upon the love of God, but specifically the compelling love of Jesus Christ, the compelling love of Jesus Christ. And we're going to read two verses here in second Corinthians, chapter five. Versus 14 and 15, the apostle Paul says in verse 14. For the love of Christ compels us, the love of Christ compels us because we judge thus that if one died for all, then all died and he died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Father in heaven, we ask you once again, Lord, just to take your word and to break it apart and rightly divided and speak to every single one of our hearts. Lord, we don't make light of this. We stand before you and we tremble at your word and we ask that it would go forth this morning with grace and power and authority, that you would speak to every one of our hearts, Lord, that you would baptize us afresh this morning with the compelling love of you, our God, cause us to hear your voice. Lord, I pray that you would stand with me in mercy here, that you would make the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart to be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. Oh, Lord, my strength and my redeemer. I thank you for this, Lord, and I thank you and praise you for the gift of your Holy Spirit, the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Without you, I would run as fast as I could away from here. But I thank you that you are with us. I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. I thank you for your words of life. I thank you that you want to speak directly to each and every one of us this morning, and we're trusting you to do it, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen. Paul says the love of Christ compels us, the old King James says, constraineth us, the love of God, it got a hold of Paul and it's gotten hold of some of us. The love of God is not some theory like Martha was talking about the other night, not just some theory. When you have an encounter with God, you have an encounter with love. He is love. As has been said, he's not just loving. He is love. And when you have an encounter with God, then the love of God will get a hold of you. And that's what he's talking about. The love of Christ got a hold of this man. It compelled him. It constrained him. The word means to compress or to arrest, to be taken up with, to be taken hold of, to compel Webster's dictionary defines compelling as irresistibly or keenly interesting, attractive, captivating. Paul said the love of Christ compels us. The love of Jesus compelled this man to do what he did. He would preach Jesus Christ wherever he had an open door. He said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he proclaimed that any any open door that he had, though it meant suffering for the sake of Christ, though it meant suffering. Five times Paul was whipped by the Jews with thirty nine lashes across his back. Three times he was beaten with rods. Once he was stoned and left for dead. He knew hunger and thirst. He knew cold and nakedness. He had a constant thorn in his flesh that was this constant attack from Satan. Yet they couldn't keep him shut up. They couldn't keep his mouth closed. He proclaimed Christ. He boldly testified of Christ. Why? Because the love of Jesus had gotten a hold of him. The love of Jesus. It was like fire in his bones. It compelled him. It constrained him. He once said in Romans chapter nine that he was willing to be accursed from Christ. I've never been there. I've never been able to say that, have you? He was willing to be accursed from Christ if it would mean that his fellow Jews could be saved. What compelled a man to say such a thing? What motivated a man to say something like this? It was his it was the love of his Jesus. That's what it was. The love of Jesus that was willing to die on a cross for sins he never committed. And he knew no sin and did no sin and yet died for sinners like you and me. What compelled our savior to do such a thing? It was love, pure love. The love of Christ compelled him. The love of Jesus compelled Paul to warn others of judgment to come. Look at verse 10 and 11. He says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord. We persuade men what compelled him to persuade when men what compelled him to warn of judgment to come. It was the love of Jesus. It compelled him to be considered crazy and out of his mind, if that's what it meant. Verse 13, he says, for if we are beside ourselves, in other words, if if you think we're crazy, it is for God. If we are a sound mind, it is for you. Paul was willing to be considered to be a fool. He was willing to be considered crazy. Why? The love of Jesus had gotten a hold of him, was compelling him. Verse 15, it compelled the apostle Paul to never again live for himself. Listen to this, brothers and sisters. We can talk about the love of God all we want. But I tell you, because the word of God tells us that love seeketh not her own, its own. If you love and you walk in the love of God, you do not seek your own. There is nothing selfish about the love of Christ and the love of Christ compels us to do this. Verse 15, he, Jesus, died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again, it compelled him to become an ambassador for Christ and to implore sinners through his preaching to be reconciled to God. Look at verse 20. He says now, then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. That's passion. That's passion, that's what we need, this passion that comes from God and it comes from this compelling love of Jesus. Paul was once a murderer and a persecutor of the church of Jesus Christ. Now he's willing to even be accursed and to lay down his life so that others might come to know his Jesus. He was compelled by love. Luke, chapter 14, if you turn there with me, please. Luke, chapter 14 and beginning in verse 15, now, when one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then he said to him, A certain man gave a great supper and invited many and said his servant at suppertime to say to those who were invited, Come, for all things are now ready. But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, I bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them. I ask you to have me excused. Still, another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out. Quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. And the servant said, Master, it is done as you commanded. And still there is room. Then the master said to the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them. There it is again, compel them to come in that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper. Now. The Lord Jesus is speaking a parable to us here about a great supper where many are invited. This parable is very similar to another parable of Jesus that Matthew records in Matthew chapter 22. He says there that the kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king which made a marriage for his son. He prepared a wedding banquet for his son. And we know that, of course, the the king is God, the father. And he's prepared this wonderful, beautiful marriage banquet in honor of his son, in honor of his son. And we know that from the scripture that Jesus Christ is the bridegroom and we, the church, are the bride of Christ. And the Lord God has making this supper in honor of his beloved son, this wedding banquet. And one day, brothers and sisters, Revelation tells us that we're all going to actually be there at this banqueting table. I want you to think of that just for a moment. In fact, I want to read this in Revelation chapter 19. Just briefly, verse five. It says, then a voice came from the throne saying, praise our God, all you his servants and those who fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude as the voice of many waters and as the sound of mighty thundering saying hallelujah for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready. And to her, it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. So there's coming a day that we are all going to be taken up to be with the Lord forever in a real place called heaven where there will be a marriage supper of the lamb. There's this wedding banquet song of Solomon chapter two, verse four says he brought me to his banqueting house and his banner over me was love. In other words, what was it that compelled the father to prepare this great supper? It was love for his son. What was it that compelled the son to go all the way to the cross in order that you and I might be reconciled to God and invited to this banqueting table? It was love. It was the love of Jesus Christ stepping down from heaven into this sin. Cursed earth was was love. Love compelled him to endure the mocking and the suffering and the scorning and the spitting and the beating. Jesus Christ went all the way to the cross for you, compelled by love. Now, one day we'll sit there and I imagine being there and seeing many of your faces, my brother Frank, we're here, we're here in the presence of glory for all, all eternity. And there's Blaine. He's to be shouting. He's to be rejoicing and praising the Lord on the other side. And there's Alan and Pam and and Corbin. Praise be to God. But I want you to consider something, brothers and sisters. If that were to happen right now. Right now. There's something sad about this picture, you say, what is that? There's something sad about this picture, because until that last and final soul is saved and born again and brought into the kingdom, there are still empty seats around this banqueting table. There is still room. Do you hear what's going on in this parable? The king sends out his servants, invite all who will come, tell them to come in, tell them to come in. They go and they come back and they say to the king with grieved hearts, we invited, but they all made excuses. In essence, no one wants to come. The Bible says that Jesus came to his own John one eleven. He came to that which was his own and his own received him not. He came first and first of all to the Jews. Most of them rejected him. He's extending this invitation daily. The gospel of Jesus Christ is being preached now all over the world. It's being preached and many make excuses. Many reject the invitation. They come back. They say to the king, we invited, but they did not come. And it said the king was angry. He was angry and he said to his servant, OK, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. In other words, whosoever will go get those that that society has rejected, go get the outcasts, go get the poor, the lame, the rejects. God says, I want them. I want them. I invite him and her and I choose this one and that one. I want them all to come. And they go out and they compel them to come in. And even after that, though, they say in verse twenty two, master, it is done as you commanded and still there is room. You've we've got to let this get a hold of our hearts, brothers and sisters. There is still room in heaven. There is still room around that marriage table. And God wants it full. He wants every seat occupied. He wants heaven to be full. This is his will. And you've got to hear this as wonderful as these meetings are remnant, this call to the remnant. You better understand the purpose of it. Yes, it is a time to come together and fellowship because we all need to be sharpened and refreshed. We all need to drink when you've been in a desert. And it is a time to fellowship and is a time to worship together. And is it time to have our hearts just cleansed and purified and and filled up and revived? But you better understand that this is not the end. You better understand that God has a much greater vision and he's given us a commission and he's given us a command. And that is to go because his house, he wants full. There are seats here that are not occupied. There's plenty of room. That's what he's saying here. Master, we've gone. We've gone and still there is room. So this now we come down to really the meat of the message. This is really what I sense the Lord saying, especially to us today. Verse twenty three. This is what applies to us. Then the master said to the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in. Do you hear the heart of God in that? Do you hear the heart of God in that? Is it an invitation that says, oh, if they come, they come. If they don't, they don't. Is that compelling love? What is compelling love? Compelling love is the love the apostle Paul had said. The love of Christ is constraining me to preach this message to you, to plead with you. You've got to meet the one that I've met. You've got to meet the lover of my soul. Like Brother Frank said, we're not just preaching something we haven't seen. If you've met Christ, you're an eyewitness of his majesty. You're one who's not just speaking theory. You've encountered him. You've experienced his love. You've experienced his grace. Some of us he brought out of the gutter. Something ought to be getting a hold of your heart that says, you know what, it's not just about me, God. Yes, he wanted to save me, but he doesn't just want to save me. He wants his house to be full. And this compelling love, he says, go out and compel them, plead with them, preach to them, do whatever it takes that my house may be filled. That my house may be filled. Well. That's what he said, but they had so many excuses and I don't know where I am in my notes. Maybe I should just set them aside. They went to the highways and byways, the highways and byways represent the lowest of the low. Whose only home is the street in the gutter. It's the destitute. It's those nobody wants. It's the outcast of society. The poor and the lonely, the blind, the lame, the tramp, the drug addict, the drunk, the prostitute, the shut in, the oppressed, the downtrodden to all such people. King Jesus says, I'll take him. I'll take her. I invite you and you're invited and I want you. I don't know what that does to my. My Calvinist brothers and sisters doesn't really matter, I see the heart of God in this compelling all who will come, all who will come. And if they won't come, then you go go to the highways and byways so that they'll come go to the broken and tell them that there's room. Yes, they must repent. Yes, they must believe. Tell them to come. The price has been paid. He says all things have been made ready. You know, when they were all made ready, when Jesus Christ on the cross said these three words, it is finished. It is finished. All things are made ready. The preparation is made. The price has been paid. Compel them to come in. Still, there is room. How will such despised and defiled sinners like them ever make it in the same way you and I ever made it in grace, amazing grace, how sweet the sound. There's no difference. There's level ground at the cross. It doesn't matter if he saved you from the gutter or saved you out of out of a Christian home. You were lost and dead in sin. We're all the same. Saved by grace, saved by grace, not of works, lest any man should boast. There's still room. There's room at the cross. There's an empty chair at the table. Therefore, we must go and we must compel them. Did you know that when the Titanic went down in 1912, it had crashed into a large iceberg, this ship that man said even God cannot sink this proud, arrogant man. And the ship crashed into an iceberg and it slowly began to sink. Did you know all the lower class passengers were on the bottom deck? And the first thing that was done when they saw that this ship was going down was they went down and they locked the lower class passengers in the bottom deck. You talk about wicked. And an evil, selfish, self-centered world, and that's what we are without Christ, they lock them down, they lock them in that lower deck, the ship begins to go down and to sink. No one actually thought the big ship would completely sink. So they filled as many of the lifeboats as they could, but only half full with passengers. One boat meant to carry sixty five people only had twenty eight on board. Another one meant to hold forty people only had twelve on board. Over 300 more people could have been saved if they had been filled, if they if they just fill the lifeboats to their capacity and they could have filled them to over capacity. When one of the ships came back to gather up the bodies that were had died and frozen to death in the in the cold water, they were floating because they had life jackets on. They gathered up three hundred and twenty eight people floating in their life jackets, frozen to death. None of them had to die. They died because those who were saved in the lifeboats didn't have any compelling love to go back and get those who were crying for help. They ignored their voices, brothers and sisters. Is that you and is that me wonderful to be in the lifeboat, wonderful to be singing our lifeboat songs and having lifeboat fellowship, but don't lose sight of the fact there's still room and we have a commission and this message is for me as much as anybody else, because I I have been in a season of busyness and distraction and all kinds of other things. And there's something just stirring in me where the Lord is calling me to get back to going, going. There are souls out there. They are perishing. Do you hear their cries? Do you hear the heart of the father saying, go and compel them to come in? I remember hearing a story about a woman who lived during the Holocaust and she was a German and she said they would gather in their church and she said just behind this little church were railroad tracks. And we would hear we would see sometimes these railroad cars going down the tracks and they would be hauling Jews and we would hear these Jews cry out for help. And she said sometimes even when we were in the church house singing, we could hear the train coming and everybody knew who was on board. She said, you know what we did? We just sang a little louder. We just sang a little louder to drown out their voices. Where is the compelling love of Christ? Where is the compelling love of Christ in that? Jesus said, go, there's still room, but just like those of the Titanic, just like those in this scripture in Luke, chapter 14, most everyone has a good excuse. Look at this verse 18. Just after he says, come for all things are now ready, verse 18 says, but they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, I've bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it. What is that? It's the excuse of putting the love of material things ahead of this incredible invitation and call to go to serve the king. Boy, does this apply to me? I've just bought a piece of ground, a small piece of ground. We're moving back from town, back into the country. I hear the Lord saying this to me. Do not allow this to become an excuse not to go or a distraction to keep you from doing what I've clearly called you to do. That's the first excuse. The second excuse, another said, I've bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them. Brothers and sisters, one of the things I'm doing is buying cattle to cattle is here is selling their Lord is speaking to me here, but he's speaking to you also. If it's representing those of you who would put your job or your career or your business ahead of the call of God in your life. No excuses. This. Third excuse, I ask you to get, he says, I ask you to have me excused. Verse 20, still another said, I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come. Third excuse, I'm married. I got responsibilities at home. Yes, you have responsibilities at home. Yes, you are called me and we are called to love our wives as Christ love the church. We do have a priority of raising up these little disciples at home. But I can tell you something, even that can become inwardly focused and self-centered. Even that can become an excuse for you not to reach out to someone who's lost. Excuse after excuse after excuse, and the reason we won't obey Christ's command to go is the same reason many of them would not come in and they're all excuses. We could say, but I don't I don't have room in my busy schedule, we would have room if we would get rid of the worldly things in our lifeboat and make room. How much of what we're living for is temporal? How much of the eternal are we forsaken because we're hanging on to things that are going to burn someday, wood, hay and stubble, and yet we don't have room. Because we're full of the things of the world, it's time to empty that stuff, it's time to come back if we haven't already this weekend to evaluate our priorities. What is God clearly called me to do? And anything that gets in the way of that is an excuse. Call it what it is. The compelling love of Jesus will compel us to get rid of all excuses. Can you imagine what the Apostle Peter would have missed if when Jesus walking by said, follow me and I'll make you a fisher of men? Can you imagine what he have missed if he would have said, Lord, you know, Jesus, I have a pretty good business here. Fishing was his business. Fishing is good now, making quite a bit of money, have a pretty good life. I know if I follow you, it's not going to be easy. There's a cost to following you. Can you imagine if he had given the Lord an excuse? The Lord won't make anybody come in. He will compel you. He will reach out and he will reach out and reach out and reach out and reach out again and again. But there will come a time when he no longer passes you by. And he says, that's enough. And he goes on, he's not going to make you follow him. What would Peter miss that he said, no, I want my nets, I want my boats, I want my life, I want to live for me. He missed it all. He would have missed Pentecost. He would have missed preaching and three thousand coming to Christ. And one day he had to miss walking by in his shadow, passing over a lame sick man and the man being healed. He would have missed so much preaching the gospel. Having the honor of dying for the glory of Christ on an upside down cross, missing right now, beholding the Lord Jesus in all of his glory for all of eternity, that's what he would have missed. How much will it cost you to follow Christ? Somebody says everything. How much will it not? How much will it cost you not to follow Christ eternity? Standing before the one, the lover of your soul and seeing that everything you live for burns up to wood like wood, hay and stubble to ashes. The compelling love of Jesus compels me to be willing to forsake all to follow him and to love what he loves and that his souls, that his people. Dr. G.D. James Kennedy shared one time that there was a lady in New York City named Kitty, and one night outside her apartment building, a man abducted her and began to stab her to death. She screamed, he's killing me. Help me. He's killing me. For several minutes, she screamed. The man finally took off, left her laying on the sidewalk, bleeding and crying for help for 30 minutes or more. She cried for help. The cops arrived. When they did, they interviewed the residents of the apartment buildings nearby and out of the 30 to 40 people in the apartments that they interviewed, people who admitted to hearing her scream and cry for help. Not one of them even bothered to call the police. And when they were asked why they said we just didn't want to get involved. There's no compelling love, Jesus said in these last days, the love of most or many will wax cold. The heart will get hard and we better be see to it, brothers and sisters, that it's not our heart that's being offended and growing cold because iniquity will abound. The love of most will wax cold. Just didn't want to get involved. The reason we don't want to get involved is we don't really care. And the reason we don't really, really care is because we don't know anything of the compelling love of Jesus Christ to know this love. We must first receive it from the Lord and then we've got to let it flow through us from the Lord. If we don't let the love of Jesus, we have experienced the love of Jesus and perhaps even this week been filled with the love of Jesus, a baptism of his love. But if you don't now become broken bread and poured out wine, pouring yourself out, going, going, going, compelling others to come in, letting the river flow, then you become just like the Dead Sea. All the water comes in, nothing goes out, you stagnate and die spiritually. That's what it's like. The river must flow and the more you pour out for others, the more the river will flow through you. I think it's one of the number one reasons many are not filled, continually filled with the Holy Spirit. Why am I not baptized, continually filled with the Holy Spirit? Could it be you're not willing to pour out? You want to keep it all to yourself, me and my family. You will not have the river flowing through you until you're willing to to receive the heart of Christ for a lost world and to begin to serve people and no longer live for yourself, but for him who loved you and gave himself for you. Luke 1910 says the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. He came in a physical body to seek and to save that which was lost. But Jesus is now risen into heaven, sent the promise of his Holy Spirit. And we who are called by his name are called the body of Christ. And his plan is the same to reach the world through the body of Christ. This song by Casting Crowns puts it this way, Jesus paid much too high a price for us to pick and choose who should come. And we are the body of Christ. But if we are the body, why aren't his arms reaching? Why aren't his hands healing? Why aren't his words teaching? And if we are the body, why aren't his feet going? Why is his love not showing them that there's a way go and compel them to come in? One pastor asked me in frustration, Brother Brian, what do I need to do? What do we need to do? Our people don't witness. They don't tell anybody about Jesus. No one is really getting saved. Is it a lack of teaching? He said is a lack of programs. What is it? I said, I believe it's a lack of love. It's a lack of love because you will talk about what you love, you love to fish, you talk about fishing, you love to hunt, you talk about hunting, you love your children, you talk about your children, you love golf, you talk about golf, you talk about what you love. And when you love Jesus, when you fall in love with Jesus, you will speak about Jesus. It's a it's a river that must flow. The love of God cannot be contained. It cannot be boxed in. It has to flow. You love Jesus. You talk about Jesus. You love Jesus. You will also love what Jesus loves. And what does Jesus love more than above all of his creation? People, he loves people, he loves souls, you love Jesus, you will love souls and you will compel them to come in. You will you will you will go just as he has commanded us to go. This is what the world needs to see. Jackie Pollinger, when she was about 18 years old, bought a one way ticket to China. Very little to no money in her pocket. Can you imagine this? An 18 year old girl, no money hardly in her pocket, doesn't know the language, gets on a plane because the Holy Spirit told her to go. And she goes to China, Hong Kong, inside China, the walled city, gang territory, prostitution, drugs, a horrible place of the city to a people. She doesn't even know the language. She went because the love of Christ compelled her to go. She was there permanently. And she discovered after she began to learn the language and whatnot and reach out to people, she discovered, she said. Many of them knew about Christians, but very few knew anything about Jesus. They knew a lot about Christians, even missionaries, but very little about Jesus. She said, I was walking down the street one day, the sewer would literally just flow through the walled city. And there was an old prostitute squatting, just just kind of sitting near the sewage behind her, old, used up, probably diseased woman, untouchable. And Jackie comes up to her, compelled by the love of Jesus, she puts her hands on this woman and the woman was terrified to get her hands off of me. She says, Dearie, you're making a mistake. She's I know who you are. You don't know who I am. Oh, yes, Jackie knew who she was. She says, You're a Christian. You're not supposed to touch people like me. She discovered they knew a lot about Christians and Christians don't touch people like that, but they knew very little about Jesus. She said, I discovered when I read the Gospels, I never could find a place where Jesus went and told the lame or the sick or the blind or the the the sinner that he loved them. But she said, I found many, many places where he showed them. Why did he heal the sick? Because he loved them. Why did he feed the multitudes? Because his heart was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Why did he give living water to that woman at the well that had been married so many times and was a sure enough reject and outcast because he loved her? Why did he not condemn that woman who deserved to be condemned instead, forgave her and said, go and sin no more, because he loved her. He demonstrated love. He didn't just talk love, he walked love. He didn't just talk compassion, he lived compassion. And this is what the world needs to see. Jackie, after being there in the walled city for three or four years, she built a little place for the youth to come and play ping pong and hang out and she could minister to him that way. Well, it was there for quite a while. And the gang members, first of all, were surprised that this missionary hadn't left by now. All the other ones come for a little while and they're gone. This woman has stayed. So they said, there's what we'll do. We'll go in and vandalize that building. They go in and they just destroy the building. And she doesn't have much money and it was heartbreaking, they just destroyed everything and she didn't have the money to repair it. So it stayed that way. She stayed, she stayed and she loved and she preached the gospel. This young woman, one day a gang leader came up to her and said, I've been watching you for nearly four years now. Don't understand why you haven't left. My guys destroyed that building. And he said, I feel bad about it because you've stayed here with these people. He said, I want you to take this money and repair your your building so you can continue doing what you're doing. You're doing a good thing. She took the money and she gave it back to him and said, I don't want your money, I want you. Do you know that man came to Christ? He was born again. That's the compelling love of Jesus. I don't want your money. I want you. I want you to know my Jesus, this boundless love of God that is higher than heaven and deeper than hell that cannot be contained. I want you to know one of the first things that happened to me when I was born again was an overwhelming revelation of the love of God. And I was an angry, angry young man, an angry man, a fighter, someone who was filled with hatred and vengeance and bitterness, unspeakable hatred. And immediately, not not a process immediately, the Lord broke my heart and people that I would have had had murder in my heart for. I began to cry over, go on these long walks and I would start crying and praying. And I remember so many times saying, father, I just want them to know this is let them know this, this love that you have for me, this love that you have for me, God, let my brothers and my and my my brother, my sister, my home, my mom, my dad, my grandma, my aunts, my uncles, the people I go to school with, let them somehow just experience this one time. What was it? The love of God and the love of God constrains us, compels us. This is what the world needs to see. This is when you're sent out from this place, this is your mission church to go and compel them to come to Christ, to come to your Jesus, to come to know him. And not just with our mouths, but with our lives, love is the universal language, that's the language that everybody can understand, everybody can understand love. There was two men in a prison camp, one was a believer and the other was not, and they were both suffering, unspeakable suffering and hungry. And the Christian stopped eating and he started giving his food to his his friend. And his friend later on was dying and he was holding up his head one day, wiping his wounds and feeding him his rice. They said he had to separate the rice from the maggots. He's feeding him the good rice. And he said, now I have to tell you, my friend, about my friend. His name is Jesus. They begin to tell him about Jesus. And this dying man looked up at him and said, is he anything like you? If he's anything like you, then I want to know him. You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. Salt makes people thirsty, does your life make people thirsty for your Jesus? Light take take turn off the lights in here, be pitch black, someone light a match, the tiniest match and everybody's eye will go to that light, light attracts, light draws. You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. It's not really about us, it's about the one who lives in us. And as you begin to go and compel and pour out, you'll see that your heart will begin to enlarge and the river will flow and flow and flow and flow. My appeal to you this morning, brothers and sisters. Is to no longer live for yourselves, but for the one who loved you and gave himself for you. My appeal to you is to take very seriously this call that we heard from God last night in Isaiah, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Who will take very, very seriously this morning, don't do it unless you're serious about it, who will take very, very seriously that call this morning and say, here am I, Lord, send me. What does it take? A baptism of his love, Lord, fill me with your spirit, give me eyes to see people like you see them, give me the compassion of Christ, move my heart, Lord, to see people like you see them. I don't be honest. I don't love people the way you love people. You've got to help me. I've got a lack. You must fill me with your Holy Spirit. When God fills you with his Holy Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad in your heart. It's a baptism of love, the baptism of the spirit is a baptism of love and a river that will flow. Would you come, Aileen? I want you you all to hear this song. This is a this is an appeal. I'm going to read the words and then we're going to sing this together. If the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart, I'm going to ask you to respond, respond to the message. I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry. All who dwell in dark and sin, my hand will save. I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright. Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send? I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have borne my people's pain, I have wept for love for them. They turn away. I will break their hearts of stone. I will give them give give them hearts for love alone. I will speak my word to them. Whom shall I send? I, the Lord of wind and flame, I will tend the poor and lame. I will set a feast for them. My hand will save finest bread. I will provide till their hearts be satisfied. I will give my life to them. But whom shall I send? And here's the chorus. Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, there's only one who can truly reveal your love to us, and that is you. And I pray, God, that you would give us a deeper revelation of your love and you would cause us this morning to hear crystal clear your command to go. To let the river flow. And it will flow naturally when we're abiding in you, when we're full of you, Lord, in the workplace, in the home, at the motel, Brother Frank, at the motel, simply speaking to this soldier from Iraq and the river began to flow. That's what we're asking for, that wherever we go, you would give us divine appointments that you, Lord Jesus, not in a mechanical way, not in some formulated way, but that your love would compel us, that your love would would come forth like a river of living water and touch people and give us the words to say that we would become preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And like Jackie, we would go wherever you send us, be it Hong Kong, be it across the street. Lord, hear our prayer. And I pray that you would help us this morning to respond to your call in Jesus name. Amen. Let's stand together.