This sermon delves into the importance of love as the primary focus in the operation of spiritual gifts within the church, as highlighted in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. Paul emphasizes that without love, all other gifts and actions are meaningless, stressing the need for genuine love to be the driving force behind our words and deeds. The message challenges believers to examine their hearts, prioritize love above all else, and actively demonstrate love through forgiveness, reaching out to others, and serving those in need.

Paul uses three chapters, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 14, to talk about a lot of these gifts that supposedly some people say are not available today, but he uses the whole chapter. Chapter 12 is about unity of the spirit. There's one spirit, but different giftings, different gifts in the body. Is the hand an eye? Is the eye a foot? No, there's different giftings. He's talking to the church in Corinth, and then he goes into chapter 13, stating that love is the primary thing that should be sought. Though I speak with the tongue of men of angels, if I don't love, I have nothing. And then in chapter 14, the whole chapter is about how these gifts should operate in the church, and I'm not prepared to cut those chapters out. You say, oh, no, that doesn't happen anymore, just because of people abusing something. And it's interesting, those who have truly experienced the Holy Spirit know that there's something, there's a distinction, there's a difference that takes place. I don't even know how much time I should spend on this, but one thing that really stood out was when Paul was talking to the church, he said, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts, and yet, I show you a more excellent way. I almost stopped the sermon on Friday and rewrote the whole thing. This really jumped out at me. Now, two things, I want to encourage you to read 1 Corinthians this evening, 12, 13, and 14. Those three chapters, takes you about 12 minutes. Read slowly, 12, 13, 14, you'll get this whole thing in context. But Paul says, are there apostles, church planters, are there prophets, those who are proclaiming God's truth? Do they have these gifts, and these gifts, and these gifts? Paul said, this is interesting, he said, it doesn't really matter unless you have love. Wait a minute, what I'm doing right now does not matter if I don't have love. You can have a PhD in systematic theology, I don't even know if they give it, but it sounded good. You can have a PhD in this, you can preach as good as D.L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, and Billy Graham. And it will not matter if you do not have love. Boy, that will make you reevaluate your entire life. Because Paul said, you can speak the tongue, the tongue of men and of angels. What does that mean? Well, let's just say, it doesn't matter if you're a wonderful speaker, or if he's referring to tongues. I don't know, it doesn't matter. But he's saying, you can be a wonderful speaker, you can speak profoundly and prolifically. It doesn't matter if you don't have love. He said, you can have great faith to understand all mysteries. You are a man or woman of faith, have you ever heard that? Oh, you're so godly, you have all these faith, all these giftings. It doesn't matter if you have not love, it profits you nothing. And then he goes on to say something that is literally, it's almost unbelievable. He said, you can give your body to be burned. You can give all of your possessions away, and it profits you nothing. Unless you have love. Now, if that's not convicting, you need to hear this. Because love can dwindle, love can fade away. What he's saying is, it does not matter. I don't care how gifted you are, I don't care about your education, I don't care about your job, I don't care about your position at the church. You are a sounding brass and you're making noise if you have not love. If you have not love, it profits you nothing. Actually, I think, let's just close on that. I feel like worshiping now. Because, let's go ahead and have the worship team back up. The thing about love is it doesn't come naturally. I'm just going to be honest with you for a minute here. Love does not come naturally. Not even in you, Shane? No. It doesn't. I have to love the unlovable. I have to reach out to people that my flesh doesn't want me to reach out to. I've got to forgive people that I don't want to forgive. Because it's that flesh who hates God and hates the things of God, and it's the Holy Spirit saying, Shane, do this. It's that still, small voice saying, Shane, do this. And He's doing the same thing to all of you. When are we going to apply the songs that we sing? You can't say, I surrender, if we're holding on to all these things. It's impossible. You might as well go out there, get your heart right in the prairie there, and then come back in and worship. Because sometimes we're in self-denial mode. We think we're worshiping, but we have no love. When was the last time, let's look a little deeper, when was the last time we reached out to those in need? Right now we have six hospital homes. There's 30 patients right now who just want to meet somebody, talk to them, have them pray with them. We don't have enough helpers. What about people, unforgiveness and bitter, we'll leave here. We'll leave here with unforgiveness and bitterness for the next year. We'll leave here, and I don't care. I don't care what Shane said. If you have not love, it profits you nothing. So I would just encourage all of us to get our hearts right this morning. I think that was the whole point of this sermon, because the first 20 minutes of this sermon stinked. Is that the right word? I don't want to say what I'm really thinking, but it was not good. I was praying, Lord, if you don't move, I just want to walk away from here. They need to listen to the first service on video, not this one. Because I was getting off track of where God wanted us to go back on the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit and love. And I probably should have changed this whole message back to that on Friday. Because that's the thing we need to deal with. Because when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you will love people. You might as well try to stop Niagara Falls. It comes out. So the reason we're not loving is because we're not filled. The reason we're not filled is because we're not surrendering. We're not surrendering.