“The Depth of God's Love” One Part

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 893 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Tony Talbert: You know I had a thought come to me…I really didn’t want to get up, because it’s easy to sit down there and not say nothing, you know. But I believe the Lord quickened a thought to me. I would say that this whole meeting has been imparting God’s love to us.

( congregational amens ).

You know what He’s been dealing with last night and some tonight? He used Brother Jimmy there and others to speak about a relationship between a husband and a wife. But do you know what God is saying to us? It goes far beyond a relationship of a husband and a wife. If goes far beyond God’s relationship with us. It also goes to us with each other.

( congregational response ).

Listen. The devil is doing all he can do in this hour, and it’s not gonna decrease, it’s gonna increase…to separate, to bring about seeds of discord in our assemblies. God is trying to show us that we need to love one another. I don’t care what thoughts you’ve got. We need to choose not to see the fault but see the Christ in each other.

( congregational amens ).

We need to put the magnifying glass so directly on the positives, the things that are the Spirit of Christ that’s in our brother, that we can’t even see the negative.

( congregational amens ).

We need…beloved, we need Christ in us. Let me read a few things here that just come to me. If this is not the Lord, y’all let me know and I’ll sit down quickly. You don’t need to turn to this. This is in Galatians 6. You can turn there. It’s good. You make sure I’m reading. I might be reading a foreign book here. You don’t ever know.

( laughter ).

I want you to notice the Spirit of Christ here, okay. And listen…let’s don’t let this just slide…we hear these scriptures, but God, I believe, has given us a new revelation tonight. And it’s a revelation that we need to hear. And it’s not just something we need to hear, but it needs to become active in our lives. It was spoken about the marriage. What God has joined together, it says, let not man put asunder, period. Is there any qualifications on that about…they’ve got to be perfect? It says what God has put together, let no man put asunder. We have been put together, have we not?

( congregational amens ).

Which of us…let me ask you a question? It’s been used plenty of times. Which of y’all…I don’t want to…I’m gonna tell you right now, I don’t want to. If God would pull a screen down here and He began to show your life, which of y’all would be proud of it? We stand in the same need of grace.

( congregational amens ).

Why do we lift one man up and bring another down? We’re all in the same boat. We need God’s love to look at us. Listen. When we were yet sinners…He didn’t wait until we measured up. When we were yet sinners, He died for us.

( congregational amens ).

That’s the love that He wants us to have one for another.

( congregational amens ).

His Word says over there. He said…I won’t quote this right, but He said even as I and the Father are one, He wanted us to be one that the world might see. That’s the thing the world can’t produce is unity. Only God can bring two people together. Only God can prosper that. And the God that we serve is able to do it. He’s doing it right now in our midst, beloved. It’s a miraculous thing. Man cannot do it. Listen to this. Brethren…he’s talking to all of us. He didn’t say just the elders. He didn’t say just the spiritual ones…‘cause we’re all susceptible. He says, “Brethren, If a man be overtaken…” (KJV). I’ll say, if a woman be overtaken…if anybody is overtaken in a fault. “…Ye which are spiritual…” It ain’t talking about your walking on…you’re perfect in every way. It’s just that God has given you grace to be able to discern that your brother’s in need, and he can’t see it. So what do you do? Go get a club out and beat him over the head?

-- Congregation: No!

-- Brother Tony Talbert: What does it say?

( congregational response ).

Restore! That’s the Spirit of Christ, beloved. You don’t go rush to him. What happens when we have an injury on our own body? The other parts of the body rush to that…to do what? To restore!

It doesn’t go over there and try to cut the rest of it off. “…Restore such an one…” Listen to this. “…In the spirit of meekness…” It didn’t stop there. It says, “…Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” We’re all in the same boat, beloved. We could be the ones that’s…one time it could be our brother coming to us. And the very next time it could be us going to our brother. That’s what we need, beloved. That’s what the love of God does for a group, for His people. He brings them together.

Listen, let’s turn over to John 8, and then I’ll be done here. I don’t want to muddy the water, but I believe there’s a clarification that God is trying to put an emphasis on not just a marriage, but us walking together as one. John 8, verse 1. I believe this is right. Yeah. “Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees…” This is the spirit we don’t want, beloved. “The scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?” You know what they had? They had murder in their heart.

 ( congregational amens ).

We are in the same place at times. There’s none of us that’s not without that. We need to get enough of God’s love in our heart that we get the murder out.

( congregational amens ).

We begin to consider our brother as our self. “This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.” Thank God Jesus stooped down! When it came to my sins, He stooped down from heaven. When it came to your sins, He stooped down from heaven and He came and He paid the price, because we couldn’t pay it. He “…stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” What do we have, beloved that we can cast at somebody else. The very same thing that we’re accusing them of, we’re guilty of our own self.

( congregational amens ).

Beloved, if we see the love of God, all we want to do is help.

( congregational amens ).

All we want to do is restore. All we want to do is, like the good Samaritan, we want to go and pour in the balm and the oil, the wine. We ain’t worried about the fact of what he looks like, what he did. We want to help. God is here to pour in the oil to us tonight, and the wine. He’s to take us to the end. He pays whatever the price is. He leaves it there, and if there is any more, He’ll pay that too. We don’t have to worry about it. That’s the spirit that we need tonight, beloved, toward one another. God has brought us as a people together. There’s a saying…united we stand and divided we fall. You know where they…I think they got that probably from something in the Word, because there ain’t never been two men in the world without God that ever stood together for nothing. But we have a God…we have a Lord that’s given us revelation in this hour. We need to walk hand in hand with one another. We need to be there if our brother falls, let’s pick him up.

( congregational amens ).

Let’s help him knock the dirt off of him, clean him up. Let’s grab a hold of his hand and let him grab a hold of our hand, because we’re gonna fall, and we’re gonna need our brethren to help us go on.

( congregational amens ).

As the song says, I can’t go on alone. I need the Lord. And it’s got to be Him. It ain’t got to be flesh, but I need the Lord in my brother. God, help us.

-- Brother Benjamin Johnson: Praise God! I appreciate this tonight. I appreciate the truth of the Lord. I tell you what, I was thinking about what Jerry said there about there being a connection between understanding God’s love for us, and our ability to love. There’s more than just a connection. That is everything. That is the foundation. Let’s turn over to 1st John, chapter 3 for a minute. I want to read something here that I think makes it pretty plain how vital that is to walk in what we’re talking about, because it’s one thing to say this is what you ought to do. But, God gives us a foundation for what He tells us. There’s a foundation in the Word that enables us to lay hold of that in faith. That’s why the Word says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word.

There’s a foundation that God gives us for these things. In 1st John, chapter 3, starting in verse 16, it says, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (NIV). Think about that. Now he’s saying, if God hadn’t revealed Himself to man, if God had not intervened, we would not have a clue what love is…not real love. Because ever since the fall in the garden, human nature has been about one thing and that’s self. Now you look over in James chapter 4, and he says, where do fights and quarrels come from? Don’t they come from your own desires? When your own desires rise up in you, isn’t that where fights and quarrels among you come from? And it most certainly is.

And it’s been that way since the garden. That’s all human nature knows. And what men call love is somehow self-serving. It’s self-satisfying. Our love is because it gratifies me. It makes me feel good. There’s something I’m getting out of this. Therefore, I’m willing to commit something to it, because I’m getting out of it. Well that’s not what God’s love is.

This is how we know what love is, that Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, that the very One who had certainly no need of anything…He had no lack. He could have done anything. He could have wiped this creation out after the fall. He could have done anything, but that God sent His Son to redeem man because of the love that was in His heart while man was a rebel. Not because he was seeking him, not because he was trying.

You know you hear that in human dealings trying to work out problems with one another in a marriage or whatever. Well, I’m trying. You give this, and I’ll give a little. Well, we weren’t giving anything, and He came after us anyway. He loved us when we were in rebellion against Him…when we were willing…would have been among them that put Him on the cross had we been there. We very well could have been in that place.

And those people, that people He loved. He set His love on them. It was a choice of His will. That’s exactly what’s been said here. It was a choice that I love you, and I’m gonna work with your heart because I love you. That’s how we know what love is, folks. That’s the foundation, because if we don’t understand His love for us…if we don’t really, and there’s a couple of different ways we could miss that. You could be one that the devil has gotten so beat down and condemned that you feel like God doesn’t love you, that you feel like you’re always right on the edge of wearing out His patience and He’s gonna be done with you.

My God! May we see the depth of His love! Do you think He didn’t know about your need before He called you? I mean, this is a God who knew everything about you. It says in the Word that He has the hairs of your head numbered. You think He didn’t know about this need, or that one, or that one? Does the Word not say that we’ve been predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son? Well, the God about whom Nebuchadnezzar said there is nobody and nothing that can stay Your hand or question what You do…that God said, I’m gonna make you like My Son. He’s able to carry out what He said, folks. He’s able to do what He started.

He knew about you. He loved you anyway. Don’t you doubt the love of God! If He didn’t want to save you, He wouldn’t have sent His Son. You don’t have to get God to save you in the sense that you’ve got to convince Him somehow to please do this for you. If He didn’t want to do it, A, He never would have sent His Son. B, He never would have caused you to feel your need. Do you know if you feel a need for God, that that’s because He has drawn you?

( congregational amens ).

He’s put that in your heart. Do you think He’s gonna put that in your heart only so you can call out to Him, so He can reject you? My God! He does not play games with His children like that. He loves you.

( congregational amens ).

We can have a confidence in the love of God for you. I just hope the Lord will help make this real, because it is. It’s the foundation for our ability to love one another. It’s to see His love for us and to really have a confidence in that. And it says, this is how we know what love is, that He laid down His life for us. But see this is not just education. This is not just theological principle. Okay, He laid His life down for us. It results in something. There’s something that comes because of this, and--and because Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brother. You see that’s the foundation, understanding that He loved us. When we were unlovely He loved us anyway. He set His love upon us.

I want to go over to 1st Corinthians 13 for a minute. Brother Timothy referred to this scripture, and I think it’s appropriate for what the Lord’s saying, because it certainly applies to marriage. It applies to all of our relationships. It always strikes me when I read this and I’m sure you’ve heard this before. It’s read a lot at weddings and all kind of places. In the prior chapter, in chapter 12 at the end he’s talking about people being apostles and prophets and teachers and gifts of healings and gifts of tongues and all these things that are glorified in religion today.

But he says at the end, just before chapter 13, he says, “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” See there’s something a whole lot more important than healing people, and speaking in tongues, and all the other stuff. Those things have their place. They’re for the edification of the body, but there’s something that under girds there that’s a whole lot more important. And if we miss that, we miss everything.

And that’s what he’s getting into here. Paul says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angles, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

You see, that’s what makes it all work. That’s the point. The point is not all these other things. Love is the point…the love of God, because that’s what caused Him to reach out to man in the first place. That’s what undergirds everything. I was thinking about what’s been said tonight. Husbands, if you think that I provide for my family. I make a lot of money. We have a good house, a good car. We always have food on the table. My kids have clothes. If that’s all you have, brother, if you don’t have love, you’re not being a husband according to the pattern of the Word.

( congregational amens ).

If you don’t have love, you have nothing. All that other stuff has its place, and we are to be the providers for our home. But if that’s all you have and it’s not undergirded by love, and not just what this world calls love, but what we just read about over there in 1st John, that love of God, the love Christ demonstrated…if you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. If you think well I’m a good churchgoer. I pay my tithe. I show up every service. I come to the prayer meetings. If this love is not in our hearts, brother, we’re missing something. Sister, we’re missing something.

And that is the love of the Lord to give us this burden tonight, to cause us to feel our own need here, to see our own need. That’s part of what I said a minute ago. There could be a couple of ways we don’t really grasp God’s love. One is if we’re so condemned. The other is if we’ve never really seen our need, if we’ve never really been brought down low enough to see our need and to see yes, I need my brother. I need my brother to come to me. I need help. God, if you left me to myself, I don’t know where I would be. If we don’t that, it’s hard to really understand His love.

Something I’ve said before, until we really see our need and the depth of it we can sing the song Amazing Grace, but His grace isn’t really amazing until you see your need, until you see the depth of it, until you see what Tony talked about. You think about your life. You think about if it was projected for everybody. How would you feel? This is just among people, other people that you know have problems too. You could still point fingers and say well, don’t laugh at me. You’ve got a problem too. We’re talking about before our God, I mean the Holy One in whom there is no darkness at all. My God, we need to see our need. Because if we get that, if we see we’ll be like the servant. Jesus said which of the servants would love his master the most, the one to whom he forgave the most. I tell you what, when we see how much He’s forgiven us, that’s much easier to lay hold of that.

( congregational amens ).

Because if we’re missing that, we’re missing something. And I don’t care what we try to fill it with. We’re real good at it. If the Lord comes and says, I need to work in your heart. You’ve got a need here. We’re real good at substituting something that could fall in this little category right here Paul just talked about. Okay Lord, well I’ll tithe more. The Lord doesn’t want your tithe. Or I’ll go to the prayer meetings more. Well that’s not what He’s after. He’s after working in our hearts. He’s after laying down our lives for one another. That’s what He’s working in us. That’s what He’s saying.

And now Paul goes into a description of love, “Love is patient, love is kind.” Think about this as I’m reading this. Think about…I said this in a service we had recently. Where did Paul come up with this list? Did he just think about it one day and write down…well that’s a positive adjective? I think I’ll just use that. No. See he understood this principle that our love, that real love is the love God showed to us. So we look at Christ, and we see His love to us. We look at the Father. We see His love to His children. This is how we know what love is. Well this is it. This is a description of what was in Christ. This is what He exemplified. This is the love of God towards us. These are its characteristics of real love, not what this world calls love.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” That’s what Brother Timothy was talking about, pride, self-will…my way is right. I can’t be wrong. Well, yes you can, and yes I can. Love is not proud, “It is not rude….” Lord, help us in our communication with one another. And this is especially true in a marriage. The more familiarity there is, the easier it is to lose an appreciation for each other, and you take each other for granted and that respect that you would normally have to another person, it’s more easily lost when there’s a closeness there and you see ‘em every day.

But the Word says that a soft answer turns away wrath. You know how much just one simple principle of when you feel that anger and frustration and it’s on the tip of your tongue…if God can help us learn to bite that, what a difference that can make in our communication. Because you can communicate the very same idea with two different spirits, and you can two very different results.

( congregational amens ).

God, help us to lay down our life and learn to put that to death and say, Lord, let me speak with Your Spirit. Let me speak with Your grace. There’s going to be disagreements. You can’t walk together with other people and not have ‘em. They’re gonna be there. But it’s how do we deal with them? How do we confront that? Well, praise God! There’s a way to do it with His Spirit, and we can have what’s talked about here. “It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” Good Lord, what a principle!

( laughing ).

( laughter ).

What a principle! Just imagine how that would change your relations to people if like every time something happened between you and another person, in your mind it was like the first time it had ever happened. Would that make a difference in the way we deal with co-workers and spouses and kids and everything else? There’s not a person in here that doesn’t need to realize the love of our God for us, and say, Lord, please give me some of that for my brethren, for other people, “…It keeps no record of wrongs.” It does not delight in evil.

Now see this is the thing. God’s love, it’s unconditional, but it’s not unconditional indulgence. There is a time we have to say brother, you’re in the wrong. There’s a time for correction, for what Tony said. There is a place for that when that needs to be done, because love doesn’t delight in evil. You don’t love somebody if you let ‘em go on. If you see the enemy gaining an advantage and we don’t do anything about it, that’s not love. That’s self-seeking, because it’s easier for me to sit here and do nothing about it and let somebody else take care of it. That’s not love. But we do have to deal with these things sometimes.

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” But see here’s the key, “It always protects.” That’s what the dealing with and the judgment that has to take place and the cleansing that takes place among us, that’s what it’s for. It’s to protect. “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” Praise God! He goes on to say some other things, but I think that’s sufficient. I just wanted to reiterate that. That is the foundation, and if you find yourself having trouble with somebody, I’ll tell you what, go and dwell on the love that God has had for you.

( congregational amens ).

Go and take an honest look into the mirror of the Word. See what He’s forgiven you of. God, help me. I stand in need of it as anybody. See what He’s forgiven us of. See His mercy and His love towards us. Ask Him to put that in us, because we can’t do it. That’s the reason the Lord would have a service like this. Why would He come down and make this an emphasis? When we have a service He doesn’t just kind of get taken by surprise and say, oh it’s time for a service and go spin the wheel of fortune of spiritual topics and see what it lands and say here. That’s not the way it works. That’s because He looks into the heart. He’s the only one that can.

( congregational amens ).

I can’t even look in my own heart. The Word makes that plain. I sure can’t look in yours and see your need. But there’s One that does. And He sees the need, and then He gives the Word that ministers faith. And there’s life and there’s Spirit in it. And it does something. It helps us. It gives us something to stand on. And the Lord’s given us something to stand on tonight, because He wants our homes to be in harmony and unity and walking in the Word. He wants us one with another. But I tell you what. It doesn’t just stop there. This has to do with how we relate to people of the world. Don’t think that because somebody doesn’t know the Lord, you’re off the hook and you can act any way you want toward them, ‘cause they’re not a brother. Oh my Lord! Is that the Spirit of Christ?

( congregational response ).

No! He couldn’t agree with the evil and He stood against it. But I tell you what, He had a compassion on every person He met. There was a tenderness in His heart for those that would receive it. He had the grace of God with every one He dealt with, and that’s what God wants us to have. I just appreciate Him so much tonight. God, do this work in my heart. Do it our hearts, because how else is the world gonna see it? How many things…just like what was read about the woman there taken in adultery. They were ready to murder her just like was said. But after Jesus said what He did, it said from the oldest to the youngest, every one of them went out. They were convicted.

God confronted them with His love. It wasn’t with anger. He didn’t have to yell at ‘em or try to beat ‘em off or anything else. God just showed His love, and then every one of ‘em got convicted by that, and they had to turn and go. That’s how God wants to deal with this world through us. He wants to show His love through us that they could be convicted and say, my God. How can they act like that? How can they be like that? I’m not. How can they? I want that. I want that peace. I want something there. That’s what He’s working in us. I just praise Him. He is so worthy tonight.

( congregational amens ).

May God give us this tenderness to see His love for us more clear that we might have it for each other. Praise God!

( congregational amens ).

-- Brother Jimmy Robbins: I don’t want to leave anyone out. Is there someone else that you have a quickening and you really feel like you need to give it out? Is anybody…anybody? This has been a wonderful service.

( congregational amens ).

It’s been a wonderful meeting. I believe that the Lord has got His finger right on the place that it needs to be, and I thank God for that. We’re going to grow and learn more and more as we go along how to love one another and that’s a beautiful thing. It really is.

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