Praise the Lord, this morning, for the word
that has already come to us.
We, um, I feel like we've been well
fed, already this morning, with the word of
the Lord.
You know, when Jesus was talking and answering
questions to the Pharisees, they asked Him what
the greatest commandments were, there in Matthew chapter
twenty-two.
And Jesus very wisely said to them there,
that there are two.
He said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy
soul, with all thy mind, and all thy
strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself.
And then He said these words.
He said, Upon these two commandments hang all
the law and all the prophets.
And I believe what Jesus was saying when
He gave those two commandments, He was basically
saying that you can trace every commandment, every
principle, in the word of God and find
it touching those two things right there.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all your heart, and thou shalt love your
neighbor as yourself.
Upon these two commandments hang all the law
and all the prophets, and I believe even
all the principles in the New Testament hang
upon those two.
Very simple.
I believe if you take those two commandments,
and you don't have a Bible, and you're
stuck somewhere where there is no Bible, you
take those two commandments, and you meditate upon
those, and you filter your life through those
two commandments, and I believe God will teach
you how to live, and how to serve,
and how to love Him, and how to
live in the midst of the people where
you find yourself.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself.
Well, this morning, Brother Paul took care of
the first commandment, and I'm going to take
care of the second.
So we're going to get the whole thing
in one Sunday morning service.
Paul told us we're to love the Lord
our God with all of our heart.
And that's right.
That's a commandment.
We're going to face that commandment someday, every
one of us.
We're going to face it.
Just as real as anything you've ever faced,
we're all going to face that commandment.
And in that day, all of our excuses
will just flitter away, every one of them.
We're also going to face the other one,
just as surely.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
So I'd like us to open our Bibles
this morning, as we just continue the sermon
on, to 1 John.
You can turn there, 1 John, chapter 4.
I want to talk to you this morning
about living for others, living for others.
This sermon could change your life forever.
Absolutely.
If you will grasp what I'm going to
tell you this morning, and make it a
part of your life, you will never be
the same.
What you do with what I'm going to
tell you this morning will affect you all
the way into eternity.
Nothing changed my life more than what I'm
going to tell you today, except the fact
that I got born again 30 years ago.
Living for others is 50% of the
Christian life.
50%.
That's a lot to miss, isn't it?
50% of the Christian life is living
for others.
So this morning I want to talk to
you about an addiction that I've had for
a lot of years.
I don't know if you understand what I
mean by that, but that is a Bible
word.
You'll find it in the New Testament, 1
Corinthians, chapter 16.
And it means exactly what it means to
us, as we're here today.
We understand the word addiction.
It's a very common word in our American
society.
But it's also a Bible word.
I'm so glad that God put it in
the New Testament.
Because, you know, I used to be addicted
to some things.
Alcohol, drugs.
I was addicted to them.
They had me.
I was out of control.
They controlled me.
It was those addictions that brought me to
the end of myself and brought me to
the place where I said, Okay, I need
help and I don't know where to look
for it.
Well, once an addict, always an addict.
You know, they used to say that of
me when I was a young Christian back
home.
They said, Yeah, well, he was a hippie.
Hippies are extremists and now look at him.
So, once an addict, always an addict.
It happened about 28 years ago, the first
time that I realized that I was addicted.
And it does take us some time to
learn that we're addicted.
And it took me a couple of years
in my Christian life before I realized that
I am hooked.
And I don't think I can get loose.
The story begins with me and my addiction
when I went away to Bible school.
I don't necessarily believe in Bible schools.
I believe they were raised up because the
church is failing miserably to raise up leaders
from among them.
And the setting that I was in, if
you love the Lord and you want to
serve Him with all your heart, they send
you away to Bible school.
So, I went to Bible school.
Sorry about that, if that offends you, but
I went to Bible school.
And when I showed up at the Bible
school there in Hammond, Indiana, not too far
from here, they had all these registration lines
and you went through the line and you
signed up for this class and you signed
up for this class.
And in the midst of all these classes
that I was signing up for, there were
these two little desks and they had a
sign over them and one of them said,
the bus ministry.
And then the other one said, Sunday school
classes.
And as I was there, you know, I'd
never been there before.
I mean, hey, I was only six months
old in the Lord.
I just learned how to sit on chairs
instead of on the floor with my legs
crossed, you know.
I didn't know a whole lot.
And I went there to that Bible school
and I needed it.
I really did because I didn't know a
whole lot about the Christian life.
But they told me, these are two lines
that you have to get into.
If you don't get in these lines and
sign up for the bus ministry, and if
you don't get in this line and sign
up for a Sunday school class, you can't
go to this Bible school.
Hey, I didn't know any different.
So I said, fine, no problem.
I got in the line and went up
there and they signed me up.
And they said, you're on this bus route
and you'll be in this Sunday school class.
You'll be teaching a Sunday school class and
you're going to be working on this bus
route.
This will be your bus captain.
He's in charge of you.
And you'll be working on Saturdays and you'll
be working on Sundays in this bus route
and teaching these children in the Sunday school
class.
And I said, okay, thank you.
And that was it.
I didn't know what I was getting into.
All I knew was, if I want to
go to this Bible school, I have to
do these things.
So I just did it.
I said, okay.
It changed my life forever.
I'm telling you.
It changed my life forever.
My weekend
started at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning
with a prayer meeting for all the little
children that rode my Sunday school bus.
6 a.m. Saturday morning.
After that, we had a bus worker's meeting
which lasted about an hour and a half.
Then we jumped in our cars and drove
for an hour and 20 minutes all the
way up to the ghettos of Chicago.
North Chicago ghettos is where my bus route
was.
There's a lot of ghettos in Chicago.
If you've ever been there, it's an awesome
sight.
You stand in the middle of those ghettos
and you look every direction you can look.
And all you see is row after row
after row of 3 and 4 and 5
story apartment houses as far as you can
see in every direction.
That's the way it is there.
We got up there in the North Chicago
area about 10 a.m. on Saturday morning
and we spent the day up there knocking
on doors.
Up and down the stairs we went and
we knocked on the doors and we visited
with the children and we begged the moms
and dads to let us take their little
children to Sunday school and could they ride
the Sunday school bus.
And sad to say, it wasn't hard to
get those children.
I mean, those parents were very glad to
get rid of their children and have a
babysitter for their children for a whole day
on Sunday.
So it wasn't hard to get the children
to come on the Sunday school bus.
But we spent about 10 hours up there
doing that from, oh, 10 a.m. and
got home about 10 p.m. on Saturday
evening after visiting all day long, being the
only papa that most of those children ever
had.
Up and down those steps we went.
I mean, I went into places that gagged
me.
I almost vomited for the smell that I
smelled in some of those apartment buildings.
I stood in apartment buildings where cockroaches crawled
all over the place and gave me the
creeps while I stood there trying to visit
with somebody and the cockroaches were jumping around
all over the place, you know.
That's the way it was there, but that's
where the people lived.
And by the way, they still live just
like that today.
Just like that.
Sunday morning we got up at 4 a
.m. and went to the bus barn.
Went to the bus barn at 4 a
.m. All the buses were broken down.
I mean, they hardly ran.
We had to get there at 4 a
.m. to make sure the thing was going
to run to get to Chicago, which was
a one-hour drive.
Get there and crank that thing up and
put the jumper cables on it and go
get the mechanic and get your hands in
there and get them greasy and finally you
get the old bus running again.
Hallelujah.
You may think I'm crazy, but I laid
my hands on the hood of my bus
a whole lot of times and prayed a
prayer and said, God, would you please make
this bus start and it started.
You may think I'm crazy, but I did
it.
And if you ever had a hundred Chicago
bus kids on your bus on a hot
Sunday afternoon on the freeway with a bus
that's broken down and those children are crawling
over the seats and you don't know what
to do with them, they're used to a
TV set all day long and you have
nothing to entertain them with, you'd put your
hands on that bus and pray for it
too.
And many a time I saw that bus
go vroom.
Hallelujah.
Down the road we go.
Hallelujah.
Praise God.
So anyway, about seven o'clock we got
the buses all going and we pulled out
of the bus barn and headed for Chicago,
which is a one-hour drive.
And we hit the streets running to pick
up all these children.
We had one hour to get a hundred
children on our Sunday school bus.
And many times they were not ready and
sometimes you had to go in and help
them get dressed and find the diapers for
little Johnny, the two-year-old, that's going
along with Susie that's five.
And all those things.
I mean, I did you name it.
I did it.
By 9 or 9.15 we had them
all on the Sunday school bus and then
it was an hour's drive back to Sunday
school and we preached to them and we
taught them how to sing and we helped
them memorize Scriptures and we just poured our
lives into those children all the way to
the church.
Then it was Sunday school class and we
taught them Sunday school classes.
I mean, there were thousands of these children
that we worked with.
I mean, it wasn't a shock at all.
There would have been some Sundays we had
10,000 of those ghetto children in the
Sunday school classes on Sunday morning.
There were times when I preached to 3
,000 junior age children.
That's 8-year-olds to 12-year-olds.
And these aren't children that have been taught
to sit like your children have been taught
to sit.
These are children that have been watching TV,
you know.
Every 15 seconds the TV changes a scene,
you know.
And I used to preach to those children
and hold their attention for 25 or 30
minutes in children's church.
When we got done, we loaded them back
on the Sunday school bus and took them
all the way back to Chicago.
And after we got them back in Chicago
and dropped them all off, then we turned
around and went back through our bus routes
again and picked up all the ones that
wanted to go back to church on Sunday
night.
Drove all the way back down to Hammond,
Indiana.
Went to church.
The church service got over at 9 p
.m. Loaded them back up on the bus,
took them all the way back up to
Chicago and dropped them all off.
By the time we got them dropped off,
it was about 11 o'clock on Sunday
evening.
Then we all loaded on one bus and
preached to each other all the way home,
Brother Jason.
We had a ball.
It was fun.
We were just a bunch of young preachers
and we just preached to each other all
the way home.
Got home about 1 o'clock in the
morning on Monday morning and I had a
class at 7 a.m. every Monday morning.
There were times when my wife had to
grab my foot and pull me out of
the bed.
I was so tired for all the things
that I had been through.
I was exhausted.
But she got me out of bed and
I went to class.
I did that for three years while I
was in Bible school every Saturday and every
Sunday.
And I loved it.
I loved it.
It hit me one Sunday morning.
I was running down Kenmore Avenue.
That was where my bus route was.
Picking up children, going ahead of the bus
by about one block and making sure all
the children were ready.
And this one was there and this one
was there.
And I was so excited to see that
that one made it out and that that
was there.
And I was running down the middle of
the street and all of a sudden it
hit me.
It hit me.
I love this.
I'm so fulfilled.
I've never been so fulfilled in all my
life.
That was the first time I recognized that
I was addicted.
That I was addicted to something.
I've never gotten over that addiction in all
these years.
I learned a poem.
Paul tried to quote it.
He didn't quite get it right, Paul.
I learned a poem in those days that
stuck with me so clearly.
It goes like this.
Lord, let me live from day to day
in such a self-forgetful way that even
when I kneel to pray, my prayer will
be for others.
Others, Lord.
Yes, others.
Let this my motto be.
That while I have lived for others, I
will have lived like Thee.
That bus route changed my life.
I can't begin to tell you what it
did to me.
You know, you know a different Denny Keniston
than what those bus routes saw when I
got on that bus the first time.
I was so afraid of people.
I was so insecure.
I was an introvert.
I couldn't say five words without being gripped
with fear.
I mean, when I walked down the hallways
of that Bible school, I kept my nose
on the ground because I knew if I
caught somebody's eye in the hallway, they might
talk to me and then I'll have to
say something back to them.
So the best way to get from class
A to class B was just to walk
with my head down and that's how I
went to class.
But I had to work on the bus
routes or out of school.
And I had to teach the Sunday school
class or out of school.
So I got in there and I did
it.
The first time I stood up in front
of those 100 children on that bus route,
I just froze.
I couldn't hardly say anything.
But you know what?
I learned to preach on that bus route.
I learned to preach with a bunch of
little children this big.
That's why I learned to preach.
I learned to give simple illustrations to a
bunch of little children this big.
I learned how to hold their attention so
they would listen to me and hear me
when I told them about Jesus.
That bus route changed my life.
When I look back on those three years
of my life, they are some of the
sweetest memories of my Christian life.
We didn't read the Scriptures yet, did we?
1 John, let's read.
1 John, chapter 4.
And if you'll allow me, I'm going to
cut this sermon a bit because of time
here.
I had in mind to read 1 John,
chapter 4.
The verses we're going to read twice.
But I'm just going to read them once
for the sake of time here.
And you let me read it.
Let me just replace one word with another
word so we can understand a little bit
more what love is all about.
See, love kind of floats around up here
for a lot of people.
When love doesn't really float around up here,
love is right down here where all of
us live every day.
1 John, chapter 4, verse 7.
Let's read.
Beloved, let us live for others.
Will you allow me to do that in
the places where it says love?
I'm going to put a different word in
there.
Beloved, let us live for others.
For living for others is of God.
Dear brothers and sisters, living for others is
of God.
And everyone that liveth for others is born
of God and knoweth God.
He that does not live for others knoweth
not God.
You chew on that a while.
You chew on that.
He that does not live for others does
not know God.
For God is love.
God lives for others.
It's His very nature.
It's who He is.
It's not something that He does.
It's who He is.
God is love.
In this was manifested the love of God
toward us because that God sent His only
begotten Son into the world that we might
live through Him.
Hallelujah!
Herein is love.
Not that we love God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son to be
the propitiation for our sins.
This is what love is.
God gave His only begotten Son for others.
Brothers and sisters, God gave His only begotten
Son for others.
Why?
Because God is love.
Beloved, verse 11, if God so lived for
others this much, we ought also to live
for others.
No man has seen God at any time.
If we live for others, God dwelleth in
us and His love is perfected in us.
Now, there's a jewel in there and I
don't have time to mine it here today,
but you just ponder that statement right there.
If we live for others, God dwelleth in
us and His love is perfected or matured
in us.
You know, lots of people think, and it's
a wrong concept I believe, lots of people
think, when I get mature, then I'll start
to serve God.
And the fact of the matter is, not
until you start to serve God will you
ever get mature.
The fastest way for you to grow up
in the Lord Jesus is to go give
your life away for others.
And some people will sit for years waiting
until maybe they get mature enough, you know,
so that they can go serve God some
way.
And you know what?
They don't grow.
I believe that's the reason why the American
churches are cursed with millions of bench setters.
The preacher does all the preaching.
He does all the counseling.
He does the Sunday school class.
Everybody else just sits and listens.
And they don't grow.
I don't believe in that.
I mean, I'm for stretching every child of
God into some kind of service that they
can begin to grow.
If we live for others, God dwelleth in
us and His love is perfected or matured
in us.
That's how it happens.
See?
That's how it happens.
Hereby know we that we dwell in Him
and He in us, because He hath given
us of His Spirit.
And we have seen and do testify that
the Father sent the Son to be the
Savior of the world.
Hallelujah!
Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son
of God, God dwelleth in Him and He
in God.
And we know and we have known and
believed the love that God hath to us.
God is love.
And He that dwelleth in love, living for
others, dwelleth in God and God in Him.
Remember, we're talking about half the Christian life.
Just reason with me a bit this morning
here.
If God said, Thou shalt love Me with
all your heart, and thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself, God tied those two together
and dear brothers and sisters, they are tied
together.
And you won't last long on one if
you don't follow the other.
I don't believe you can.
Lord, let me live from day to day
in such a self-forgetful way that even
when I kneel to pray, my prayer will
be for others.
Others, Lord!
Lord!
Yes!
Others!
Let this my motto be, that while I've
lived for others, I will have lived like
Thee.
And oh, brothers and sisters, didn't He walk
that way?
If we say we abide in Him, we
ought also to walk, so to walk even
as He walked.
Isn't this how He walked?
Jesus lived for others.
That's what His whole life was about.
He loved His Father with all of His
heart, soul, mind and strength.
And He lived for others all of His
ministry days.
That was it.
Pretty simple, isn't it?
Well, that joy that I began to taste
there as I was running down the street
there on that bus route, that joy, that
fulfillment, that growth in God's love became an
addiction to me.
And it is an addiction today.
Are you addicted?
Sometimes people come to me when we're having
a lot of meetings and I'm preaching a
lot, and people come to me and say,
Oh, poor Brother Denny, I mean, you're preaching
again.
You must be tired.
You must be this.
You must be that.
And I just tell them, Hey, you got
it all wrong.
Don't you feel sorry for me.
I'm having fun.
This is not a big burden to me.
I'm having a blessing.
You know why?
Because it's more blessing to give than it
is to receive.
So, I'm getting more blessing than you are.
Did you ever think of that?
I'm getting more blessing than you are.
I mean, I didn't think, Oh, no, I
have to get up here and preach again
this morning.
I'm getting more blessing than you are.
You get less blessing, but I get more
blessing giving.
And because of that, I'm addicted.
I can't live without it.
I don't know what I'd do.
I don't know what I'd do with my
life if my life wasn't filled up the
way it is with all the things that
God has filled in me.
I don't know what I'd do.
I don't know if I can make it.
The life of the Lord Jesus was a
life of living for others.
Hear the words.
Out of Luke, I believe, is where it
came from.
He came not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, to live for others, and to
give His life for others.
A ransom for many.
That's why He came.
That's why He left us here, friends.
That's why He left us here.
John chapter 15.
Shall we turn there just for a minute?
Let me show you what Jesus told His
disciples.
Last words of Jesus.
John chapter 15.
John chapter 15 verse 9.
As the Father hath loved Me, so have
I loved you.
Continue ye in My love.
If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide
in My love.
Even as I have kept My Father's commandments
and abide in His love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that
My joy might remain in you, and that
your joy might be full.
That's what I was experiencing that morning.
I was running down that street on that
bus route.
Verse 12.
This is My commandment that ye live for
others as I have lived for you.
This is My commandment.
John 13 verse 34.
A new commandment I give unto you, that
ye live for others as I have lived
for others, that ye also live for others.
By this shall all men know that ye
are My disciples if you live for others.
And I'm taking the liberty here to put
that little definition in there wherever the word
love is.
But are you grasping what God is saying
there?
Jesus is saying this.
I abided in My Father's love because I
live for others.
That's what Jesus is saying.
I mean, look at the power, the joy,
the blessing of the life that flowed into
Jesus from His Father.
Where did it come from?
Oh, He got all that because He's the
Son of God.
Now, that's not what He says here.
He says here, that love from My Father
flowed into Me till it was full and
running over again and again and again because
I lived for others.
Secret!
Wake up!
Wake up, dear people!
Wake up!
And I don't mean if you're sleeping in
this tent this morning.
I mean, did you hear that?
Did you get what I just said?
A new commandment I give unto you.
Live for others.
That's the new commandment.
I have loved you, says God.
I sent My Son to die for you.
I have bought you.
I have sought you.
I have drawn you.
I have redeemed you by the precious blood
of the Lamb.
Now, go live for others.
That's why we're here.
You know, many times, the evil words of
men often are words of commendation upon the
people of God.
I mean, you know, they called the Methodists,
Methodists.
It was a derogatory word.
The critics called the Anabaptists, Anabaptists.
Rebaptizers.
It was a derogatory word.
Listen to the words of condemnation that came
out of those who surrounded the Lord Jesus
when He was on the cross.
Listen to their words.
He was hanging on the cross.
They were looking there up at Him.
They were mocking Him.
They were making fun of Him.
And they spake some of the sweetest, most
commending words that they could have ever graced
upon the Son of God.
They looked up at Him and said, He
saved others!
Let Him save Himself.
That's right.
He saved others.
Only thing is, they didn't understand what He
was doing up there.
Let Him save Himself?
He will not save Himself because He's going
to save others and that's why He's hanging
on that cross.
But their testimony, their critical testimony of His
life while they watched Him, while He walked
upon the earth was, He saved others!
What a beautiful testimony to crown the King
of kings and the Lord of lords with.
While He's hanging on the cross, He saved
others.
But then they went on to say, Himself
He cannot save.
But they didn't have that one right.
It is Himself He will not save.
That was it.
Jesus said, He that saveth his life, who
lives for himself, who saves himself, shall lose
it.
But Jesus also said, He that loseth his
life, who lives for God and for others,
guess what?
You will lose your
life.
Look up here.
Let me tell you this morning.
That's my testimony.
I found my life.
And dear brothers and sisters, I didn't find
my life just hiding in a closet talking
to God, although I believe in hiding in
the closet and talking to God.
I found my life by losing my life,
giving it away.
That's how you find it.
You don't have to be some preacher to
do that.
Every one of us can lose our life
completely and find it in God and others.
See the Savior.
Look at the Savior there, hanging on the
cross.
He's God.
God incarnate, hanging on the cross.
He is about to die.
Dying words are important words.
I mean, when a man is about to
die, people draw near to see what the
last words are that he is going to
say.
Here He is, God incarnate, hanging on the
cross, and He is about to die.
I wonder what profound theological revelation will come
out of His mouth just before He dies.
I wonder what revelation of theology we're going
to hear out of the mouth of a
son God.
Listen.
Listen, and you'll hear it.
Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do.
Woman, behold your son, or Mama.
He's going to take care of you now.
Son, behold your mother, or John.
Would you please take care, Mom?
I'm going.
And, He turns over to one of the
thieves on the cross and says, Today shalt
thou be with me in paradise.
Those were the last words of Jesus.
And that is profound theology, brothers and sisters.
That is profound theology.
He saved others.
That was the testimony of the critics who
watched His life.
Lord, let me live from day to day
in such a self-forgetful way that even
when I kneel to pray, my prayer will
be for others.
Others, Lord.
Yes, others.
Let this my motto be, that while I
have lived for others, I will have lived
like Thee.
Some time ago, a lady came to her
pastor.
She said, Pastor, I need some counsel.
I'm in desperate need of counsel.
Would you talk to me?
And he sat down in the study and
they began to talk.
And she basically said to him, Pastor, I'm
going to crack up.
I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.
My whole life is falling apart.
My mind is just going every which way.
Please help me.
I think I'm going to lose my mind.
The pastor waited for a moment in silence.
And then she turned to him again and
said, Do you have any counsel for me,
Pastor?
And he said, Yes, I do have some
counsel for you.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go home and bake
a cake.
I want you to go home and bake
a cake.
And after you bake that cake, I want
you to cut it in little squares and
put it on plates.
And after you get all that cake put
on plates, I want you to go to
the rest home and give those pieces of
cake out and visit with the people.
And she was aghast.
What?
I'm going to have a nervous breakdown and
you tell me to go bake a cake?
And he wisely just looked at her and
said, Yes, my dear.
That's what I'm telling you to do.
And she hopped out of the office and
that was it.
She went home, you know, and she stewed
a while, you know.
Who does he think he is?
My!
And she stewed that one over for a
little while and praise God, the Spirit of
God just drew near and said, Do what
He said.
Just do what He said.
Finally, she decided, well, she may as well
try it.
So she baked her cake and she put
it on little plates and she went to
the rest home and she passed out all
the cake, you know, and she visited with
all the people in the rest home and
by the time she got done visiting with
all the people in the rest home, she
forgot about all her problems and she decided
not to have a nervous breakdown.
The pastor started two weeks later.
She was going down the hall this way
and he was going down the hall that
way.
She was busy living for somebody else and
so was he.
And he went by and said, Hey!
I thought you were going to have a
nervous breakdown.
And she said, I put it off.
And that's a true story, by the way.
That's a true story.
I wonder how many nervous breakdowns we could
take care of if we would just turn
our attention away from me and put it
on somebody else.
One of the designs of our little mission
trips, you know, we send young people over
to Africa, a couple teams of them every
year.
One of the designs of sending those young
people over there is this subject right here.
For six weeks, they do nothing but live
for others.
Solid for six weeks.
Day in and day out.
In the thick and in the thin.
Praying for others.
Fasting for others.
Preparing sermons.
Suffering.
Vomiting.
Diarrhea.
Malaria for others.
Everything for others.
Misery.
Sleepless nights.
Lay on their bed and sweat until the
sheet is soaking wet.
For others.
And they do that for six weeks.
By the time they come home, I've never
seen one yet.
I've never seen a young person whose life
was not absolutely changed by one of those
six-week trips.
Never seen it yet.
You know why?
They live for others for six weeks, 24
-7.
And it changes their life forever.
We send them over there on purpose for
that.
You know why?
We want them to get addicted.
We want them to get hooked real good.
Because we know that it will be a
guiding principle in their life all the rest
of their days.
Read a couple of verses out of 1
John again here.
Let's just look a little more deeply into
these words.
1 John 2.10 1 John 2.10
He that liveth for others abideth in the
light, and there is none occasion of stumbling
in him.
Look at that verse.
Powerful.
Look at it.
He who lives for others abideth in the
light, and there is none occasion of stumbling
in him.
That's an awesome verse.
Chapter 3, verse 11.
For this is the message that ye heard
from the beginning, that we should live for
others.
Verse 16 of chapter 3.
Hereby perceive we the love of God, because
He lay down His life for others, and
we ought to lay down our lives for
others.
But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth
his brother have need, and shutteth up his
vows of compassion from him, how dwelleth the
love of God in him?
My little children, let us not live for
others in word, neither in tongue, but in
deed and in truth.
And verse 23.
This is His commandment.
Note this.
These are foundational words.
I hope you're getting what I'm saying here.
This is His commandment, that we should believe
on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ,
and live for others as He gave us
commandment.
That's it.
Done.
Fold up.
Go home.
We've just got it all right there.
God is sharing with us the secrets of
an abundant, fulfilling Christian life.
Fifty percent of the Christian life is living
for others.
I want to challenge you this morning to
give your life away for others.
I want to leave you with that challenge.
I'm telling you, I'm giving you a secret.
There may be a few of you in
this room today that will get a hold
of what I'm saying.
There may be that most of you will
just kind of go on just the way
you've been going on and, you know, life
basically surrounds you and that may be the
way it is, but it may be that
there'll be a few in this tent this
morning who will get a hold of what
I'm saying and say, I'm going to sacrifice
my life for others.
I'm going to waste my life on other
people.
I think about Polycarp, you know?
You know the martyrdom of Polycarp?
When they finally caught up with that dear
old man, he was near 90.
I don't know exactly how old he was,
but he was near 90 years old when
they finally caught up with Polycarp.
Soldiers came to his door.
They had caught him.
Of course, you know, he's an old man.
He can't run anywhere, so he just comes
to the door and opens the door and
invites them in and fixes them a meal
and has them sit down and eat the
meal.
And he said, if you'll enjoy your meal,
I'd like to have a little season of
prayer and then I'll go with you.
They went back into his prayer closet and
this is what he did for two hours.
He prayed for every contact that he knew.
He prayed for all the brothers and sisters
in the local fellowship that he was in
and he prayed for the universal body of
Christ and all the other places and all
the other churches that he knew of around
the world.
And when he was all done praying for
all those people, he went out and gave
himself into the hands of these soldiers and
they took him to the Coliseum and they
killed him there.
He finished his life praying for others.
I want to challenge you to waste your
life on others.
When Jesus was challenging Peter after the cross,
after his denial, after the resurrection, after all
those things that happened and Peter was...
I mean, he was in a fog.
He was sorting things, you know.
I mean, he said, I'm just going to
go fishing, you know.
I guess I'm done.
I'm going back to fishing.
Jesus said these words to Peter.
He said, Peter, do you love me?
And Peter said, Yea, Lord, you know that
I love you.
And then Jesus said to Peter, Then Peter,
live for others.
Live for others, Peter.
Again, he said, Peter, do you love me?
Lord, you know I love you.
Then Peter, if you love me, live for
others.
Live for others, Peter.
I want to challenge you this morning to
waste your life on others.
Lose your life in your family, mom, in
your children, in the brethren, in the heathen,
in the people, the poor people in the
city, in the prisons, in the rest homes,
you name it.
Every one of us is surrounded by hurting
people.
I'm telling you, hurting people.
Not only hurting, lost, lost people.
Some time ago, this is a long time
ago now, about twenty years ago, Brother Moses
and I were driving somewhere in a vehicle,
and our little struggling church was just starting,
and it was struggling.
We were being criticized all around.
People were saying all kinds of bad things
about us.
Nobody would give us the time of day.
Nobody would come and preach for us, brethren.
Nobody would come and preach for us.
Nobody.
I mean, they just simply said, leave them
alone.
Maybe they'll die.
We were struggling.
We were being criticized a lot.
And Moses and I, we were just discussing
all this while we were driving somewhere.
And I mean, there wasn't a whole lot
going on in our lives back then, you
know.
Not a whole lot.
But I remember saying some words to Brother
Moses that ended up being very prophetic words.
But I turned to Moses and I said,
you know what, Moses?
I think we need to just forget about
all that.
Forget about all those criticisms.
Forget about all the things they're saying.
Just forget about it all.
Let's just go give our lives away for
others, for whoever, for the needy ones.
And I think the day will come when
we'll have so much work to do, we
won't know how to do it.
I remember saying those words.
Oh, my.
I had no idea what I was saying.
No idea.
Listen to some of the words in the
New Testament epistles.
Be kindly affection one to another In honor
preferring one another Receive ye one another Care
one for the other Greet ye one another
Serve one another Forbear one another Be ye
kind one to the other Forgiving one another
Submitting yourselves one to the other Admonishing one
another Comfort ye one another Edify one another
Exhort one another Consider one another Confess your
faults one to the other Pray one for
the other Have compassion one for another Use
hospitality one to another Have fellowship one with
another And how many more would you like
me to read this morning?
John 14 and we'll be done.
We can by no means cover this subject
here in this short amount of time, but
I'm just giving you the secret.
I'm hoping that you'll go home and dig
in on this one and study it, because
I'm telling you very much of your Christian
life hinges on what you do with what
you're hearing this morning.
John 14.
Verse 21.
That's where we'll start reading.
I think I've looked at enough verses here
this morning that you can understand that when
Jesus talks about His commandments He's talking about
what I've been talking about this morning.
Okay?
Now let's read these verses.
Look at the beauty.
Look at the beautiful mystery.
Look at the blessing that is hidden in
these words.
Verse 21.
Jesus, again, last words.
These are the words that He said to
His disciples before He went to the cross.
Let's read verse 20.
At that day ye shall know that I
am in my Father and ye in me
and I in you.
Is the living God alive in you?
Let's see.
He that hath my commandments and keepeth them,
he it is that loveth me.
He who lives for others is he who
loveth me.
That's what He's saying.
And he that loveth me shall be loved
of my Father and I will love him
and will manifest myself to him.
Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how
is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto
us and not unto the world?
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a
man love me, he will keep my words
and live for others.
And my Father will love him and we
will come unto him and make our abode
with him.
He that loveth me not keepeth not my
sayings.
What is Jesus saying there?
Jesus is connecting those two commandments in those
verses right there.
You want to know God?
Praise God!
Amen!
Here's what you do.
You want to know God deeply, intimately?
You want to go deep with God?
You want to know the presence of God
in your life?
Here's how you do it.
We've been telling you all week long.
Get thoroughly right with God.
That's first.
I mean, clear the slate.
Surrender your life and show up to God.
Clean up totally.
Let your heart be purged by the blood
of Jesus and a heart that is clear.
And from there, just keep your conscience clear
and go live for others.
And you will know the presence of God
in your life.
That's it.
That's what Jesus is saying.
You know, them disciples, they took Him serious,
didn't they?
Look in the book of Acts and see.
What were they doing?
They were living for others.
And God's presence was with them in a
beautiful way.
Again, you little struggling churches, I'm telling you
how you can move from being a little
struggling church into a solid church with its
feet on the ground, settled solid in the
solid rock, which is Christ Jesus.
I'm telling you how you can go from
a little struggling fellowship into a solid church
that knows where they're going.
Love God with all your heart and waste
your life on others.
That's it.
May God help us, all of us, to
find out what it's all about.
Let's say it together.
Can we try it?
Lord, let me live from day to day
in such a self-forgetful way.
That even when I kneel to pray, my
prayer will be for others.
Others, Lord, yes, others.
Let this my motto be, that while I
live for others, I will have lived like
Thee.
God bless you.