A More Excellent Way: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 And today we’re going to look at this subject, love, the more excellent way to spiritual manifestations. Remember, in 1 Corinthians 12:31, Paul ended that chapter by saying, “Desire the best gifts, and I will show you a more excellent, more superior way to get spiritual manifestations.” And then in 1 Corinthians 13:1 he says, “Though, or if, I speak with tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” And if I had someone over there just clang the cymbals together, you know, in about thirty seconds you would go, “You’re driving me nuts. What’s the point?” See, cymbals without anything around them are worthless. And he says that’s people that speak with tongues of men. He describes two kinds of languages here. Tongues is nothing but languages. There’s languages of men, like they spoke on the day of Pentecost, and there are languages of angels. But the key is, love is more important than both of those.

▶ 1:12 In verse two, he says, “If I have prophecy, understand all mysteries, all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” I am worthless. I am zero.

▶ 1:27 Now, remember in 1 Kings 13, when the man of God was chosen by God to take a message to the king of Israel, Jeroboam, that God was going to disrespect the bones of the very leaders who chose to worship God out of his method? They used an improper method to worship God. And he told that prophet, “You go and you give the message, and you don’t tarry; you turn around and you come back. Do not stay there.” Well, he gave the great message. He even gave the name of the guy that was going to do it: Josiah is going to come and he’s going to, you know, desecrate the bones of these people that worship God wrongly. And you can worship God wrongly. But he didn’t listen. He let one of those lion prophets talk to him into staying. And so when he did leave, a lion got him and killed him.

▶ 2:18 See, love is to obey God. He had the message, but he didn’t have the love. Solomon had the wisdom and mysteries and knowledge of everything, but in his last years he let his wives, which he had many of, hundreds, thousands altogether, lead him away from God, and his heart wasn’t right before God.

▶ 2:42 See, all this without love, Paul says, is worthless, if I have all faith. And in Matthew 7:22, remember Jesus said, “Many will come to me in that day” and said, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out devils in your name, and in your day, and done many mighty works and many mighty miracles?” See, they had faith to do all these things, and these gifts and these spiritual manifestations were working in them. And Jesus said, “I will say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.” You see, you didn’t have love. You might have been used of God to do things, but you missed the important thing, and that is love. Are you with me? Hallelujah.

▶ 3:24 And he says, and he quotes this, you could remove mountains. Jesus used that in Matthew. He said, “If you say to this mountain” — if you believe and say to this mountain, “Be removed, cast into the sea,” and not doubt in your heart, that mountain will be removed and go into the sea. Jesus used that as a metaphor, as an illustration. Believe me, there’s no mountains being moved by anybody. But Paul used it to say, even if you could, and you don’t have love, you are zero.

▶ 3:55 And then he says in verse three, “If I bestow all my goods to feed those that are hungry, and I give my body to be burned” — I die, I become a martyr — “and have not love, it profits me nothing.” It benefits me nothing. Judas was one. Mary came in and she anointed Jesus’s feet with alabaster perfume, and Judas said, “Oh man, this stuff could be sold and it could be given to the poor.” The Bible even says there he didn’t care about the poor. He just wanted a humanitarian program. He wanted social programs rather than a Jesus program. This woman was ministering unto Jesus. And we all like social programs above ministering-to-Jesus programs. We think we’re really doing great when we’re helping people. But if you don’t have the Jesus program in your life, all your humanitarian things are worthless. Are you with me?

▶ 4:58 And you remember the disciples, in Matthew 26, when they saw the woman pour the ointment on Jesus’s head, they said the same thing. In fact, they had indignation, and they said, “What purpose is this waste? This could have been sold and we could have given the money to the poor.” And Jesus says, “What’s the matter with you guys? This woman’s anointing me for my burial, and this act that she’s doing will be remembered all around the world.” And God put it in the Scriptures. Why? Ministering to Jesus is above alms and helping the poor and giving clothing. Are you with me?

▶ 5:34 See, if we don’t have love, we’re missing it. And the Jews would die for their temple and their traditions. And not only the Jews, but a couple of guys in the Bible, Theudas and Judas, in Acts, the Bible says they caused insurrection against the Roman Empire. And they claimed to be a prophet, one of them, and got the people to follow them, and the Romans killed them. See, they died a worthless death. Why? Because that was God’s timing for the Jews at that time to be under Roman, the Roman Empire. And we can give our bodies for religion and our beliefs, and it can benefit us nothing.

▶ 6:24 And then he gives the definition of love. 1 Corinthians 13:4: Love is patient. It suffers long. Love is kind. It’s mannerly. Love doesn’t envy. It’s not jealous. Love doesn’t brag about itself. Love is not prideful, not puffed up. Love does not behave rudely, not ill-mannered. Love does not seek its own way. Well, it’s going to be my way, I’m going to hit the highway. You know, love doesn’t demand its own way, in the family, in the church, or in the community. It demands the right way, the truth.

▶ 7:03 Love is not easily provoked. It, you know, they’re not touchy. You know, if you don’t say the right thing or do the right thing, they’re all ticked off. And love doesn’t do that. It thinks no evil about people, no harm. It keeps no record of wrongs done to it. One version says, you see, love does not rejoice in iniquity, but in the truth. It’s not happy when the community goes wrong. It’s happy when the community goes right, or the church goes the right direction.

▶ 7:33 And check this out in verse 7. Love bears all things, which means covers with silence all things said to it. Pause for heart checking. Believes all things that the Bible says to put your trust in. They put their trust in all things the Bible says to. They hope; they expect that God would perform everything that he said he would perform. Not what people want, but what God wants. And love bears, or remains, in all things. No matter how it’s treated, no matter how mistreatment or whatever, it remains. It stays in the home and it stays steadfast in the church. It sticks right there. It doesn’t move.

▶ 8:22 And remember, love is at the first fruit of the gifts of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace. It’s the first fruit. 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.” See, that is exactly what God is. He just gave us the description of God. And 2 Peter 1:4: love is at the top of being a partaker of the divine nature. We add to our faith virtue; virtue, knowledge; knowledge, temperance, or self-control; patience, godliness, brotherly kindness; and the last one we add to is what? Love. So love is at the peak of divine character, and it’s at the beginning of the fruits of the Spirit. And believe me, Paul is telling us, you can’t have the manifestations of the Spirit without the fruit and the divine character of God. That’s what he’s telling us. This is the way to get it.

▶ 9:29 Now he goes on to say, “Love never fails.” It never gets inactive. But in verse eight, he says if prophecies, they will fail; they will get inactive. If tongues, they will cease; they will get inactive. If knowledge, it will vanish away; it will be inactive. All of those three red statements up there is the same word in the Greek, just translated a little differently, but the same word.

▶ 9:59 So, I have been in Pentecost ever since I was saved. Spirit-filled church, Spirit-filled person. I got Spirit-filled a couple of weeks after I got saved. I’ve worked with the Baptists and other churches. God taught me at the beginning not to be segregated. I’ve always worked with other churches and did things with other churches. I was working with some Baptist people for several years here in California, and they invited me one day into the room with the top leader of California. The Southern California leader was there, the local leaders were there, and then the new preachers coming up through the ranks were there. They brought me in, and they said, “We have never met a Spirit-filled person like you.” My reply was, “How many have you met?” I said, “You are judging us because of what you see on TV, these guys whoosh, and everybody falling over and knocking over in the Spirit and all this. You’re judging the whole group of us by what you see on TV or hear on radio or something like that. If you got to know more of us, you’d know we’re not like that.”

▶ 11:10 And so then they quoted this scripture: “We believe that tongues and prophecies ceased when the last disciple died.” And they’re just quoting the verse. I said, “Sir, you didn’t finish the verse. Knowledge is there. And it says knowledge ceased. Now, if knowledge has ceased, not just tongues and prophecy, then that means people can’t come to the knowledge of salvation. People can’t have the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of sin.” Are you with me? And they said, “Well, no, no, not knowledge.” I said, “You can’t take two out and do something with them without taking a third out.”

▶ 11:46 “And number two, if prophecies really cease, then Jesus isn’t coming back again, because it was prophesied in the New Testament that he would return.” I said, “It’s also prophesied that we come back for a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. So that can’t happen. It’s also prophesied in Revelation that every kindred, tribe, tongue and nation, a multitude that no man can number, will be brought in. That can’t happen.” Are you there? And they looked at me like, “Where’s this guy coming from?” See, it pays to know your Bible.

▶ 12:26 I said, “You’ve gotten rid of tongues and you’ve gotten rid of prophecy because you’ve seen the mess that us Pentecostals have done with it.” And I said this famous statement: “Just because a plane crashes does not mean we stop using planes. Just because someone messes up a salvation verse or some other verse, we don’t stop using the verses, do we?” Amen.

▶ 12:50 Truly, he’s talking about edifying the body of Christ. You see, we can have a prophecy one Sunday, or a word, a tongue, an interpretation, and we forget it the next day. Isn’t that true? He’s talking about edifying the body of Christ. He’s not talking about the office of a prophet, these substantial, unchangeable words of God. Hallelujah.

▶ 13:13 And he goes on to prove it. We know in part and prophesy in part. And remember, in 1 Corinthians 12 he said, “To one is given the word of knowledge, to another the word of wisdom, to another faith, to another working of miracles, to another gifts of healing, to another tongues, to another discerning of spirits, to another interpretation.” So all of us have a part, and this is the thing that God wants this church to understand. This minister only has a part. We have been taught for decades that the man of God or the woman of God is going to do everything and we’re just little nobodies running around behind them. But we can all have a part.

▶ 13:59 All right? “But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part will be done away.” Okay? Now, he’s saying that yes, there are parts, but perfection is coming, maturity is coming, completeness is coming. Verse 12, same chapter: “Now we see in a mirror obscurely, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know just as I am known.” He’s obviously talking about the second return, isn’t he? I mean, when Jesus comes, we’re not blind anymore. I mean, everything is going to be understandable to us and fulfilled.

▶ 14:42 But in 2 Corinthians 3:18, we don’t have to wait for his return. Look at this: “We all” — how many of us? All — “with an open face, seeing in a mirror the word of God” — both of those are the word of God, the mirror — “the glory of the Lord, are changed into the” what? “Same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of God.” That’s why we need the Spirit of God active in our services. And that’s why we need everyone being a part.

▶ 15:11 Ephesians 4:13: “Till we all” — how many of us? All — “come into the unity of the faith, to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a” what? Perfect, complete spiritual man, “to the measure” — the standard — “of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” That’s the goal. Now, and when every part supplies, we can attain that. He says we are “no more children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.” And that’s the problem in the church. We got too many children, and they don’t even know that they can be complete and full in God. And that’s sad. It is very sad.

▶ 15:52 They don’t even know they can be a contributor. They just go to church to let the man of God do his thing. Could that be true? Yeah. And he goes on to say in Matthew 5:48, “Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” This is Jesus talking. And when I challenged the church with that as a young Christian, they go, “Well, you can’t be perfect. All of us are sin.” Well, I said, “You told me when I was a sinner I was going to hell. Now you’re telling me I got to sin because I’m not perfect.” And they thought “perfect” was just living a life that had no flaws in it. No, it’s coming to what? Spiritual maturity, spiritual completeness. Hebrews 5:14: strong meat belongs to those that are mature. You see? And then in James 1:4, it says, “Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be” what? “Perfect and entire, lacking” what? “Nothing.”

▶ 16:56 See, God is taking his church somewhere, and he chooses for all of us to be a part. 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child. But when I became a man” — a mature, complete believer — “I put away childish things.” Now, what was one of the childish things we heard back there? “Tossed about by every wind of doctrine,” not coming into the unity of the faith, not coming into the stature of Jesus Christ. But here he says in the positive that I can become a man and put away childish things. I can become a man and put away childish things.

▶ 18:00 I submit to you, too many American Christians are talking like baby Christians, thinking like baby Christians, and acting like baby Christians. And Paul has been dealing with this for eleven chapters: this baby Christianity, division, sexual immorality, challenging ministers. They challenged Paul, “You’re really an apostle?” You know, idolatry, doing things that didn’t please the Lord. See, not pressing toward the prize of the high mark of the calling of God by bringing their body into subjection. By what? Bringing their body into subjection. You know, we want to pray and we expect some lightning bolt to transform us, but it says we bring what? Our body into submission, and we press toward the high mark. Why? Because we contribute.

▶ 19:02 We are participators in this thing God is doing. We’re not looking for a man of God or a woman of God or some J.B. Fireball to come and do everything for us. We contribute, and when all of us put our part in, then we get the full picture. Hallelujah. And this is a great program that God has. He didn’t intend for the church people to come and just sit and watch the preacher or watch the song leader. And this is why it’s important that we get 1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 in us, because now Paul’s talking about the real stuff, the spiritual stuff, the things that will transform people’s lives.

▶ 19:49 “Now abides faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is” faith. That’s the way American preachers see it. That’s the way believers see it. All I hear is faith. My faith. Even our politicians: my faith. Who cares about your faith? Our faith must be in the power of God to perform what he promised.

▶ 20:19 Faith is preached all the time. And people say, “Well, I believe.” So you believe. Is it what God said to believe? Is it what God said to have faith in? And is your faith in your faith? Have you got faith above everything else? And I submit to you, in America the church puts faith in first place, and love isn’t even on the scale. How do I know that? Because they’re impatient. They don’t cover things with silence. They come to church not expecting anything. They come to church not even thinking about contributing at all. If you can get them to church. Is Paul right?

▶ 21:15 See, they want a free ride. They want a ticket to get on the heavenbound train and just sit there, enjoy the scenery. And that isn’t the train God has. You’ve got to shovel the coal. You’ve got to blow the whistle. You’ve got to be active in this thing. There ain’t no free ride. If we really want to attain to great things here on this earth and see the manifestations of the Spirit of God, then we’ve got to humble ourselves, take on responsibility to be a participator.

▶ 21:59 I mean, Paul is saying it plainly. See, we all know in part, and we prophesy, or speak by the inspiration of God, in part. See, I don’t have it all. Mr. Barnes doesn’t have it all. But together, we got a lot more. And then you add Edie and Christina. Hey, now we’re broadening.

▶ 22:20 See, when people start taking responsibility to be involved in a church service, you will be shocked at what God can do. And church, I have been in Spirit-filled churches all my life, and I have seen some powerful manifestations of God. And I have seen things that are just embarrassing. But you know, I can’t let the embarrassing things keep me from what? Pursuing God. Hallelujah. The greatest of these is love. It’s great to have faith. It’s great to have hope. And Paul sums it up here.

▶ 23:07 This scripture, 1 Timothy 1:5: “Now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart.” The word “end” means the goal. You see, the goal of the word of God is love out of a pure heart. The purpose of the word of God is love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. See, genuine faith, not disguised faith.

▶ 23:41 See, we think it’s eternal life. No, you’re going to live eternally no matter what. You realize that, whether you believe in God or you don’t believe in God, do you realize you’re an eternal being? Yeah. Only one’s going to spend their place in a punishment and one’s going to be rewarded. We think that it’s the gifts of the Spirit in our circles. The gifts of the Spirit. Hallelujah. Shakamula in the name of Jesus. And it’s not. It’s love. And that’s why we have such phoniness in the Spirit-filled world, as we try to push something that God isn’t doing.

▶ 24:24 Remember in 1 Corinthians 12, it says God is the one that distributes these things as he wills. If God’s not healing, guess what? There ain’t going to be no healing. If God’s not speaking, there ain’t going to be no speaking. He’s the one that initiates these things and backs them up. Some of them believe it’s grace and faith. As I said, I mean, most people, they grace and faith it all through their life. They believe the goal of the commandment is the baptism of the Holy Ghost with speaking in tongues. That’s not the goal of the commandment. That’s one of the attributes that gives you power to live for God. One of the peripheral important things.

▶ 25:12 Worship, in our generation since about 1990. Oh, worship. Hallelujah. New song, worship. Oh man, we got the band, we got the music, we got worship. Oh, we’ve arrived. And they go home and they can’t love their family. They can’t love their husband. They can’t love their wife. Why? Because worship is not the goal. It is a means to the goal. Prayer: some people are just hyped up on a prayer meeting. Prayer is not the goal. It’s a means to the goal.

▶ 25:49 Soulwinning. Oh man, you know, we led somebody to Christ, a 63-year-old man to Christ, me and Mr. Barnes did this week. That is one of the things we do, but that’s not the goal of the commandment. And people, they’re soulwinning every Thursday night. You know, “Hallelujah, I’m a [unclear] man. I’ve arrived.” Are you with me? And church rituals. “Got my holy water. Got my incense. Got the season of Lent. I’m keeping the feast of Pentecost. Christmas — oh yeah, I’m really into Christmas. Got my Christmas tree.” Rituals are not the goal of the word of God.

▶ 26:36 It’s love. And why are American Christians divorcing? Lack of love. Somebody’s not loving. Somebody’s not patient. Somebody is demanding their own way. I saw a movie yesterday that was really cool. I’ve seen it before. I forgot his name, but anyway. And they were Quakers, and the woman was a preacher woman, and the guy bought an organ, and Quakers didn’t believe in music. He bought an organ for the house. And she says, “It’s either that organ or me. If that organ comes into the house, I’m leaving.” He says, “When thou ask me to do something, I am like butter in your hands. When thou commands me, I’m like, you know, a hard rock. Pick up the organ and put it in the house.” She goes, “You’re kidding me. You’re choosing the organ?” No, he wasn’t choosing an organ over his wife. He was choosing the principle. Amen. It was the principle of the thing.

▶ 28:03 Now, church, Paul has given us tremendous advice. Someone asked me a few weeks ago, “What do we do during a transition of a church?” The same thing you always do. You minister to Christ. You come to give. You come to contribute. Nothing changes. Just because leadership changes, the real leader is who? Jesus Christ. Are we getting it, church? Do you want to strengthen your life? You want to strengthen your home, your children? We’ve got to get this love. It’s above spiritual gifts. It’s above social programs. Social programs is not enough. If we want the fullness of Christ, we’ve got to get this love.