Apostolic Lighthouse
The Body Of Christ - Bro Sampson
and talking about something. We were talking about, actually, talking about this church appreciation Sunday. And we got to talk about a scripture that her dad used to quote. And the more we talked about it, I thought, well, you know, I'll just spend a little time just talking about that this morning. And I know a lot of times you set in the church and you feel, I remember sister Christine Solomon before she passed. She just, it's hard to outpray somebody that's wanting to go to heaven worse than they want to stay here. It's hard outpray somebody like that. And I would talk to her and she said, well, the samsa, just pray that God would just take me on. She said, I just feel like I have no purpose, no use. I'm just ready to go on. And I said, no, sister Christine, man, you, and she was still so coherent and just so vibrant. And she said, I'm just, but she was on up in her 80s. And she said, I'm just, I'm just ready to go. I just want to go. But the Walters, it's hard to outpray somebody like that. It's got that peace and that calm and just everything they've lived for. That's what they're, that's what they're looking forward to. And so I just, she just felt so insignificant. And I got to thinking about that. And just every one of you sitting here in this building today means so much to the Kingdom of God. And you mean so much to this church. If you're just a visitor here today, it's uplifting when you come in. And it's uplifting that you choose this Sunday or your weekend, your Labor Day weekend to come and be an apostolic lighthouse. That means something to me. And when I look at that, rather than Ken, it lifts my spirit up and to see like Sister Judy coming in. And man, I know it's some effort for her to put forth just to be here on Sunday. But man, I look for her on Sunday morning. And I'm so thankful that when I see her come in and that I know you may not seem like, what do I matter? What, what, you know, but you are apart. And I got to reading this. And I just, I'm going to do probably more reading than preaching. And I know that they're preparing food. And this is what it's about. But I just want to take this special time today to, to let you know however insignificant you feel in this place. You still have a function in the body of Christ. You still have a purpose. And I believe God is looking for a purpose driven church. Hallelujah. Somebody on a mission. And sometimes I'll look up and I'll see somebody like working and you know you're looking and you'll see them with go get me a hammer. And this is the way they're going. And then you see others and I can't walk as fast. I want to say, go get me this. And I mean, they're gone after it. And they're getting it and they're coming back. And a lot of times I'll say, man, look at them. They got to come and get you walk on them. They act like they're coming after somebody. They're, they're getting something done. And that's what, I feel like that's what God's looking for. And he's looking for that mentality in the church. But a lot of times with everything that life deals us, we can get depressed, we can get cast down, we can get discouraged. And you know, it just, it works on us. And I feel like, you know, you're nothing. And someone said something about pastoring. And I said, you know, I really, I have enjoyed it. God has blessed us. I remember we started out with 10 or 11 and then worked our way up and then garages and storefront buildings and somebody else's church houses. And, you know, and finally we got to here. And you know how, what I realized, it wasn't me that got us here. It was you people working together with a will to work. Nehemiah said, the people had will to work, hallelujah. And when they begin to work against him and to try to entice him out, come out here and talk to us. We want to talk to you about, about what you're doing, sandballoting to bio and he, bias. And he said, you know, you just, you just counsel yourself out there. I'm doing a great work. I don't have time to get involved in your negativity and your downcast attitude. I'm doing a great work. I'm repairing a wall. I'm repairing a breach. I'm building up a hedge here. I'm getting where the enemy can't get an attack. And the people worked together. Some of families held a sword while the other members worked. And, you know, and in 52 days, they restored the walls and the breaches and got the gates and, you know, and in just 52 days. And he made the statement, because the people had a will to work, hallelujah. And then men on work nights around here, Sister Samson going home the other night. And it was just a little less crowded than what we normally have on a work night. And again, a lot of people were gone. But Sister Samson going home and said, oh my goodness. She said, the kids in this church, you know, kids around the house will save you a lot of trips, a lot of steps. I remember when they kind of got the empty nest syndrome before when we went off to camp meetings, we had suitcases and luggage. And back then they witnessed many inside with elevators as there is today. And usually by the time we got there, you know, it was upstairs for you two or three flights. And man, them kids would jump in there and take them suitcases up and down, up and down. And one day we were unloading all them suitcases. Me and Sister Samson, not as many, but they were still pretty heavy. And I said, oh, good grief. Where's the kids at? Hallelujah. I need some kids to help me. And she said, you know, our children, our young people work, they work like soldiers around here. And man, on the work night, Monday night, they were packing insulation. They were putting it up in the attic. They were carrying books. They were man up and down the stairs and more over people was kind of given direction and seemed like they was doing a big part of the work. So if you're here this morning as a young person, regardless of your age today, you are important to the church. Hallelujah. From the youngest child that can pack one book, that man, I got a grandson every time we stop, he'll be picking up sticks and throwing them in the back of the side beside cleaning up the area around him and just working. And, you know, that's, you know, and he's only three or four years old. And my granddaughter, you can just send them on little missions and men, they can go get it done. And then I look up and I have a mom here that's 87 today. I don't know if there's anyone beyond that age today, 87 here today, but she'll be one of the first ones to work night. One of the last ones to leave. And she came during the construction program and I said, "Son, what do you want me to do?" Brother Trey and then we just finished those shelves in the pantry. I think they're like 11, 10, 11 feet up there. And I said, "Well, I'll tell you what I need done, Mom." I said, "Those shelves back there in that pantry are about, they're about 11 foot tall and I need you to clean those shelves off. Get that dust wiped off." Brother Jones, she never missed a lick. She said, "Well, have somebody get me a ladder back there?" I said, "Now, Mom, I better not ever catch you on a ladder 10 foot in the air." But just, just willing to do that. And that's how we've got to where we are today. Hallelujah. And I appreciate this church. And I make this statement so many times, if you ever see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know one thing. He didn't get up there brother Matherley by himself. He had some help getting up there. And that's, we've had lots of help getting to where we're at today. Because people had a will to work. Oh, Brother Samson, no. Brother Samson was down seven months of this building project. And my son and daughter just took right on and went on with it. And everybody rallied behind them. And because they wasn't making the decision, some probably never had an idea what the carpet was going to look like. They didn't have any idea what the paint was going to look like. I've worked on so many church construction sites where you'd see about 10 or 15 of them come walking in and they'd start looking around. And then later on you would hear maybe the superintendent or even the pastor make this statement, "You can't get nothing done around here trying to get 10 or 15 women to agree on one color." Hallelujah. That's, we have our several separate abilities. And we have our separate ideas. You can go into each home and you see the distinction of each and every woman when you go in their home. Some like, my like wife likes the old look and the old frontier like stuff. We got trunks for coffee tables and antique this and that. We got furs hanging on the wall and kind of like walking into an old trade center back in the 1800s. She kind of likes that. But then you go into others and it's got a contemporary look or a western look. And most always is take your shoes off at the door. That's just the individuality of every person. Hallelujah. But we can all come together in the unity of the faith and begin to worship God. And let me get started. Man, I just want this church to know today that I love each and every one of you and I appreciate all the effort and everything that we've been through was just striving to obtain perfection. Hallelujah. And so one said something about what's it like to be a pastor. I said, "Well, you know how much trouble you have in your own life and all the trouble, all the trials, all the finance, all of this." They said, "Well, yeah." I said, "It's kind of overbearing." And I said, "Yeah." And I said, "Well, when you get, don't matter if you got 150 or 200 people, when they got problems, you got problems. You're sharing those problems." And that's what it takes to be where I'm out up here today. And I tell you, though, I love helping people. I just love, I love people. Hallelujah. And thankful for this church today. But I'm going to go to 1 Corinthians 12, 1 through 3. No, I'm going to go farther in that in this chapter. I'm going to do a lot of reading in this chapter. So when I get started and you can just remain seated, but now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Now, we're going to have a twofold meaning with this message today to show the separate abilities, the individuality of each person in the church, regardless of what you are. I feel like Paul handled it very knowledgeable. You know that you were gentiles carried away into these dumb idols, even as you were led. How many knows where we come from? How many knows what we were involved in in sin? We can't forget where God brought us from, because sometimes that helps us to go on, because when we remember where He brought us from. But I'm going to give you to understand that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, call us Jesus, occurs, and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. He's starting to grow into unity and to one mind. Now, there are diversities of gifts, but it's the same Spirit that's behind those gifts. There are different administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operation, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. Hallelujah, even in the church. We have evangelists, we have teachers, we have prophets, we have young convert classes, and we just have all of these individual things going on every Sunday. But it's all in unity. It's all in unison. It's all under the leading of this one great God that we serve, and by the Holy Ghost. But it's the same Spirit which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is giving to every man to prove with all. Hallelujah. For one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit. To another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing, by the same Spirit. You get to where I'm talking about. There's individuality there in the church, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another diverse kind of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But all of these work that one in the cell same Spirit dividing to every man is severally as he will, separately as he will. For as the body is one and half many members, and all the members of that one body, be in many, are one body. So also is Christ. We stand here today. One writer put it this way. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Man, when you start digging into the DNA, they tell me that once you start separating, and if you wrote all of the DNA analysis out in books, that by the time you're done, if you put it in paperback books, it would go to the moon and back like five times. I don't know. That's a little beyond, you know, the biology of that is a little beyond, you know, my intellect this morning. I do know that the other day we went to the Creation Museum, toured the ark, and went through those things. And there was a group there from a university, and they were given a DNA class. And so I said, man, that's kind of interesting. I was going there and setting that class. Well, about ten minutes into it, I was kind of thinking about tractors and brush hogs and fix and fins and stuff. But they went to identifying your DNA. And if you got it shaped this way, this is what you are. And, you know, it just kind of left me. And I just kind of slipped my paper in the trash instead of turning it in and went out. But it was too much for me. But we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And we have separate abilities every one of us, even when they were building the temple. The Bible talks about God gave them ability. They become goldsmiths, coppersmiths, working with wood. And God, they just woke up one day. Man, he was a carpenter. One was a copper smith. One knew how to work with gold and overlaying and carpentry. And, man, if you want something intricately built and takes a lot of skill, you don't count the brothers Samson. You go to Brother Aaron or Brother Adam or one of them. Brother Adam built me a beautiful hardwood table. I think it's like 13, 14 foot long in our living, in our dining room. And, man, it's beautiful. But, man, if Brother Samson would have built that, it would have been probably on a couple of little whiskey barrels with a slab of wood later crossed it and sitting on some chunks of wood that I cut off. You know, because I don't have that ability. When I want it fixed and done right, I'll call some of these other brothers in the church. They have that ability to come in and to fix it. And that's what we're talking about. Not everybody has the same ability. And I read all of these, but for by one spirit, we are all baptized into one body. Man, we're all brought in by the unity of the faith. And we all have our separate abilities in the church, whether we be Jews, Gentiles, bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member, but it's many. And that's what my gratitude is today, that all of the saints that were sitting in here, I wish so much that everyone could have been here. And I just want you to feel my gratitude today, regardless of your age, regardless of your affliction, regardless of anything that's wrong in your life, the little part that you have, the input you have. I don't care if it's picking up napkins that people, you know, leave laying around and clean acts. And, you know, it takes somebody with a special desire to go around and clean up that aftermath after especially during flu season and after an altar call, Hallelujah. But all of those, every person that gets involved, regardless of what it is, it's so much appreciated. And I want you to know God knows what you do. God recognizes what you do. It don't go unnoticed. If he's mindful of one hair on your head and how many's there, and there again, if it's somebody with me, it wouldn't take very long to count. You can count Brother Tim Jones. It might take a little longer. Brother Henry, but it wouldn't take long to get a count on the hair of my head. But not only that, he's mindful of the sparrow, the smallest sparrow. It doesn't mean how insignificant you may feel in this church today. I want you to know we love and appreciate you and God notices your work and he will bless you somewhere in life for that. If the foot shall say, because I'm not the hand, a lot of times I hear this, I just don't feel like I fit in. I just don't feel like I'm a part. Let me pause right here and let me tell you how you can feel like you're a part of the church. Song service, you stand there, you patch your hands, you clap your hands, you run the owls, you sing, you worship, you invite, you can do outreach, you can bring people. You just get involved. I think Brother Caleb made mention of Brother Sister Mathely when they came. They were almost total strangers when they come to the house of God. And it's what can I do? Can I do this? And men just got involved in Bible quizzing and they're just first thing you know, they're just involved. And that's how you do it. Man, Brother Mathely didn't come in here and sit back and say, "Well, I didn't help build it." You know, I don't feel like I've been apart from the beginning, so I just really don't feel like I fit in. No, I remember the first time he came in. He was worshiping God. I could see he was excited about a move of God. I had no idea. They had intentions of moving here. And man, the more I got to talking to Brother Mathely, the more excited he was. And he practiced in this church everything that he preached in his church. He just came in and he got involved. He was shaking hands, he was making visitors feel welcome. And just, you know, just catching people that maybe that wasn't getting in the worship. And he come to me and said, "Man, Brother Samson, don't let me get out of my bounds. Don't let me get beyond what you, you know, what you preach and teach." I said, "Brother Mathely, you just do what you're doing. You know your limits. You know what needs to be done." And you know, he just got in and he's been doing that ever since. That's how you feel like you fit in when there's a work night. Let me carry that. Let me put that up. Let me wire this up. Let me paint this. Just let me get involved. That's how you become a part of the church. That's how you feel like you fit in. But when you don't want to get involved in, you never show up to anything. You never fellowship. After a while, you're going to start feeling like you're not a part. Man, we're reaching for you. We're wanting you to be involved. We want you to feel at home. We want you to feel as welcome as you can. And people leave and say, "Man, that's a friendliest church I've ever been to." But it's not just there because a form of godliness without the power thereof. So you want to get involved? Be a prayer warrior. You may not be able to live nothing. But you can get in that prayer room and you can pray and you can travail. And when people see you in there and you're praying with them, that encourages them. That encourages them. Hallelujah. But if you begin to say, because I'm not the hand, the foot says, because I'm not the hand, I'm not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body? No. Man, I got one knee that gives me fits every time I get up and start trying to move. If I drive from here to Joplin, it takes me a few minutes to get out and get that thing loosened. But you can see I'm still carrying it around. I'm still working on it. I ain't just went in there and said, "I don't need this knee no more and chop that thing off." I'm going to let somebody else do that about December. But I'm just not going to do that. And if the ears shall say, because I'm not the eye, I'm not of the body, that's not true. Just because you're maybe not a late pastor or preacher or a Sunday school teacher, man, that doesn't mean you're not, you don't fit in here. Just because you don't have a college degree, a nursing degree, SAE certified mechanic or whatever, it doesn't mean that you don't fit in. You're a part of the body of Christ. I know there's some things sometimes people leave, but the church goes on. There'll be a day when Brother Samson ain't here. I want this church to be stable enough that it goes on, Brother Mather. Hallelujah. But if it says, because I'm not the eye, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? No. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now, have God set the members every one of them in the body as it's pleased him. Now, there's sometimes you get callings come up higher. I got a more of a work for you to do. I used to come to church, faithful to church, very faithful to my tithing in my offering. But I had a couple of preachers. Sister Samson shared that. Brother Samson, Gelly, you got a call on your life. You got a call on your life. You got a calling on your life, and they just kept telling me, and I just kept pushing it back. I tried to justify it by if I'm not a God wants a willing worker, and if I'm not willing, I don't have to do it, because God wants willing workers. But the part I forgot about, Brother Tim Ryan, was how easily God can make you willing. We look at Jonah. He didn't want to go to Tarsus, or to Nineveh. So he went the other way. The Bible said he went down to Tarsus, he went down to the dock, he went down and got in the boat, and then he went as far down in the boat as he could go, thinking this is all justifiable. If God has to get your attention, he'll get your attention. And we all know the storms that came, the whole story and everything involved there, but when Jonah finally, and then from down in the ship, down into the ocean, and then down into the belly of the whale. The Bible, he was so low, the Bible called it, the belly of hell. Man, I don't want to have to be taken that low ever again in my life. I'm telling you something. God, he got a hold of my attention, and when he was done with me, and man, it's a testimony. I won't even go into it today. But man, I was standing at the end of the hall, O proud Kelly Sampson, you know, Coupe Mr. Cool, you know, I'm standing at the end of the hallway in a hospital with my three-month-old babies cries, filling that hospital, and I'm down there, and brother Sampson's having a direct talk with God. God, if you want me to preach, if it's Jordan, I don't care how muddy it is, I'm going to swim in it. I'm going to cross. I'm going to get in it, God. I don't care, so he can send you a Jordan. He can send some undesirable situations to your life, but he'll get your attention. And finally, I said, God, my daughter was laying in the hospital with the side of her head swelled up. Her eyes set over in the corner, femur bone broke up by her hip. And man, I'm telling you, I'm told, Mr. Sampson, I'm going to church tonight, and that was on a Saturday, and we had church on Saturday night, and I left her at the hospital, and I said, I'm going to church, and I got it home, and I got in my bedroom, and I got down beside my bed, and I want to tell you something. I humbled myself as they talk about on these signs of my people who are called by my name. We'll humble themselves. Sometimes that's the first thing you have to do. You don't feel like you fit in the church. Why don't you just humble yourself, and just repent and say, God, I want a different attitude than the one I've been expressing. These people need me, these people love me, and I know it, but the devil's selling me a bill of goods telling me, I don't fit in here, I don't belong here, and he'll work on you until he could take you out of the body of Christ. You may feel like you're just in appendix or whatever else it is, gallbladder that they go in, and they remove, and the body still goes on in functions, but I want to tell you something. There's some things that's not the same. I had my tonsils taken out in my forties, and it seemed like my hearing and everything from there has just went south, and then they needed to go in and remove, I think they call it pallet of plastier or something like that, and they went in, and so they opened up my air passage way, and they cut out my tonsils that were half the size of a ping pong ball, and then they removed that little thing that hangs down there in the middle, and I thought, man, now everything's great, but there is some little backlash to that. Sometimes when you're talking, you have nothing to block the air. You spray and cracker crumbs all over everybody. It's kind of gross, but I'm still living, I'm still going. You may leave the church today. You may not function because you don't feel like you fit in, but it would make it so much better than little things that people don't really realize that you bring a little joy. You bring a little happiness. When you come in, you don't know what young person is looking at you. When I was growing up, I wasn't Michael Jordan and all of these guys and all of these rock stars and all of that. I want to tell you something. I had some elders in the church that I looked up to, and people, if I preach, I want to preach like him. If I become a prayer warrior, I want to pray just like they pray because they stood out in a crowd. They meant so much to me, and they could give you encouragement just by looking at their life, and oh, Brother Roy Riley, I don't think he ever got excited much in his life in the pool pit, but you'd see him out five o'clock in the morning at whatever camp meeting he was at. Across this building, and he was picking up papers and trash while he was praying at five o'clock in the morning, and I've seen that more than one time, and that just stood out to me in life. So if you're an older person here, there's a young person that's watching you, and there's a young person that's making up their mind, Sister Latritha Sampson, that every work night I'll be there, every prayer service, I'll be there, I'll be there every service that I can make. People that will say, "Hey, church is why I miss everything else." Not why everything else is why I miss church, and young people are looking at that, and when they get older, they're going to say, "Hey, I remember Brother so-and-so. I remember Sister so-and-so. Hey, I remember them when they came. I remember their background. I remember what God done for them. I remember how when it was restored, I had a bad knee. I had it reconstructed, and today I can move that thing. A lot better than I can than one, but I'd be still there. It don't move quite as fast, but I'm telling you something. It's better than a crutch. It's better than a prosthetic leg. I'm telling you something today. You matter to God." Every member in the body as it pleases God, but now there are many members but one body. You're a part of this church. Don't get that feeling. Nobody cares. Nobody notices. Nobody appreciates. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of thee," nor again the head to the feet. "I have no need of you." Now much more, these members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary. They're necessary. No matter how painful it is, it's still necessary. And those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these, we bestow more abundant honor. Sometimes you don't learn to appreciate something until you've lost it. I don't see one person that quits coming, that doesn't affect me, that I don't lay in bed at night, two or three o'clock in the morning wondering, "What else could I have done? What could I have done? God, where did I miss it? Where do you know the feeling, Brother Madeline? Where did I miss it? I love those people. I needed those people. For our comaly parts have no need. But God had tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked. Sometimes we need to send help, let them feel love, let them feel affection. There should be no schism in the body, no divisions, no afflictions in the body. But that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffers, remember what Brother Samson was talking about? It's not just the pastor. So many times people have come. You miss one service, and they'll say, "Where's Brother so-and-so? Where was Brother so-and-so today?" And that's annoying to some people. And I can understand, if you don't understand, I can understand. But people love you. They're concerned about you. Why is this leg like this? Why is it functioning like this? Man, I want to go. I want to run. I want to enjoy life. But man, it's not there, and it draws a lot of my thinking, my intellect. A lot of times it's consumed by the pain in this knee. And that's the same way when you're not here. It's the same way when we see you suffering. There's probably somebody that's, you know, don't have that gift of knowledge or wisdom and are off running their mouth about Brother so-and-so or Sister so-and-so. But when you hear trouble, it ain't the time to grab social media. It ain't the time to grab messenger, snap chat, tick-tock. It's the time to fall down and begin to pray about the situation and for the individual. Oh God, don't let this happen. God, don't take them. Don't sever them from the body of Christ. I've seen people without ears. I've seen people without one arm. I've seen people with no legs. But I can guarantee you one thing that they give anything to have them back. I talked to a gentleman who has 60 cycles over here. I was in there and he's not all that old. He's younger than I am. One day he was in so much pain and I was in there. His name is Mark. He hit the counter. He said, "I'd give everything I own to have my knees back. Everything I own, if I could just have good knees under me again, the most miserable, painful, those parts in particular, I'd give anything to have it back. That ought to be this love of every saint in this place today. I'd do anything to win them back to the house of God." All the members suffer with it, or one member be honored. All the members rejoice with it. Now you're the body of Christ and this is Brother Triplett's scripture right here. You're the body of Christ and members in particular. You'll each and every one have a particular accomplishment to make in this church. Particular members, some Sunday school teachers, some preachers, some witness, and some just cleaning, some just out there cooking while the rest of it sit in here in this air conditioned acclimated building this morning. But man, they're out there trying to make it where we'd go in and say, "Hey man, this is good fish." That's all the reward they'd even ask for. They're probably not even asking for that. They're just doing it because Brother Sister Samson wanted to do it. They don't know whether I'm going to do anything for them or not. They just say, "Hey, we can do that." And man, they're out there working today while we're in here. But you know what? They're going to get the same reward after dinner that we get. How does that happen, Brother Samson? God has said some of the church, first, apostle, secondary prophets, thirdly teachers. You notice he's kind of categorizing them. After that, miracles and then gifts of healing helps governments and diversities of tongues. Oh, I speak in tongues more than you all. That's the bottom of the list what Paul's got listed here. Are all apostles or all prophets or all teachers or all workers, all the miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? Do all of you preach? Do all of you witness? You still have an office? You still have a job. But covet, honestly, the best gift. What's the best gift? Would you allow me just to ease down into chapter 13? Would that be fine this morning? But covet, honestly, the best gift, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way. Now, everything that we've covered, Paul comes down at the very end. I'm going to show you something that's more excellent than all this work and all this grander, all this positioning in the church that you've got. I'm going to show you something. And then he goes right on down into 13 and he said, though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity. Now, particular, especially great or intense, extra special, unusual, uncommon, notable, noteworthy, remarkable, and outstanding. You're outstanding in your field and in your calling. Charity is tender-heartedness. Now, think about this. Warm-heartedness, love, brotherly love, sympathy, understanding, thoughtfulness, and tolerance, tolerance, and understanding. I often make the statement, you want to be Christ-like. It talks about long-suffering. I need an example of long-suffering. Well, since Christ is the forefront of everything we preach and teach, let's just use him for an example. God spoke to Noah. He said, you build an arch. All of the sin, all of the stench, everything that's going on has come up before me. It grieves me and I'm going to destroy him. I'm going to wipe him off the face of the earth. Now, Moses would have made intercession. Moses would have began to plead. Lot would have began to make intercession. But on Noah, he just says, okay, God. I don't know where he was at. I don't know how far he was from the coast and all of these things. But I know he was far enough away that when God said build about, they began to look and shake their head. But God said, I'm going to destroy him. His mind's made up. I'm done. I'm going to destroy him. It's now us in our humanity. We want to just cut him off right now. The man, Sister Amy, God went 120 years with the made up mind to wipe him off the earth and destroy him because of their wickedness. He set 120 years and waited to save eight people. Eight people. That's long suffering. That's long suffering. But if I don't have charity, I become a sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy, I understand all of the mysteries and all the knowledge and all, though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity. I've seen pastors, preachers and teachers that were so outstanding in their field. But they had no love, seem like, for the congregation that they were teaching and preaching. It had no effect. Paul's trying to tell us here, and I'm trying to tell this body, this church body, this morning. This is the key regardless of what you're calling and what your office, regardless of all these things. Let me take you a little farther, Paul says. Faith. I'll have all faith so that I could remove mountains, have not charity. I'm nothing. If I be still all of my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profit me nothing. What are you saying by the Samson? In this particular body of Christ, I'm trying to let you know something today. It takes long suffering, and it takes charity. Charity's kind. Charity don't get puffed up. Charity don't get offended. Charity seeketh not its own. It's long suffering. I read you all the definitions. You know what the opposite of charity is? Webster gave one meaning this morning when I looked at it. Meanness. Meanness. You ever just seen people that had to be mean? Well, I tell it like it is. Well, you don't need to tell it like it is sometime. Well, I'm not a compromiser, no, but use some sense. I rather know somebody do something on the job. It was a little far-fetched. He said, "What's the matter with you, ignorant?" Sometimes we don't have the understanding we need. Don't be mean. Don't be mean to people. Well, they do this, and they do that. Just be long suffering. How long? Well, 120 years, seven times, seven times, 70s. You know, that's kind of getting the grip. Don't be mean. Oh, people love a friendly church, a happy church. Sometimes people come in, and it's like my inflamed knee. It's inflamed, or, you know, you've got a broke finger. You've got a burn somewhere, and you just got your whole attitude and your mentality. Well, sometimes people come in and they want everybody to know that they're upset. They want everybody to know that their feelings have been hurt, and something has went wrong. Why don't you just communicate? Just say, "Man, I'm just feeling down, and this happened. There probably wasn't nothing to it." But they said this to me, "Don't get offended." Well, Brother Samson, you know, I got to where I was wanting to play the tambourine a little bit. I thought I was doing a pretty good job with it, you know. Finally, somebody in the music department said, "Look, if you're going to play that thing, just like this, if you're going to play that thing, learn to play it in beat." Okay, so, and then I was telling somebody, he said, "I told another, a younger person," and he said, "Well, sometimes, like when Brother Travin's hitting the beat, and then you're a little bit behind you. So, you're out of beat again." Yeah, I'm told this twice. So, I just took my little tambourine, slid it up in the shelf, laid a Bible on top of it, and just kept right on preaching, kept right on worshiping, just kept right on coming to church. Hallelujah. My goodness. Now, I know a lot of people, if you just went and said, "Hey, whatever, you know, that'd be about the last service you've seen them. Not me. I'm a part of this church. I'm a part of this body." Hallelujah. Well, you didn't have to talk. Well, tell them right then. Look, you don't have to be. My wife tells me, "Kellie, you don't have to be so mean about it. You don't have to be so mean. Sometimes I am irritable. Sometimes I have got 200 other problems beside my own on my shoulder, and I can be a little short. You don't have to be mean. That's what I'm telling you this morning. You don't have to be mean. Charity, sufferth long. When you tell your spouse, "I love you," you know what you're saying? I'm going to be long-suffering with you. I'm not going to envy when it seems like you've got the better, better part of all the attention. I'm not going to get puffed up. It fondness not itself. When you tell your brother, "I love you." You know what you're telling him? I'm saying, "Brother Johnny, even though you're my brother-in-law, I'm going to be long-suffering with you." I love you. I'm glad you're part of the church. I look for him for years, and he's here. Long-suffering because I love him. Well, it's a one-way street. No, I'm sure he's had to be long-suffering with me as well. "Well, he'll do you." But that's part of it. Don't behave itself unseemingly. See it's not her own. It's not easily provoked, and it thinks no evil. You get to sit in there thinking you're not a part of the body of Christ. You don't fit in. You're not wanted, and that'll be the very night that somebody comes by and says, "If you're going to play that thing, play it in beat or put it down." They wouldn't much kinder than that. I just put it down, but man, don't get puffed up. And when you see inequity, when you see evil, when you see sin, when you see wrongdoing, don't rejoice in it. And when God does put the hammer on certain situations in the church, don't sit back there. But that's God. I knew that was going to happen. I could see that coming, and they deserved everything they got. Don't rejoice in that. Don't rejoice in other people's wrongdoing, and don't sure don't rejoice. If anything made me mad when I was getting a whippet to look over at my cousins and they was snickering and laughing where parents couldn't see them and pointing at me, "Ah, boy, that really made me mad." Man, that's the time to rush in. The Bible says, "When the enemy comes in," they tell me the original script reads like this. Today we say, "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord raises up a standard." And when they told me this, I liked that. They said, "When the enemy comes in, then like a flood, will the spirit of the Lord raise up a standard against that?" Hallelujah. They tell me when infection enters the body that immediately, the blood cells, I don't know if it's the white ones or what, but they run, and they begin to fight that infection. And the temperature will even rise. In the catalbism, if you was intricate enough in your catal raise, if you took the temperature of each and every cat, one of your herd that day, and the ones that had the temperature, the higher temperatures in that herd, they are the ones that need an antibiotic immediately, because there's infection, there's something there causing that temperature to rise. Men with fervency for one another, when we see an infection, we see maybe somebody that's wounded, somebody that's hurt. Man, that's what we ought to be all over that, like an antibiotic. I got the antibiotic for that. What is it that's a little bit of long suffering, a little bit of charity, a whole lot of prayer. And man, I'm telling you, that's the antidote that will fix a lot of things in the church today. Rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice in the truth, bear with all things, believe with all things, hope with all things, and endure with all things. Charity never fails, but whether they be prophecies are going to fail, whether the tongues they'll cease, whether they'll be knowledges, shall vanish away, for we know in part, and prophesy in part, but when that, which is perfect, is calm, then that which is in part shall be done away with. I'm quitting with this scripture, and I'm not done. When I was a child, I spanked as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I become a man, I put away childish things. I felt like love is a secret ingredient. Verse 13 said, "Now by the faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity." When you lose faith and you lose hope, you don't lose your love for the house of God. Don't lose your love for one another. Don't lose your love for the body of Christ. Brother Joel Holmes, pastor is probably one of the biggest churches in Pentecost. A good friend of mine, Brother Rodney Betz, was preaching for Brother Joel Holmes, and with Joel Holmes said, "We was in the back and we had a couple ice cream machines back there." And he said, "Man, all those people was getting ice cream and standing around, licking that ice cream and talking to one another and just enjoying one another. Ice cream will lift your spirit." And he got in the car and he said, "Betz." He said, "Yes, Brother Holmes. He said, "I want to know how to build a church." Brother Betz was a young evangelist with hopes to have a church someday and he meant he was all ears. He said, "Yes, Brother Holmes. How do you do it?" He said, "Buy you a couple ice cream machines." He said, "They'll get to talking and licking that ice cream and visiting one another." He said, "I want to tell you something. There'll be a closeness there." And he said, "You can build you a church, hallelujah." Well, I want just a little more than a couple ice cream machines and I'm looking for some. Don't think I'm not, but I'm telling you something. I'm looking for a love in the body of Christ to say, "Hey, you're not as insignificant today as you feel, man. It makes a difference when I see you in the house of God." I love this church where you stand to your feet today. ♪ Deep breath ♪