Sheryl Brady - Strange Love

On your way down, hit somebody and tell them I told you they were strange. To all of you who are visiting us for the first time, I’m grateful to have you in the house with us, and we’re so glad that you are worshiping the Lord with us in the word of God. In chapter 12, if you really back up, and for the sake of time, I will just read those two verses. In chapter 12 of the book of Hebrews, Paul is admonishing us to pursue God—not just to get God and be satisfied with whatever portion you have and say things have changed in my life. Now, I love God; He loves me. No, He is admonishing us to pursue God. He’s also admonishing us to pursue peace, and here’s another one: He’s admonishing us to pursue holiness. Somebody holler «holiness!» Say it again like your mama would say it: «holiness or hell!» Pastor, where are you at? There’s a pastor here visiting: Pastors, where you at? God bless you all! It just hit me—I’m so glad to have you all worshiping the Lord with us today. They are incredible pastors, and they have set aside this day to come and worship with us. Can you make them feel real welcome? We’re so grateful that you are here.

So, let me go back to this: Paul is telling us that we are to pursue holiness. Holiness is not just something that’s going to come to you; you have to make a decision in your life that holiness is the way you’re going. Y’all are quiet. We don’t like to talk about holiness today, but we do talk in this church. We’re going to talk about holiness because the Bible says, «Without holiness, no man can see God.» If you don’t see God, you can’t see your purpose; if you can’t see your purpose, you can’t see your destiny. If you can’t see your destiny, then you don’t know what He has for your life. So, it is imperative that we live a life of holiness. It’s old-fashioned, but slap somebody and tell them it works! It works! He tells us that we have to lay aside every weight and every sin, which means there’s a difference between the two. He said to lay aside the weight—whatever could potentially hold you down and cause you not to be able to run your race. He says, «I want you to lay that down. Anything that’s so heavy that it will hinder you from crossing the finish line, I want you to lay it down.»

Also, I want you to set aside the weight. Notice He didn’t just say, «I want you to set aside the sin.» He didn’t just say, «I want you to set aside sin»; He said, «I want you to set aside the sin.» It’s specific for you; it’s specific to you. You could hold up a Dr. Pepper in front of me, and it would not move me at all. I’m not going to reach for it—there’s nothing in me for it. I don’t like it; I don’t want it. But if you set a Diet Coke in front of me, there will be a war within my members. I want to do right, but I would struggle with that. By the way, praise God, it’s been a little over five years since I’ve had soda on these lips—wherever you’re from, I don’t know. I was strongly addicted to my Diet Coke or Coke Zero. It was specific for me. Now, I’m being funny about that, but there is a sin that—you know when you think you’re delivered, and then you get in the vicinity of it, and you’re like, «Oh! What is that? What do I feel? What’s calling me?» Whatever it is, don’t answer the phone because God says, «I want you to lay it aside.»

That’s not my message today, but somebody needed to hear that. There you go. He closes out chapter 12 and opens up chapter 13, presenting us with some commands that deal with the social life of the believer. He instructs us, saying, «Let brotherly love continue.» Now, it’s interesting to me that he refers to love as something that is brotherly, but I believe that is very appropriate because it reminds us that as Christians, we can’t really call ourselves Christians without loving one another and loving the brethren. The spirit of Christianity is the spirit of love. Have you ever seen unloving Christians? I mean, hateful Christians? You’re like, «How can you be a Christian if you’re so hateful?» It’s just terrible. He’s saying to us that we need to cultivate love toward one another in our midst because the Bible says that by this—by what? By love—they shall know that we are His disciples. As a matter of fact, Galatians 5:22 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love. Okay, so if you are loveless, you are fruitless. I don’t care how long you’ve been saved.