Touré Roberts - Inconvenient Love

Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22. I’m going to shock you today because I’m just going to read through it. It’s going to be the first miracle of the day. The pastor does not preach through the opening verses, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him, saying, «Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law?» Jesus said to him, «You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.» Hallelujah! Father, thank you so much for your word. It is a lamp unto our feet; it is a light unto our path. We love you. I thank you for this message. I believe there’s healing in it; I believe there’s instruction in it; I believe there is a word of alignment in it, that we might both individually and corporately be all that you have called us to be in the earth, that we might reflect you in unprecedented ways to your glory. We love you, God. We thank you and praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. God bless you; you may be seated. Hallelujah, can I have a little bit of water? My mouth was a little dry. Gracias, thank you so much. Thank you, Charles. Can we give it up for CG3? He is such a faithful blessing. Thank you so much; he keeps me on course. Thank God for him; his heart is gold. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Are you tracking with me? Connect with some people who have pure hearts. They may not have all of this; they may not have all of that. They may—whatever—and he’s got plenty; I’m not talking about him, but I’m saying when you are looking to partner with people and interact with people, you’ve got to always look at the heart. I’m telling you, a pure heart will never disappoint you. You know, there are a lot of things that I believe in as it relates to walking with God. My first service, my first sermon was called «Make Sure You’re Eligible to Receive Your Blessing.» It was all about obedience. I am a big believer in obedience. You would have thought that I grew up in a holiness church; I mean seriously, I believe in obeying God. I believe that there are certain things in life you cannot have unless you obey God. I preached Thursday night at our other campus about submitting to God, coming under God, and the power in it. I talked about how obedience and submitting to God is investing your power to do what you want to do and submitting that by receiving His power and strength to do things that you couldn’t do. So I’m a firm believer, and I believe that anyone who’s going to walk with God, anyone who’s going to experience all that God has for them, must learn to listen to God and obey God. I believe that with all my heart. There are a lot of things that I believe about walking with God in relation to how to move God and how to grow in God. Obedience is one of them. The second one that I think is really, really important is faith. I really do believe. You know, the Bible says that without faith it’s impossible to please God. He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. There are things that are assigned to your life that you cannot access outside of faith. There are things in the invisible realm that God wants to make visible in your life, but He cannot make those invisible things visible in your life without faith. That’s what faith does; faith manifests into the visible what is invisible, and it is an absolute must for anyone who is going to walk with God. The reason why He says, «without faith it’s impossible to please me,» is not that He is mad at you when you don’t have faith; it’s not that He delights in withholding from you. He takes pleasure in the prosperity of His children, so the reason He is not pleased when we don’t have faith is because He can’t do for you what He’s predestined for you. We access things by faith. So I’m telling you, obedience; I’m telling you, faith. You know, I thought for a long time if we could just learn how to hear from God and obey God, and if we could just learn how to have faith and believe, and when God tells us something, not to vacillate back and forth between two opinions. I believe that if we would believe and obey, then nothing else would be necessary; this would be the apex of our spirituality. If we can just get our obedience worked out and we can get our faith worked out, then we would have this thing locked down. We can realize our destiny, lay hold of all the promises, be blessed, bless our children’s children, and move on. But I was wrong. I was wrong because when Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, He doesn’t say anything about obedience. I mean, when they asked Him, «Teacher, what is the greatest commandment?» It doesn’t negate the other commandments, but they’re basically asking Him what the mountaintop of our faith is, what the summit is, what it means to…