(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

It is good to see you in God's house today, and again, we are believing that God's gonna do great and mighty things in you and through you.

We have, over the course of October, throughout the month of October, we have been focusing on outreach and missions.

We've been highlighting various missionaries throughout the month, international missionaries, and also local missionaries and national missionaries.

And one of the things we wanna make you aware of, if you're just kinda coming into the Valorous family and attending Valorous Church, that we do so much more than you see here in this building or in this room on Sunday mornings.

For instance, as the disaster, the hurricanes hit just a few weeks ago, you guys participated in that tremendously.

We're doing all we can to help do our part in funding restoration in the areas that need it, sending supplies in the areas that need it.

We're also partnering with local ministries.

Actually, Low Country Food Bank is going to be in the foryer today when you leave.

We're feeding many people in our area that needs food.

We do outreach events like we did last weekend.

Come on, somebody, where we did our fall festival, ValorFest, reaching out to families to show them the love and kindness of God.

We're also involved in Africa, with Nigeria.

We're also involved in some shorter-term mission trips that we're gonna be making you aware of.

You can stop and see the missionaries out there.

But the whole point in all of this is to raise your awareness that God is doing some great and powerful things throughout the earth, and he can use us.

Actually, Jesus said, whenever he gave the charge to the first disciples to go into the world, he says, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.

And so we wanna be a church that we're doing ministry across the street, come on, somebody, but also around the world.

We've titled the teaching series that we've been in since the 1st of October, Love in Action, Love in Action.

And we're gonna continue that thought process today.

I wanna talk about putting a little love in the mix, putting a little love in the mix.

How many of you know that whenever you make music, the mix is important?

You know, the sound person is very, very valuable in mixing the sounds that come out of the speakers whenever the instruments are playing and the vocalists are singing.

They actually make people like me, a speaker, sound a whole lot better than I really sound.

Come on, somebody.

It's how they mix it.

And how we mix love with the gift that God gives us as a believer in Jesus Christ can determine a lot of the impact it makes on those in the world.

The Bible talks a lot about our spiritual gifts.

And you hear me speak to you a lot about using your gifts and stepping up to the plate and doing something great with the gift that God gives you, putting it together with the other gifts.

The Bible talks about this in 1 Corinthians 12, a lot about a spiritual gift.

But it goes on to say in chapter 13, as the writer wrote the church at Corinth, that you need to put a little love in the mix.

And that's what I wanna talk about today because the Bible says that we can use our gift, but if we don't put a little love in the mix, the gift is basically doing more damage than it's really doing good.

Look at your neighbor and say put a little love in the mix.

Tell them put a little love in the mix.

All right.

All right.

The writer says you can have the greatest gifts in the world, but if you don't put love in the mix, it actually loses its impact.

And we as a church are here to impact the world around us.

Not to just go out and do good things, not to just use our gifts and do great strengths of, or feats of faith, but we wanna put love in the mix and have an incredible impact on the world around us.

So if you have your Bibles with you today, I'm gonna ask you to open it up to the letter that the writer wrote to the church at Corinth, First Corinthians, and we're gonna learn how to put love in the mix, how to have Christ-like love, put love in action whenever we're basically putting our gift to work in the world.

The writer starts off in First Corinthians, chapter 13, and verse one, and he says this.

He says, if I could speak all the languages of the earth and of angels, but didn't love others, he said, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

He said, I'd just be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Anybody ever heard a cymbal just kind of clanging and it wasn't in the mix of a song?

Somebody just beating on a cymbal?

It's irritating, isn't it?

I mean, we've had that happen before.

People just beating a cymbal just for the sake of beating a cymbal.

Has no rhythm to it, has no purpose to it.

Just beating a cymbal for the sake of beating the cymbal.

And whenever you just beat a cymbal for the sake of beating the cymbal and you don't put the music or the rhythm to the cymbal or get the cymbal in the right place in the song, come on somebody, it really messes up the song.

And so what the writer is saying is, look, he says, you know what, you wanna put love in the mix.

He doesn't say don't make any noise.

Some of us may read that scripture and say that the writer is saying, look, just don't use my gift or just don't make any impact with my gift, but pay close attention.

He doesn't say that your gift's not supposed to make noise or have impact or get the world's attention.

Come on somebody.

He says, just mix a little love with it so it has impact in the world around you.

And so I wanna encourage you that the church is to be noisy.

It is to make a rhythmic noise in the world that it's placed in.

In other words, the church is to have a voice.

It's to step up and do great and mighty things.

The church is God's vehicle.

That's you and me put together.

Those who have fallen in love with Jesus and he is the king of our life.

He is the Lord of our life.

Now we belong to his family.

The Bible says we are his body and we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this world, making an impact, having a voice.

The church isn't here to be silent and just sing a song on Sunday mornings.

The church is to make a noise in the earth and do great and mighty things on behalf of our almighty and powerful great God.

Come on, somebody.

There's a time and a place for everything.

And we got to get in rhythm if we're really going to hit the world the way that God intends for us to hit the world and make the difference in the world that God intends for us to make.

So today we're gonna look at this love.

What does it look like?

Well, you know, whenever you study the Bible and you see that word love, there's a lot of different meanings for that word love in the Greek language.

And a lot of the words that we have in our New Testament were translated into English from Greek and that word love that we find there in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is what we would know as an unconditional love.

Agape love.

There's several kinds of love.

There's romantic kind of love.

Come on, somebody.

And if you got a wife or a husband, I hope you were in romantic kind of love with them.

There's brotherly love that's talked about in the Bible.

There's parental love that's talked about in the Bible.

But this particular love that is written that the church is to have when it impacts the world with its gifts is something known as agape love.

That's what Christian love is.

It's unconditional love.

It doesn't love because it gets love back.

It loves because it's the DNA of who it is.

And so we may never get an accolade for our love.

And what happens a lot of times is if the church doesn't get an accolade for its love to the world around it, it quits loving.

That's not an unconditional love.

People do it in the church all the time.

Well, as long as I'm feeling the love, then I'll keep partnering with the church.

But the moment I don't really feel the love, I walk away.

And the reality of it is God didn't call us to walk away from the assignment or the mission that he gave the church to take the good news of Christ into all the world.

He says, mix love with your gift and put your gift to work and let's go change the world.

And so this is an agape love.

That's what Christian love is.

It's an unconditional love.

But Christ-like love is not a love that just, that sits.

It's a love that does.

Other words, when he says, I'm to take my gift and I'm gonna mix love with it, we gotta understand that love does something.

Come on, it does something.

The example for us is John chapter three, verse 16.

Look what the Bible says, for God, the God that you and I know.

For God, this is how he loved the world, that would be you and me.

He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

Think about that for just a minute.

God didn't just say, oh, I love you.

You're so beautiful.

You're so awesome.

He didn't just tell you he loved you, he did something.

See, this is the beautiful thing about Christianity.

God came to us.

We're not here trying to get merit with our gifts and get to God.

We realize that God first loved us, so we love the world around us, and God did something.

He put on skin, he come to a world that was hostile, that was broken, that was fallen, that was tempted, that was just in a big old mess, but he put on skin anyway, and he came here, and he demonstrated love by dying on a cross, defeating death, resurrecting from a grave so you and I could have life.

And I can tell you that cross didn't feel good.

And I can tell you that cross didn't feel good.

But Jesus did it anyway, because he had an agape love, an unselfish love, a love that was beyond him.

It was a love that cared for the welfare of those who wasn't even loving him back.

Listen to what the Bible says in Romans chapter five, verse eight.

It says, God showed his love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were sinners.

Love does something.

That's why we have all these partnerships in the atrium today.

The missionaries around the table because we're a church that wanna do something.

And those mission partners are doing various things in the world and around the world.

And so we come to them and say, hey, you know what, we would like to use our gifts and partner with you to show the love of Christ to the world around you.

Through our generosity, through our giving, and through our serving, being a part of what you're doing.

See, this is the beautiful thing about partnerships.

But I need you to know when we here at Valorous Church enter a partnership, we don't just enter a partnership to enter a partnership, but we enter a partnership for a purpose.

And the partnership is to show the love of Christ to the world around us through tangible ways, by being the hands and feet.

And we realize that we, as a church, can partner with people and do great and mighty things.

In other words, they're gonna do their part and we're gonna do our part.

And together, we can change the world.

And so the Bible gives us a lot about doing things with our life.

Every one of those partners out there from Low Country Food Bank, they're doing great and mighty things.

But I don't know if you know it or not, but one of the directors or one of the managers at Low Country Food Bank, she attends churches.

She's gonna be out there to receive you today.

But we found out that she's a partner of Valorous Church and not only a partner of Valorous Church, she's a partner of Valorous Church that wants the rest of Valorous Church to get involved.

And so we're gonna start doing these food distributions in this area because there's a great need, total need I was unaware of.

And maybe you're unaware of it too.

But about 25% of Low Country Food Bank, which services 11 counties in South Carolina, about 25% of those people who don't have enough food to eat every week live in Horry County.

Come on.

That's children and elderly people.

But we have the ability to sow finances into Low Country Food Bank.

Offer service, put together distribution centers out of our wonderful, incredible campus and begin to show the love of Christ and partner with them in a tangible way.

Come on, somebody.

And do that in the world.

We wanna do something.

But not only does Christian love do something, it does something with rhythm.

And this is really, really important.

Because a lot of times, churches aren't focused, they're just trying to do everything.

And the truth of the matter is, we're not here to do everything.

But we're here to have rhythm and do what God is leading us to do and align, everybody say align.

Align.

And be on mission together.

Singing the same song.

Going in the same direction.

Being in tune with one another.

Because here in this passage, he says, you know, not only should you do something, but you should do something, I wrote it down this way, with a rhythmic buzz.

With a rhythmic buzz.

In other words, are you taking your gift and putting it together with the other gifts?

And rhythmically singing the same song.

Because look what he says here in 1 Corinthians 13, verses two and three.

He says, if I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn't love others, he said, I would be nothing.

He says, if I gave everything I have to the poor, and I even sacrificed my own body, he says, I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

And so a question I need to ask myself, because the question I need to ask myself is, am I, with my gift, the spiritual gift God gave me, am I trying to earn brownie points from God when I'm serving and sharing, making sacrifices?

Am I trying to earn brownie points with God, or am I just acting out of who God made me to be because it is who I'm supposed to be in the world?

Am I doing it for his glory?

Because what happens in the local church, is oftentimes people come and they become a part of what God's doing in the world, but then they feel like they've got to do all these things to make God happy with them.

And the writer here is saying, look, I want you to understand something.

The gift isn't to earn brownie points with God, but the gift is used to magnify the love and the power of God through your life.

In other words, I'm not here to compete with my gift, I'm here to complete with my gift.

Oh, that was another level.

I'm not here to compete with the gift God gave me, I'm here to complete the body with my gift and you use your gift and we use it together and we love the world together and we're not doing it to Johnny one-up somebody else or to gain brownie points with God, but we're doing it because you know what, it is who God made us to be and we got a heart for what God is doing in the world and we step up and when God says give some money, I give my money.

When God says use your gift and serve others, I use my gift and I serve others.

I'm not giving grudgingly, but I'm giving from a joyful heart.

Come on.

And so many of us need to start giving with a joyful heart because the reality of it is this is what causes a rhythmic buzz.

I love when people give with a joyful heart because we can begin to have rhythm in what we're doing in the world.

I love when other gifts step up and complete my gift.

One of the most humbling things you can ever come to a conclusion of is you're not Jesus by yourself.

It's humbling.

Because I need you and you need me if we're gonna show the love of Christ to the world around us.

And we're here to encourage one another, build one another up in our faith so that together we can be in rhythm and use in our gift to complete one another, not compete with one another, to show the love of Christ to the world around us.

And I promise you when the church unifies and the mission becomes about what I just said, you will not contain what God wants to do in pouring out his love to the world around us.

You won't be able to contain it.

It's rhythmic.

It's not, and again, it's using my gift at the right time in the right place.

This whole passage of scripture from 12, 13, and 14 of 1 Corinthians is about not using your gifts in the wrong spots.

Some people were jumping up and speaking in tongues in the wrong spots.

And nothing wrong with speaking in prayer languages and tongues, but the writer, go read it.

1 Corinthians chapter 14, it's amazing because he talks about order, he talks about rhythm, he talks about using your gift in the proper context and doing the proper things with your gift, not to draw attention to yourself so that you can make some noise together and change the world around you.

Come on, somebody.

The Bible's crystal clear.

Use the gift God gave you in the proper space and place.

You know, there's, God gives prayer languages to people.

God gives the people ability to speak in unknown languages and speak, you know what, in a prayerful way.

I do believe totally in the gift of tongues, but the reality of it is, and this is a church, by the way, that speaks in tongues, but I don't speak in an unknown language.

God hasn't given me that gift.

And I'm not just gonna come up here and stop babbling some words to you that I don't know anything about to impress you.

The reason I do what I do is because God gave me a gift.

It's a gift to preach, come on, somebody, and encourage, and I use my gift to do what God designed me to do.

And that's not boasting, but I'm confident in who God made us to be.

And I invite you to step fully into who God made you to be.

You don't have to be me, and I don't have to be you.

Aren't you glad you don't have to be me?

Come on, somebody.

But the reality of it is, this whole passage of scripture is about rhythm.

And it's about not just using your gift out of order anytime you wanna use your gift, but Paul says, look, it's about all the gifts matter to God.

Every last one of them matter to God.

He gives them to us.

And we're to put those gifts in such a way that we make a beautiful sound of harmony to the world around us with the love of Christ.

Come on somebody.

And it changes people's heart and changes their life.

And it shows them the power and the love of Christ through who he has made us to be.

It's a beautiful thing, my friends.

It's a beautiful thing.

Bible says the fruit, everybody say the fruit.

The manifestation of the spirit of the living God in you is love, everybody say love.

Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

That's the fruit of the spirit.

Oh, by the way, we're all a work in progress.

And the truth is, I don't always squeeze all those things out of me when you squeeze me.

But the reality of it is this.

There should be some sort of transformation going on in your life where that's what's beginning to come out of your life with the gifts that you have in order to change the world around you.

And God calls His church to be a church in action, to show the power and the love of God to the world around them by using the various gifts in rhythm.

I got a little ways to go here, so let me keep moving here.

But the Christlike love isn't just rhythmic, it doesn't just do something, but it's also, it has accountability.

And I'm talking about self-accountability.

Look at the love that is coming out of you and begin to ask yourself about what's being displayed through your gifts that Christ gave you.

Are they respectful?

Because the Bible says here in 1 Corinthians 13, verses four through seven, it says, agape love in a Christ follower with its gift is patient and kind.

Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.

It does not demand its own way.

It is not irritable and it keeps no record of being wronged.

It does not rejoice about injustice.

Come on, somebody.

But it rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Love perseveres.

It never gives up, never loses faith.

It's always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.

So whenever we show love as a body, we're always to show respect and honor to those we're loving.

It's why we do Giving Hope Mall here at Valorist Church, which is a Saturday in the first part of December where we come in, we're starting to give them now.

You've probably heard it announced that we're doing something called Giving Hope Mall.

We gather gifts to give to folks in our community so that their families can have an incredible Christmas and the kids that they have, maybe it's some people who are a little bit less fortunate in the year, maybe had some hard times throughout the year, and they sign up for us as a church to show the love of Christ through gift giving.

Gift giving is what's something that happens at Christmas, right?

But the reason we do Giving Hope Mall the way we do it and ask you to bring in the gifts, then we set up this tremendous mall for the parents to become the shoppers of their kids' toys.

And then we have gift wrapping stations that the parents wrap those gifts up, put them in their vehicle, or sometimes we transport them for them, and we transport them to their home so that they can give the gifts as parents to their children on a Christmas morning and become the heroes in their kid's life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jesus becomes the hero in the kid's life, may become the hero in the parent's life, but every kid needs to look at their parents as being the hero in their life, not somebody else.

And it's to bring dignity and respect back to families and parents so that they can be the hero in their family.

Now, hey, little children, I'm not gonna say this, not, hey, little Johnny, look at me, Pastor Clay gave you a train set today, ha, ha, ha.

See, that's loving with respect.

And again, I'm talking about a whole as a church.

And the question is, do I give my gift away so everybody is, I didn't say don't make no noise with the gift now, but do I give my gift away so everybody is absorbed to me?

Or is everybody absorbed to God?

Am I magnifying God with the gift?

And naturally, if you're a light for God, people's gonna be drawn to the light, but let the light reflect the greater light that's in your life and show respect and honor and peace and joy and all these kind of things when you give it out and let's see the world change.

Love and action is respectful.

I wrote this down too.

Love and action, or Christ-like love, it grows out of some things.

Let me show you.

First Corinthians 13, verses 11 and 12.

The writer says, when I was a child, I spoke and I thought and I reasoned as a child, but when I grew up, look at your neighbor and say, did you grow up?

Says I put away childish things.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All that I know, he says, now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows.

God now knows me completely.

In other words, Christ-like love, according to this passage, is maturing and it's learning.

The love that we have for the world around us is maturing and it's learning.

And if the love in us is maturing and learning, it means we learn to say no to some of the childish ways that we used to maybe respond before the love of Christ got a hold of our heart and we begin to grow in that love.

Maybe I don't respond on Facebook the way I did when I first come to Christ.

Maybe, you know, I don't read all that stuff and let it penetrate my heart and all that negativity, me lash back out at it.

Come on, somebody.

Say, you don't know what you're talking about.

Start all, that's childish.

Maybe, arguing with somebody about something that, oh, what do they call that world out there?

The social media world.

Again, we put childish things behind us.

Maybe I don't buy what I was gonna buy.

Once, because I got, I'm maturing in Christ-like love.

And I realize, I'm not here just to absorb all the blessing, but I'm here to give the blessing away.

Come on.

Is your love maturing?

Is your love continuing to learn?

Christ-like love is putting some things behind you.

It's growing out of some things.

If you became a Christian at 15, you know, I know you've gone through life, but if you've been growing in love and growing in maturity as a Christ follower, hopefully if you're 35 now, something major has changed.

And you grew out of some things.

In other words, you're not acting childish anymore.

You're not letting the things in the world get a hold of your emotions like they once did.

You realize what mission you were on and who gave you the love to do the mission and you step into it and begin to do it in the world around you.

Christ-like love, agape love is unconditional.

And I can tell you right now, my feelings aren't unconditional.

What do I mean by that?

Some of the things that people do to me hurt the same way, but maybe I've grown out of how I respond to those situations because the love of Christ has penetrated my heart and I don't respond the same way I did long ago.

That's what maturing and being Christ-like is all about.

And showing agape love because the reality of it is, again, Christ had to do some horrific things to go to that cross.

He had to go through a lot of ridicule.

People said some horrific things to him.

They spat on him, they tore his clothes.

They called him the devil.

Religious people said Jesus was the devil.

And you know what Jesus did?

He went to the cross anyway because of the joy set before him.

He knew the power of God and he had the power of God in his life.

And he loved anyway.

You see, that gets me every single time.

In spite of my life and how I've responded to certain situations in my life, Jesus loves me anyway.

And it's transforming because he loves me anyway.

And it's transforming because when that love, let a little love get in your heart.

Come on.

When that love, agape love gets in your heart and begins to mix with your gift, your gift begins to look different.

And whenever your gift begins to look different and all of our gifts begin to look different, then the church begins to look different.

And when the church begins to look different, the landscape of the community begins to look different.

And when the landscape of the community begins to look different, the landscape of the state begins to look different.

And when the landscape of the state begins to look different, the landscape of the nation begins to look different.

And when the landscape of the nation, come on, looks different, then the landscape of the world looks different and God will rule and reign.

Come on, put a little love in it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's grow out of our childish ways and mix a little love with it.

Last thing I wrote down is this.

It's Christ-like love.

Doesn't only do something.

It's not only rhythmic.

It's not only respectful.

It's not only these things, but it's also purposeful.

Look what it says, 1 Corinthians 13, 13.

It says, three things will last forever.

The writer says, faith, hope and love.

And the greatest of these is love.

In all reality, when we demonstrate love through our gifts together, it's really about bringing eternal things into a temporal world.

This is, again, love lasts forever.

Faith and hope last forever.

These three things last forever.

They're eternal things.

And so whenever we demonstrate the love and we put love into action through our various gifts brought together and become the church, the vehicle, the vessel in the world around us, what happens is these eternal things are brought into the earth.

In other words, we did a series here a while back, bring up there, down here.

I'm trying to communicate to us today how we continue to deposit goodness in a world that has gone evil.

The Bible says, let your good conquer, or do good and conquer evil.

Come on, somebody.

And when we do the good things that God called us to do and have a purpose for doing it, changes everything.

Our purpose is to build a platform and be a vehicle for God to work through so we can share the good news of who Christ is and tell the world around them, no matter how far off track you've gotten, God loves you anyway.

And I believe if you'll surrender your life to him by faith today, guess what?

He will begin to change your heart and change your mind and renew you and begin to do great and mighty things.

God loves you anyway.

Begin to tell people that the reason Christ came was to die for them as a sinner.

And it's not based on what they do or don't do or done and don't do.

It's based on who he is.

And begin to somehow, someway through the various gifts, show that to the world around us so they respond to the gospel, the good news of Christ.

My friend, that's why the church is here.

And I realize that, you know, we may not always do everything that you personally wanna do, but maybe we'll get around to it.

But here's the question.

We're already doing a lot.

And the question is, does God want you to take your gift and get it on board with where we're going as a church and sync yourself up and let's change the world together?

And that's the decision you gotta make.

Again, we create the space and the place and the ministries to work through here at Valor's Church.

But again, it is strictly that we want to love of God to permeate our life, permeate our church and impact the world around us.

Takes a lot of gifts working together to do that.

We're not here, we will love a village, but we're here to love the world.

And the truth is, sometimes it takes a little bit more unction to go to the next level than some of us display.

And I'm inviting you to step in and let's go change the world.

I mean, I know you don't always feel good, I don't either.

But the reality of it is, is we are loving because of the agape love of God that was shown to us, the unconditional love of God that was shown to us, and we're coming together to show it to the world.

Yeah, we can have joy in it, we have peace in it.

We can be patient in it, and all those various things, but let's be the people of God and put love in action and change the world.

Let me pray for you today.

God, you're an amazing God.

Thank you for every man, woman, boy, and girl here.

Thank you for your word.

Thank you for really explaining to us through 1 Corinthians 13 what love is.

And God, I pray that we would digest that today, and we would be the kind of church that involves our gift.

And God, we lay it before you, the gift that you gave us, and we believe that you're gonna put those gifts together and do great and mighty things and change the world through them.

And God, I pray we would surrender those gifts up to you and begin to put love into action and see you work in us and work through us.

God, if there's one that stumbled in this place today that don't know who you are, God, somehow, someway, I pray they would talk to somebody.

A gift of compassion would see them in their brokenness, put their arm around them, and show your amazing love.

God, I pray we'd be the church right here if there's a person that stumbled in here today that don't know who you are.

And God, they could meet you because of the love expressed through your people.

My friend, if that is you, the Bible says, if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

And I can tell you the message we share here is so that people will be saved, brought in right relationship with God, and they would get on board with what God wants to do in them and through them in the world.

And so that is you today.

Say, God, today I surrender.

And I believe you died on that cross to forgive me of my sin.

You rose from that grave to have power, to give me power in my life so that God, that evil doesn't win, but your love wins.

And God, I can be a part of your purpose in the world.

Tell God, thank you for the gift of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus.

And it's in his name we pray, amen.