What does the Scripture say is going to be a prominent problem in this hour?  They love pleasure more than they love God.  Well, let’s narrow “pleasure” down a little bit.  I mean we can make pleasure pretty large, the subject.  We all receive pleasure from different things, don’t we?  Some people receive pleasure out of going window-shopping and looking at all of these things.  But we all have different things.  Let’s just bring it down to this:  What pleases me?  See, we can’t say the problem is pleasure; it’s what pleases me.  That’s what I have to battle with now.  The thing that’s out of order in my life is the thing that pleases me so much that I’m preoccupied with it.  We become angry with others that bring us the truth because we’re angry at ourselves for our rebellion and disobedience.  So, when people approach you, you’re already mad.  I’m already mad that I don’t have enough love and faithfulness to God that I can’t become temperate in this thing in my life.  I stay mad.  And if you’re under works and you’re under a performance pressure, you do stay mad.  You’re constantly frustrated.  You don’t have joy.  You don’t have peace; amen?  Because you’re never good enough for God.

We see the contrast between a man that’s alive in the Spirit and one that’s not.  That man living under torment.  The man that’s in the Spirit that knows that this price has already been paid, that’s frustrated with himself as he’s warring against this, delights in the man who’s coming to assist him; amen?  How do you respond when you’re reproved?  What do you see reproof being in your life?  “Well, this person’s attacking me.  They don’t like me.  They’re jealous.  They’re prideful.  They’re legalistic.  They’re…”  God chastens those that He loves.  Do you ever think about receiving it as love?  “No!”  Well, start doing it, because that’s what the Scripture says; amen?

He says, don’t provoke one another and don’t envy one another, but live in the Spirit and let this fruit manifest itself.  I want to go past the first three.  One, of course, the comment on love is all‑inclusive.  We’ve talked about the joy and the peace aspect.  It has to do with our delight and our confidence in our redemption, in our justification, our love for the Word.  I found Your Word and I ate it and it became unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.  The Word.  We delight in the Word.  It brings about that response that is not natural to man.  A glad‑heartedness.  But I want to speak about the things that are related to the community, how we relate to one another.  In this great expression of the love of God, it’s found both in 1 Corinthians 13 as the attributes of love are being expressed to us and it’s found here in the fruit of the Spirit, the character trait of longsuffering.

We’re pretty quick to bring judgment on each other.  We’ll see as we go into the teaching on love, too.  Dear Lord, we are so touchy!  My goodness, we’re like the world.  We’re offended by everything.  We just don’t bear long with each other.  While holding the standard of perfection, let’s be long suffering in people’s pursuit of it; amen?  It’s a process.  Not everyone’s lucky and in one day gets totally sanctified.  Some of the old timers, right?  “I’m saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost!  Hallelujah!”  Jeff Johnson, “Everybody I offended today, forgive me!”  You remember I’ve talked about Jeff.  He’d come to work day, sure enough he’d open his mouth.  He’d have half of the people there mad at him before the day was over.  Load his tools up.  “Everybody I offended, sorry!”  Stop it!  Amen?  “Well, we don’t want to say anything.  He’ll get upset.”  Save his life!  He’s a reproach to Jesus!  Jeff was one of those good ol’ boys.  Nobody taught this back in those days.  You know all you did back then?  Everybody just pretended like it wasn’t real and said, “Well, just pray for him.  God’s working in him.”  Yes, pray for him.  Yes, the Holy Spirit is working.  But the Word is profitable; amen?  For reproof.  For rebuke.