Show Open And Big Claim

Announcer 0:01

It's time now to get the hell out of your life. A weekly broadcast with real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope. Today's show will encourage, inspire, and empower you to face life's challenges with a bold confidence and renewed hope. Now let's join our host, Ron Myers, the promoter.

Ron Meyers 0:21

Hello, my friends. Welcome to Get the Hell Out of Your Life. I'm your host, Ron Myers. Today, we're talking about something that sounds almost too simple, but it's brutally honest. Hell doesn't get removed by religious effort. It gets displaced by love. Not love you try to crank out like a performance, love that shows up when Jesus is changing you from the inside out. Because let's be real, a lot of people want to chase results, spiritual experiences,

Why Love Proves Real Change

Ron Meyers 1:01

miracles, bible knowledge, ministry success, religious wins. And yeah, some of it can look impressive, but the Bible asks us a different question. Not how impressive is your faith, not how much do you do. The real question is what's producing you, and that's why today we're going to First Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Most people hear it at weddings, but Paul's point is bigger than romance. He's saying love is the evidence. Love is what shows when Jesus is actually working in someone's heart. You can have gifts, you can serve, you can even do good things in God's name, and you can still miss the main thing if the love of Christ isn't ruling your heart. So today we're going to look at what love reveals about the heart and how that affects the hell you're trying to live around.

Keller On Gifts Without Heart Change

Ron Meyers 2:08

Let's listen to a short excerpt from Dr. Timothy Keller. He explains how people can preach, teach, prophesy, lead, help others, and even experience supernatural gifts, yet still be missing what matters most. Christ's love ruling the inner life. Let's take a listen. And then when I return, we'll unpack what that means for us.

Dr. Tim Keller 2:39

Now we have examples in the Bible. In the Old Testament, we got Balaam. Balaam was somebody who was trying his best to do the wrong thing. If you go back to Numbers and read about it, and we're told in the New Testament, three places that he was a wicked man, and yet God came to him and gave him spiritual revelations and used him as a prophet. In the Old Testament, we have Saul. At one point, the Spirit of God came upon him and used him, and he became prophetic. He was a prophet, and he never gave his heart to the Lord. In the New Testament, you've got the most clear example, you've got several, but the most clear is Judas. And Judas, we're told in Matthew chapter 10, verse 1, God gave them, who's them? The apostles. He gave them the power to cure all sorts of diseases, and they went out prophesying, and they went out casting out demons, and they went out healing the sick, Judas among them. And Judas never gave his heart to the Lord. Now, over the therefore, now listen, what do we know about that? Here's what we know. I've heard people over the years say to me, well, only Christians could do miracles, and of course, people who aren't Christians could do false miracles. Satan could help them do miracles. But that's not what we're saying here. That's not what Paul's saying, and that's not what happened to Judas. Judas did not do miracles through Satan, he did it through Jesus, and he wasn't a Christian. So what does this mean? Jonathan Edwards, who wrote a tremendous book on this whole chapter, has this very extremely important and interesting little quote. He says, A spiritual gift of miracles or speaking does not change a person's inherent nature. A gift ability does not require a change of heart as love or holiness does. Gifts are like precious jewels with which a body may be adorned, but which does not alter the body's form. But the grace of God and its fruit turns, as it were, the very soul into a precious jewel. And so what Edwards is saying is since the Spirit of God can operate and use gifts in a person who has not given his heart to the Lord, but he cannot, the Lord's Spirit cannot do spiritual fruit in a person whose heart hasn't been given to the Lord. In other words, since the Spirit of God can come in to a life and give you abilities, speaking abilities and counseling abilities and leading abilities, he can give you all sorts of abilities, even miraculous abilities, without your heart necessarily having saving grace, but he cannot give you spiritual fruit. He can't give you love and holiness and joy and self-control and humility without your heart being changed by the gospel. In other words, since spiritual gifts boot off of the gospel and the grace of God, but they do not boot off, excuse me, they do not boot off of it. They do not need it. But spiritual fruit do need it. Therefore, love is more miraculous than miracles. Christian love, humility, warmth, cheerful joy, forgiving, that is supernatural. That is a miracle. The Spirit of God cannot do that in your heart unless you give your heart to Him, unless there's the grace of God. But the Spirit of God can give you all sorts of gifts and use you in all sorts of ways and help all sorts of people without you giving your heart to Christ at all, without there being any grace at all, or it being grace in very low amounts. Now, if somebody says, How in the world is that possible? How in the world could Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, use people, save people, counsel people, help people, do miracles when they haven't were not even Christians? Listen, I think the answer is actually pretty easy when you think about it. Do you realize what a miserable world this would be? If God only worked good things through people who were Christians? Just imagine if the only counselors and therapists that could help anybody were Christians. Just imagine if the only counselors and therapists that really could do good and wonderful works were Christians. What a miserable life this would be. Let me go a little further. What if the only people who could be good fathers and mothers were Christians? What a miserable world this would be. The Bible says every good and perfect gift comes down from above. The Bible says all wisdom, all goodness, all kindness, everything, all musical talent, all light, everything is the work of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is continually doing good things through people who haven't given their heart. Can you imagine what a crummy world this would be otherwise? Why does God do that? So the world is a tolerable place. And a person who's inside the church, very religious, knows the Bible, and yet holds their heart back, tries to keep control of their lives by trying to be a good person and thinking that they can earn their salvation, get God to look at them and favor them because they're good and because they're doing so many good things. A person like that, who's never really experienced the grace, never really understood the gospel, essentially a Pharisee, if they're in the church and they're active in the church, God's still gonna do good things through them. Why not? Why should everybody around them suffer any more than they're gonna suffer? Edward says the operate the spiritual gifts, including miraculous gifts, though usually given to Christians, are not necessarily. Because it doesn't take a supernatural work of grace in the heart to do miracles, but it does take a supernatural operation of grace in the heart to become a person with a Christ-like character. And

Ministry Success Can Hide Emptiness

Speaker 5 8:44

that is the bombshell. How do we apply it? I'm going to talk to three kinds of people. Now, you want to know who the main persons are, who this is for? You know, a lot of you, you know, a lot of those of you who are in ministry in this church, and there's hundreds of you, leading Bible studies, leading ministries, officers, my elders, deacons, and deaconesses, my staff, other ministers, other people who are involved in other churches, people that, people who are doing things in the church, people who are gifted, people who help other people. This is mainly for you. I know a lot of you sat through a number of sermons that are mainly for other people, and you sat there and said, Well, I'm glad they're hearing this. Well, this is for you. There is an enormous danger. It is so easy. Why do you think Paul says you can have all these things and do all these things and be nothing? Because the subtle danger is for those of us who are in ministry to say, look at the people I'm helping, look at the things that I'm doing, look at what I'm accomplishing. I must be something. Because of what I'm doing. I must really be something. Listen, let me let me give you a personal testimony. In reverse, I've got a gift of speaking. When I speak, people learn and people are helped. But I learned a long time ago that my spiritual gift does not boot off the amount of grace in my heart at all. Because I have found out, and I know this for a fact, that if I am cold toward God and full of self-pity, and maybe bitter and angry at other people and filled with selfishness, if I get up in front of a crowd, there's something about the situation that draws my gift out. And I wax. And people are helped. And this is the danger. This is what happens. This is what will happen. This is the danger for all of us. That if any kind of gifts, I wax. And you know what I start to say? I say, hey, I guess God is with me. I guess I'm really something. I must be something. They think I'm something. Look at look at my success. Look at the people who think they say, uh, you've helped me. Look at my gifts. And Paul comes and says, if you think that your gifts, your success in the church, if you think those things are dials on the dashboard to tell you what's really happening in the engine, you're wrong. Your engine might be overheating, your engine might be ready to blow up, and yet you're doing very well in ministry. Paul comes and says, Do you realize how easy it is, oh Christian leaders, Christian ministers, to get your identity from your ministry instead of from Jesus, to get your identity from Christianity instead of Christ? To say, I must be something because of the things I'm doing. And here's what Paul is saying to do that is the is acid against the grace of God. It's the opposite of the gospel. In the gospel, God comes and says, I love you not because you're good, not because of your activities, but because of my grace. When your spouse says, honey, why do you love me? If you say, I love you because it doesn't matter, it's over. The interchange is over. If I I love you because you're a great tennis partner, well, what happens if I'm not a good tennis partner? I love you because you always do this and always do that. Well, what happens if I don't feel like that? You see, Grace says, I love you because I love you. But what happens? It's so easy. If you have gifts, you start to say, God loves me because I'm good. I don't mean I'm morally good. Look at what I'm doing for him. I'm laying myself out. I'm giving my body to be burned. I'm burned out for Jesus. I must be something. And Paul says that that is smothering the grace in your heart. As a matter of fact, if you look at that, you say, I must be something, you know what that's going to lead to? And it does lead in churches? It leads to peevishness, it leads to irritability, it leads to self-pity, it leads to jealousy, it leads to hurt feelings all over the place. Because you're taking, your pride is in what you're doing, and people don't recognize that. You don't, they don't recognize your gifts, they don't see that, or somebody criticizes you, and you're all devastated. Why? Because love and joy and peace boots off of the gospel, what Jesus has said of you. I love you because I love you. But it's so easy to start to try to get your identity and everything and your and your peace and your joy out of your gifts. And the more you get it out of your gifts, the more it smothers grace, the more it smothers grace, the more you look to your gifts. Gifted people. Paul goes so far as to say, if you are living like that, if you are neglecting your prayer life, are you very busy in the Lord's work and your prayer life's dead? Are you extremely happy about your gifts, and yet the fact is that you are not a warm person. You are people don't say, what a loving person. You're always getting your feelings hurt, you're always cast down underneath, but you're you know, put a smile on out here. There's not a joy, there's not a delight in what God means to you. You're not you're not drawing off of his love, you're working off your gifts. Paul says you're a noisy gong or a clashing symbol, and that's not an accident, that's pagan worship. In Corinth, in the pagan temples, it was normal when the worshippers came in, they clashed a symbol and they hit a gong. Why? It got the attention of the gods, and it was very awe-inspiring for the worshipers. And Paul says, Do you not know that if you are not cultivating love in your heart, if you are not continually finding that the joy of your life is your salvation, not your gifts, you're essentially worshiping like a pagan. God finds your religion to be nothing more than the noise of the pagans. You're trying to get God's attention, you're trying to impress everybody.

For The Ungifted Love Has No Limit

Speaker 5 15:04

Secondly, I said I have to tell you some other people, there's some of you, now here's here's the irony. There's some of you who are not very gifted, and you know it, you're not very articulate. Nobody's asking you to be a leader, and you know what? You get cast down and you say, Oh, you know, you know, I'll never be able to lead a Bible study, or I'll never be able to do this, I'll never, you know, be elected to this or that. I'm not very gifted. In some strange but very important way, you are falling prey to the very same mistake that Paul talks about here. If you use gifts as the yardstick of Christianity, here's what I want to say to you. Do you not realize that gifts are always limited? Okay? Some of you have speaking gifts, but you're only going to be so good a speaker. Some of you have leadership, you're gifts, you're always going to be so much of a leader. You might be a great leader in Redeemer, you're probably not going to be John Wesley. You're probably not going to change the world with a new denomination. You're gif why? Because some people are gifted more than other people. Gifts have a limit, but do you know? Listen. The grace in your heart has unlimited potential. Anybody in this room could not be a good speaker or a good leader or what, but anybody who's a Christian in this room could be the most godly saint of the century. You could be the most loving person, the most humble person, the most gracious person. You could become a person that everybody around you, all the people who work with you, are astonished at your courage, at your sweetness, at your wisdom, at your love. Anybody in this room? And don't you realize that's what changes the world? Yes, miracles did attest that God was present, but Jesus says in John 17, if they if you love one another, then the world will know. What is going to change the world? If you cultivate in your heart the love of Jesus Christ so that you become famous, whether people believe what you believe or not, famous at work, famous in your family, famous in your neighborhood, famous in your apartment building for being the most loving, compassionate, humble, gracious person that anybody knows. Anyone who's a Christian here could go through the roof on that. There's no limit. You can get all the way to Jesus. Don't you realize you could be actually an ungifted speaker, but if you are godly and holy, you'll always be interesting. You might be an ungifted therapist, but if you're godly and holy, you will change lives. You might be a lousy delegator and a terrible organizer, and you don't have leadership gifts, but if you are godly and loving, everyone will follow you. That's what changes things. And for you to say, well, I don't know what I am, I'm never going to be alive. You're doing the very same thing Paul says. You can have all these abilities and be nothing. Love is the only miracle. Love is the miracle above all the miracles. There's one last group to say something to.

The Gospel Grounded In Love

Speaker 5 17:56

There's some of you who are here who are saying, wait a minute. I'm trying to live a pretty good life. You're telling me what? See, there's some of you who really don't understand the gospel at all. And what Paul is saying to you is, you could give your body to be burned, and you could give all your money away for the poor, but it what you've really got to do is give your heart to the Lord in response to the gospel. What's the gospel? Very simple. Why did Jesus Christ come to earth? Because he loved us. His power and his holiness is not what drove him down here. Just as the essence of Christianity is not power, but love, not gifts, but grace. So the essence of God is not his power, but his love. How did he save us on the cross? Well, you say he died. You mean just his physical death? Well, you say he was punished, but how was he punished? Don't you know what happened? He lost the love of his father. He was forsaken. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Anybody in this room who's ever lost the love of somebody who's maybe if you're if your whole life orbited around somebody and that person rejected you, you know you never get over that. But the pain in your life compared to what Jesus went through on the cross is like a peace shooter compared to a nuclear warhead. For the love of us, Jesus lost that love on the cross. That pain was poured into his heart and he was devastated on the cross for us. Now, if you look at the love of Christ, only his love can explain him. If you look at the love, the send him down here, and the love that he lost because of the love that he had. As you get melted with that, you give your heart. You don't say, okay, what do I have to do to get to heaven? You don't say that. You say, I don't love my Lord, my Savior. I don't love my God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. I don't love my neighbor as myself. I don't have a love, so I'm convicted by that. I see the love that drove him down here, and I see the love that he lost. In other words, love is the essence of the faith. Love is the essence of him. And the more you see the love that he showed, the more you will find that love growing in your life. Don't be a noisy gong. All the doing without love is noise to God. Instead, say, Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask now that you would help us to see, as we give you ourselves, that it is your love which drove your son, and now it's your love that should drive us. Help us to see that. Bring us to your feet. Uh, help us to repent and do what we need to do so we can live the lives that your servant Paul is calling us to. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Ron’s Takeaways And Inner Transformation

Ron Meyers 21:00

So, what's going through your mind? That's a very powerful message. I think I've listened to it probably ten times. The biggest takeaway from Dr. Keller was this love is the miracle above all miracles. You know, the world is impressed by power, success, influence, talent, and accomplishments. But God, He looks deeper. God looks at the heart because outward performance never fixes the inside. You can have knowledge without love, you can have ministry without love, you can have gifts without love, you can even have religion without love. But when the love of Jesus actually transforms a heart, something supernatural happens, and something you can't fake. A selfish person becomes generous, a bitter person learns to forgive. An anxious person starts to trust. Pride makes room for humility. A critical spirit becomes compassion. And here's what matters, my friend. This transfer may this transformation isn't manufactured by willpower. It's the work of God's spirit rooted in the fact that Jesus has already done the saving work. So what happens when love becomes the mark of a transformed life? I'll tell you what happens, and my guests have validated this over the years. You get deeper peace because your identity isn't tied to performance. You become more resilient because criticism can't define you. Your relationships grow stronger because love aims for understanding, not winning. You discover joy that circumstances cannot steal. And the strongest testimony may not be what God does through you, it may be what God is doing in you. Because when people see patience, kindness, humility, and grace in real life, they're catching evidence that Jesus is alive and at work. And Jesus said it plainly.

Speaker 1 23:59

Therefore, be imitators of God as dear

Closing Questions Prayer And Next Steps

Speaker 1 24:02

children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us. Here's a refreshing word from Ephesians 5, 1 and 2. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us.

Speaker 3 24:23

From crabs to trees to space Save the dates, the 43rd Annual Christmas City Gift Show, November 13th through the 15th at the Coast Coliseum Convention Center. At Ron Meyer's Christmas city.

Speaker 4 24:52

Visit Christmas City Gift Show.com for more. Plans to give you hope and the future. That's God's promise to you when you choose to commit your plans and future to Him. Now, back to Ron.

Ron Meyers 25:31

As we wrap up today, I want to leave you with a question. If someone looked at your life right now, what would they see most clearly? Your accomplishments, your opinions, your talents, your religious activity, or would they see the love of Jesus? Here's the truth. God isn't primarily after your gifts, he's after your heart. Jesus doesn't need your performance before he loves you. He already demonstrated his love on the cross once for all. So you can experience forgiveness, freedom, and a real relationship with him. So the question isn't, does Jesus love me? The question is, are you trusting him as the Lord of your heart? When you turn to Christ, love begins changing you from the inside out. And your family, your workplace, your neighborhood start to look different because love is taking root. Jesus wants your heart, and his love is how you get the hell out of your life. So if you haven't asked Jesus into your heart, pray something simple like this. Come be Lord of my heart and lead me into life. Well, friend, if you meant that, you didn't just try harder, you turned to Jesus, and love starts working in you right away. I'll be back next week with another grace-filled episode of Get the Hell Out of Your Life available wherever you listen to podcasts. In the meantime, remember this that I love you, Jesus loves you, and when you give Jesus your heart, his love is going to take the hell out of your life.

Announcer 27:50

Today's show was produced by Ron Myers Ministries, a listener-supported ministry. For a copy of today's broadcast, please visit our website, thepromoter.org. And would you prayerfully consider making a tax deductible donation so that we may continue to share stories of God's amazing grace with the world? And join us next week for another broadcast of Get the Hell Out of Your Life. Real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope.