Love What God Loves | Senior Pastor Kenneth Carpenter
by Kenneth Carpenter
First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-2, Matthew 1:16, Luke 3:23, Luke 3:38, Deuteronomy 23:2

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/kenneth-carpenter--love-what-god-loves
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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would you stand with me this evening for just a few moments i'm here to exalt the lord jesus christ if i live my life how many every years it will be and you cease to know what my name is you have suffered no loss but if you live your life and don't truly find out what the name of jesus means you've suffered the greatest loss that you could ever suffer i'm here to lift up jesus tonight i'm here to lift up the lord the name that is above brother arnone the name that is above every name i was going to lead us right into our candlelight service we have free gifts for everyone after service with free hot chocolate and global grounds for you time of celebration time of celebration baptized one this morning drove all the way up from birmingham alabama to be baptized amen the altars were full today in several with people coming surrendering their life to god for a few moments tonight before i lead us into our candlelight service i had an experience brother nami in prayer either thursday or friday the day does not clearly come to my mind but i was here in the auditorium praying the lord so gently spoke to my spirit and said i want you to love what i love i want you to love what i love i immediately turned my phone on so that i'd have light and the first thing that came up on my bible app was that god loved the gates of zion and i told god i want to love your house and i thought sister paris i thought that was it i said god i love your house and then i cut my phone off to continue to pray and it was like the lord says look again and i opened my bible back up my bible app and it fell upon for god so loved the world he said i want you to love what i love how many to diet would agree we ought to love what god loves we ought to love what god loves look at matthew chapter number one and verse number one the book of the generation of jesus christ the son of david the son of abraham verse number two abraham begat isaac and isaac begat jacob and jacob beget judas and his brethren go all the way down to verse number 16 through this lineage jacob begat joseph the husband of mary of whom was born jesus who is called christ turn to luke chapter 3 luke chapter 3. and i promise you i won't hold you but a moment but there could be somebody in this room tonight that needs to know that god loves you there could be somebody lonely they say that christmas time is the loneliest time of the year for some people luke chapter 3 verse 23 and jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age being as was supposed the son of joseph which was the son of hillary he lie and then all the way down go all the way down to verse 38. which was the son of enos which was the son of seth which was the son of adam which was the son of god i think for a title tonight i shall simply use love what god loves love what god loves father i love you tonight jesus i praise you oh god walk the aisles of this church tonight there's someone here that's hurting there's someone here that is lonely jesus you know exactly who they are there's someone in this room tonight someone watching god their their heart is filled with so much loneliness god they have despaired of life and lord they're so hopeless tonight but somehow here they are in this holy moment and god i pray that as i minister you'll go to them and begin to speak to their heart and give them hope in jesus name we pray amen you may be seated it's interesting when you look at the lineage when you look at the lineage that matthew gives and the lineage that luke would give it's very easy to study the bible and see in matthew matthew is determining and settling the legal right to the throne of david for jesus christ that jesus christ has the pedigree jesus christ has the legal right to be called the son of david when we go to we go to luke we do understand that matthew's genealogy only went back to abraham and proved that the seed of the messiah ship was truly rooted in abraham because god had a covenant with his people israel but as you followed with me tonight in the book of luke luke took us back much farther than abraham luke luke took us all the way back to the beginning of creation thus establishing that jesus christ had not only come to his own to save his own but that jesus christ was the savior of the world he's the savior of whosoever will i found it very interested interesting when i read of the genealogy in the book of matthew that there were four women there were four women that were mentioned in the genealogy in the book of matthew tamar rahab ruth and bathsheba i've read this many times as you have but it seemed upon this time through reading that i would stop and look at each one of these women these four women that are mentioned because the holy ghost has them there for a reason this is the genealogy this is the genealogy that god almighty would merge himself into this was the genealogy that he would let divinity merge with humanity and so as i began to study these four women and their lives i fi i found that their lives were marked and scarred with all kinds of sin i studied their lives and i saw how dysfunctional all of these women's lives would have been and of course it's no secret tonight we live in a mess age we live in a mess age that's why this world needs a message because we live in a dysfunctional world we lived it's not the 50s anymore it's not mayberry it's not walton's mountain anymore we are not pastoring that that mentality of morality we are pastoring a very and reaching a very dysfunctional society we are reaching out for a society that we have to convince them they are worth saving we have to convince them that god loves them because they get in their mind and the god of this world would like to stamp into their heart that they're beyond the reach of the love of god i'm going to live my life to ask congregations to look me in the eye and i want to tell everybody in this room tonight that there's not a person that's here that's outside of the reach of the love and the mercy of almighty god god loves you that's what this season's all about god loves you and just in case tonight you feel like you're too dysfunctional for god to use let me introduce you to the first woman named tamar you see tamar's father-in-law was one of the 12 sons of jacob and when tamar married into the family her first husband died judas son died and so when judah's son died judah gave his brother to tamar and as fate would have it he died also the third son that judah had was young at the time and judah told tamar i want you to wait until our third son is of the age to marry and you can take him to marriage but judah was lying to her judah had no intention of letting that boy marry her can't he can't say that i would blame judah for what he's doing every son that she had married ends up dead and so judah refused to give the final son so this woman tamar becomes a woman of disappointment can i get a witness tonight she becomes a woman of heartbreak can i get a witness tonight she becomes a woman of disappointment because when the boy should have been given to her he was not but you see disappointed people have a way of starting to fight on their own we have too many people tonight that have given up on divine guidance and they say this is a dog eat dog world and if you're going to make it you've got to fight it on your own and so tamar took matters into her own hands and tamar said if i'm ever going to have a child i've got to take matters into my own hands and so tamar dresses up like a harlot she takes off her widow's garment and she puts on the garment of a harlot she sits in an open spot and she waits for her father-in-law to come by the father-in-law judah had just recently lost his wife and there the harlot was enticing to him and he steps up to the harlot not knowing that she was the former daughter-in-law and they strike up a deal for the night together but judah didn't have any money to give her and so what he said i will bring you tomorrow i will leave my staff and my bracelets in my signet which is my signature i'll leave this with you throughout the night and tomorrow i'll send somebody for the payment to be with you this evening i'm talking about dysfunction so judah not knowingly slept with his own daughter-in-law the next day he sends the payment down he gives the servant servant the money and says there's a harlot that sets out in the open spot there at tim neff go take her this money get my staff and my bracelets and my signet back but when the servant went to find the woman there was not a woman there of a harlot and they told him that there's never there's not been a woman here and so a few months goes by and judah's without his staff he's without his bracelet without his signet but word comes to judah word comes to judah that your daughter-in-law has played the role of a harlot and judas quick to give judgment on this daughter-in-law that she should be stoned as they brought tamar into the presence of her father-in-law who was a rough judgment she said well before you stone me said i'll tell you i am pregnant with the man that owns this staff and this signet and this bracelet and it was there that judah stepped up and said that she is more righteous than i i i'm telling you tonight when almighty god decided to merge into a lineage he could have surely found someone better than tamar but i believe that god personally god purposely found this dysfunctional family that was going on so that he could merge and bring forth the son of the living god because somebody here tonight on this december 20th evening 2020 who you might be sitting here thinking in your mind man he's reading my mail man he's talking exactly about me i put the funk in dysfunctional preacher i'm telling you i'm all messed up but god has sent you a genealogy tonight to tell you that almighty god would like to merge his spirit in the midst of your dysfunction and god would like to bring something glorious out of the midst of your dysfunction because you read my lips tonight god loves you you hear me tonight god loves you stop beating yourself up stop wondering you've already messed up you'll never amount to anything you're nothing but trash you're of little value that's nothing but a lie vomited out of the pits of hell you are were something you are of value tonight you've got a life that is yet to be lived and there's a god in a sunday evening that would like to merge himself with you tonight would somebody help me praise him in this house tonight i've come to lift up the name of jesus christ would somebody help me praise him tonight tamar gives birth to twins and as the midwife was there helping tamar give birth to twins these two boys that were born when the first was born zera zera means sunshine when zero was born the midwife his hand his arm came out of the womb and quickly the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it around his hand to denote that this will be the firstborn but as soon as the midwife had tied the the scarlet thread around his hand zera withdrew his arm back into the womb and then pharas faraz was born pharah's his name means to break forth with force and these two pharahs and zara was born there it would be understandable because just for time's sake deuteronomy 23 and 2 says and please pardon the roughness of the language but when you go to helping sinners out you're not tiptoeing through the perfect tulips tonight when you go to help somebody get out of the gutter it's not perfumed when you go to snatch souls out of hell it's not a pretty sight the bible tells us in deuteronomy 22 23 and 2 that a bastard child please excuse the language that a bastard child a fatherless child a child that was conceived by a woman feigning to be a prostitute fares and zera both qualify to be bastard children the bible under the old testament law says that a bastard child shall not come into the congregation of the house of god until the tenth generation so when a bastard child was conceived and born somebody started counting the generations generation 2 generations 3 generations 4 and they were all counting down because when you got to the 10th generation the 10th generation was able to remove the stigma upon himself and he was able to walk into the house of god and begin to worship he had all of the rights of circumcision he had all of the rights to hear the word of god he had all the rights to be perfect you say where in the world are you going i'll tell you where i'm going i'm going to the book of ruth and the last chapter because the book of ruth the last chapter begins to name it was fair as he was generation number two and then there was generation number three or generation one and two and it goes all the way down through the book of ruth until it comes to one whose name was obid and then obed beget jesse and then jesse beget david you say all right what does that mean that means that david was the tenth generation from pharas no wonder david said in the book of psalms i was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the lord goodness gracious brother dove no wonder david penned that with his own hand i was glad when i was number ten but i've got good news for you tonight you don't have to be generation number ten it's whosoever will let him come tonight i don't care about your background i don't care about your stigma and god doesn't care about the courthouse records god doesn't care about what people say and you can get a brand new start tonight i'd like to read it to you in the scripture but it would take up time and i want to get real i want to get to the candlelight service quickly but it's interesting sister carpenter when ruth records the genealogy of fey rez luke or ruth excuse me she leaves out zira she does not put zira in in the mix she does not mention zira's name but when matthew wrote it matthew mentions both feyres and zerah what's that mean the most simple definition that i can just tell you is that the old testament left some people out but in the new testament we're in a new dispensation and nobody's being left out in the old testament there were those that were put over to the side because they had strike three and there was out but when jesus christ merged with humanity and two thousand years ago when that baby cried from bethlehem's manger it could be interpreted who so ever will let him or her let them come this preacher wants to preach to you tonight and tell you with scripture confidence that god loves you and that you're not too far away from god i don't care if you stuck a needle in your arm last night i don't care if you're here right now and you're still buzzing from yesterday's high god loves you god loves you hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah come on tamar now bring me rahab bring me rahab who are you rahab well you're another woman that he mentioned in the genealogy who are you rahab oh your full name is rahab the harlot that's who you are you're a harlot you're you're not far removed from tamar you make your living by being a prostitute you're a citizen of the city of jericho you have your business set up there in your apartment building on the wall you are a woman of the night you're a harlot men frequent your room and men pay for your services you are rahab the harlot how in the world could rahab come to the pages of the bible because let me tell you something just because a woman may be a harlot doesn't mean that she can't entertain thoughts of a loving god don't you write people off don't you look at people in their wicked ways and think there's no hope for him there's no hope for her she may be a harlot she may make her money with her body but somewhere in rahab's empty empty empty empty empty soul she's wondering there's got to be more to life there's got to be something there's got to be more than life there's got to be something more than the god of alcohol there's got to be more than something of the god of drugs there's got to be more of the god of money there's got to be more more more more until one day until one day somebody began to tell her about a group of people that had been miraculously delivered from egypt a group of people that had a glory cloud a group of people that were that had water that come up out of a rock a group of people that ate bread that came down from heaven a group of people whose god dwelt in the middle of them a group of people whose god dried up the red sea a group of people who fought every battle and this harlot began to think about the god that she was hearing about and then one day two spies make their way into jericho they are spying out the land they are israelites and they're spying out the land and they make their way to rahab's house because they're being chased by the king it was there in rahab's house that that harlot began to tell her we have heard about your god we have heard that he dried up the red sea we have heard all the wonderful things that your god has done and they said yes he's done all of this she believed and she never saw one slice of bread fall from heaven she believed and she never seen one drop of water divided from the red sea she believed and she never saw one shekinah cloud can i tell you tonight if a harlot can believe that report where do you and i lie and we have seen the mighty hand of god she said to these men she said would you remember me when you come into this city would you remember me and my family i've got a father that i love i've got a mother that i love i've got a brother and a sister i've got some kinfolk that i love would you just remember me and the bible says the bible says that the spies said if you'll keep this scarlet cord in your window and if you won't utter a word that we have said to you when we come back to take jericho we'll save you alive and friend before they begin to march around jericho and the walls come tumbling down joshua told the men said when the walls come tumbling down you go right up into that city and you get that harlot out of that house and buddy when the walls come tumbling down they went to that apartment and there was not only rahab there but the bible tells us her mother was there and that was not only her mother was there but the bible said her father was there and not only her father was there her brothers and sisters and her kindred we don't really know how many that she had they had to bring rahab and her family outside of the camp of israel and they didn't know what to do with her but finally the lord spoke to them and said i want you to bring her into the camp and an israelite man married her i'm preaching about tamar i'm preaching about rahab because i would like to penetrate the callous of somebody's heart tonight that thinks you're too dysfunctional for god to change your life in 2021 you are not too dysfunctional for god to help you you are not outside of the reach of the hand we could talk about ruth for a moment but for time's sake we'll pass her by but ruth was a moabite ruth had been trained up to worship idol gods but she finds her way because she attached herself to a naomi naomi knew the god of israel and it was ruth that said to her naomi where you go i go some of you tonight have got a naomi here some of you are sitting right now beside your naomi you're a ruth you're a moabite you don't know very much about god but you have a naomi in your life you have someone for whatever reason you know they're the first ones you call when you need a prayer they're the first ones you get a hold of when your life falls apart that's good but i want to tell you something tonight you need to make the ruth confession of faith where you go naomi is where i go and where you lie naomi is where i lie and your god shall be my god but maybe bathsheba will be closer to where we all live because bathsheba's not a harlot and bathsheba is not a moabite bathsheba is one of us bathsheba's raised in this thing she's raised around the reading of the law she's raised to hear the sounds of praise can i tell you tonight that just as sure as the person shooting something in their veins needs god the fallen raised in the house of god dedicated when there were babies and have lost their way they need him too because you know what their testimony is rahab never had the testimony i never would have believed i would have done that that was just way rahab was raised but bathsheba she finds herself as one of the four women because she falls under my category here of i never believed it would happen to me i never believed it would happen to me she falls under the category of i didn't mean for it to go this far she falls under the category my god how did i get here the knock on the door the flattery that the king wanted you to come over for dinner she could have said no she could have refused she could have told david's servant i don't want to have dinner with david tonight i'm a married woman my husband's on the battlefield she could have done that but she allowed her flesh to begin to let down it was very possible tonight that bashi bashiba had no plans of sleeping with david it's very possible that she just was splattered that the king would want her to come for dinner it's very possible that when she dressed up and combed her hair and got in the king's chariot to ride over to the palace she had no intentions of sleeping with him as she sat there dinner that night and the king began to compliment her she feels uneasy she could have gotten up and ran she could have left the room but she didn't possibly the king slid his hand over the table and brushed the back of her hand as if to tell her that this is more than dinner she could have gotten up she could have ran but she allowed herself to get in a position of oh my god how did i get here now tonight if you think for one moment that that can never happen to you you're already on the slope oh i feel the holy ghost oh i feel the holy ghost sweet jesus listen oh god when you take heed he that thinks he stand take heed lest he fall there are those here tonight they're saying i'd never do that no no i'd never do that no that would never happen to me you're already on the slope anything is possible to happen to you you and i are capable of anything if we don't keep jesus in the midst of our lives prayer bible study the right company prayer bible study the right company prayer bible study the right company and tonight there may be people here that say it could never happen to me and i'm telling you there are those sitting here tonight that are saying i can't believe it went this far i wish i could play my life back bathsheba always falls under the category of regret regret i feel it tonight i can almost see it tonight there's regret that's over you oh i wish i could go back oh i wish i hadn't been so stupid i wish i'd have been so foolish oh why did i do this to bathsheba it's the load of regret to tamar it was disappointment all these women have all these things hanging over them but jesus christ said i will merge with your disappointment i will merge with your mistake i will merge with everything that you've done because i am a merciful savior i am a loving god i have come to seek and to save that which is lost i'm not trying to get you to shout tonight i'm trying to get you to think tonight because a shout will last till in the morning but if i can get you thinking that god loves you you will walk out of the cave of condemnation and you'll walk back into your sunday school class you'll walk back up into the choir love you'll walk back into the usher's jacket you'll walk back into the house of god and you'll say put me in god i'm ready to work i'm ready to work i'm ready to work somebody help me pray right now for some soul i want you to lift up a voice for some bathsheba that's here tonight i want you to lift up a voice for some tamar that's here tonight i want you to lift up a voice tonight for some rahab some ruth tonight i want you to lift up that voice oh i want you to lift up that voice right now i want you to lift up that voice come on there's a tamar sitting with you come on there's a ruth with you tonight come on there's a bathsheba set with you oh yes musicians would you come right now go ahead there's a roof here there's there's a there's a tamar here tonight oh god i think i'm just going to walk the aisles a little bit because there's a tamar here tonight there's a there's a bathsheba here tonight there's there's there's a rahab there's a tamar there's a roof there's a bathsheba here tonight come on there's one of these here tonight they're here tonight where are you tamar where are you bathsheba oh i need somebody help me pray we need to pray some tamar's out of the pew tonight the blood is flowing in the altar the mercy is flowing in the altar ah i had settled that there was only two genealogies of jesus christ i had only settled that there was a genealogy of matthew and the genealogy of luke but i was tapped on my shoulder today by the holy ghost it said there's one more genealogy and it goes like this in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god the same was in the beginning with god all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not there was a man sent from god whose name was john the same came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe he was not the light but was sent to bear witness of the light that that was the true light that light of every man that cometh into the world he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not he came unto his own and his own received him not but as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of god even to them that believe on his name to them that receive him to them gave he power to become the sons of god even to them that believe in his name says carpenter would you come he's a light of the world would you stand with me he's the light of the world he's the light of the world and i want this candlelight service tonight to be more than just about us holding up a little candle there's a tamar here there's a rahab here tonight there's a bathsheba there's a roof and i want you to know that all that god is waiting for is will you allow me to merge in your life would you allow me god is saying would you allow me to just merge would you allow me just to come in because all i need i don't need a perfect body i've already showed you that i'll move in with tamar rahab ruth and bathsheba all i need is for you to begin to worship me right now and begin to receive me right now oh god i receive you right now lord god i open up my heart to you right now god he love us oh god i breathe you into my soul right now god i breathe you into my soul right now god oh you are the light of the world oh you're my light come on jesus come on jesus come on lord i'll receive you in it oh yes oh yes so yeah so yeah so yeah so yeah so yeah so yeah so yes oh yes i receive you right now okay there's somebody here tonight there's a roof there's a come on pray right now pray right now i know that the schedule of the service says we start doing the kindle light right now but this altar is open if anybody wants to come and receive him right now if anybody wants to come if anybody wants to come if there's a tabor or there's a rayhem it's open right now it's open right now it's open right now there's anyone that wants to be baptized we got water this ultra's open right now the sauce is open right now oh this ultra's open right now go ahead and lower the lights oh my god this altar is open right now oh god you are the light of the world it was dark in tamar's day it was dark and tamar's day so dark she was so disappointed two husbands had died and one had been with hell it was so dark in rahab's life she wanted a man to love her it was so dark and ruth's like she was never brought up to know jehovah it was so dark and that she was light because she'd been brought up and she knew better but in the midst of that life the light was born through an infant child in bethlehem throughout this singing this altar is open for anyone that wants to come go ahead