All right, brethren, 1 Corinthians
13. Now the church at Corinth had
a lot of trouble, a lot of division, and not the least of which, they
were divided over the gifts that God had given. You'd think that
wouldn't be something we'd divide over since they're gifts given
by God, but it was one more thing. There were lots of other things,
but in the midst of all this division and exalting one over
another and siding with this one, siding with that, all this
they were doing, Paul's point here is you're missing the very
best gift we have. It's love. It's love. He said there, chapter 12, verse 31, covet earnestly
the best gifts. Seek the best gift, that's a
good thing, but I show you a more excellent way. I'm gonna show
you the best gift, and that's love. He says, though I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, you wanna be a great
preacher? If I have not charity, I'm as a sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy
and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, though
I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, have not charity,
I'm nothing. Though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor and give my body to be burned, and have not
charity, profiteth me nothing. The eternal gift is the best. And that's love. Every gift God
gives us is only for this brief time that we're on this earth. And that's it. But this love
of, this gift of love is eternal. This will be more and more, increase
more and more and will be forever. This is the best gift, the eternal
gift that God has given is love. And so above all, we should protect
it and exercise it fervently and seek to grow in it. Now,
Paul commended the Thessalonians for their love. And every time
any brethren have visited here, they have commented to me on
how you love and how the love towards one another, love toward
me, the love you show them. And I've said it many times,
God has given us something special in this place. He has. And we
should protect it and guard it. The devil wants to disrupt it.
That's what he would love to do is just tear it apart. But
Paul also told the Thessalonians, we beseech you, brethren, that
you increase more and more. Now how are we going to increase
in love? He said, the Lord make you to
increase and abound in love, one toward another, toward all,
even as we do towards you. The Lord increases us. He's the
only one who can give love and produce it, and he's the only
one that can increase it. And he does it by showing us
the everlasting, unchangeable love of God in Christ. That's
where you're gonna learn about his love, look into Christ, and
seeing God's everlasting, unchangeable love toward his people. And the
more that he makes us see him, the more he sheds a broad love
in our hearts, and the more he makes us increase in his love,
in the love that he produces. So I wanna look at love in light
of God's never failing love in Christ towards sinners like us.
We'll look at the overall quality of it, then we'll look at the
negatives of it, the positives of it, and then the glory of
it. And brethren, I pray that the Spirit would make us hear
this personally, rather than applying it to somebody else.
Because we miss the blessing when we do that. We don't get
the blessing when we do that. God doesn't minister that way. He ministers to you personally,
and you hear it for you personally. And that's what we need. We need
to hear it for us personally. Now, we hear it remembering God
does not teach me how others are to treat me, but how I'm
to treat others. That's how we hear it. Now, first
of all, the overall virtue of God's love. First of all, he
says in verse four, charity suffereth long in his kind. Now, Robert
Hawker's right on this. When you read here, Paul is personifying
love. He said charity suffers long. And because love is a person,
God is love. And God walked this earth in
human flesh, and he's love. And this is the love that we're
looking at first and foremost. This is how we're going to be
grown in His love is to see Christ and how He loved us. God suffers
long with us. Now think about that. If He suffers
long, if love, if the love of God suffers long, there's something
He's having to suffer long with, right? He's having to suffer
long with us. Why? Because we're sinners. We're sinners. And we're not always long-suffering,
and we're not always kind, and we don't always manifest these
virtues that He gives here. He gives you fruit of the Spirit,
and He gives some more, some less. all have this fruit, and not
everybody manifests it all the time. It's the reigning love,
it's the reigning grace, it's love, but He will let your flesh
reign. And that's so wise, because if
He's going to teach you that love is longsuffering, you're
going to have to have somebody to be suffering along with. It's
the wisdom of God to put us together like this so that we learn what
love is by loving our brethren, even when our brethren aren't
loving us. And that's the thing here. God suffered long with
us. Though we sin, though when we're
not loving, God suffers long with us. John said not that we
love God, but that He loved us. God chose His elect in Christ
simply because He loved us. There was no cause in us. We
hated Him. If God, He didn't look down through
time, but if He would have, all He'd have seen was sinners that
didn't love Him. And we wouldn't have loved Him. He chose us simply
because He loved His people in Christ. And think how He suffered
long with us while we were dead in sins. His love didn't change
when we fell in Adam. His love didn't change when we
came into this world hating God and walking in direct rebellion
against Him all our days. His love didn't change. He suffered
long, and in loving kindness, He drew us to Himself. Even now,
God suffers long with us. As God's saints, He suffers long
with us. We're sinners, and we don't love
as we ought. We do not love as we ought. In
fact, when a believer reads this right here, he's gonna see his
brethren doing these things before he sees himself doing these things.
That's just so. That's just so. And here's the
paradox about love. This is what got me thinking
on this passage. Somebody was quoting Paul when
he talks about the second table of the law, and he said, and
all this is fulfilled in love, and they were saying, so see
there, we're still under the law. But you don't learn these things
right here looking at the second table of the law. You learn these
things looking at Christ. And here's the paradox about
it. Somebody that's under the law, if somebody doesn't love
like they think they're supposed to be loving, they're going to
rebuke and discipline and chasten and do whatever they got to do
to them because they're not loving like they ought to love. And
if I do that, am I loving like he loves? Love suffers long. Love is kind. That's the paradox of love. God
is long-suffering and His loving-kindness to us is constant and perfect. And ours is not. It was His long-suffering and
loving-kindness that led us to repentance and continues to do
so. He didn't lead you to repentance
by judgment. That's not why He led us to repentance. He led us to repentance by his
love and his loving kindness and by his long suffering. From
beginning to end, God says to his child, he produces repentance
by speaking into our heart in spirit saying, yea, I've loved
thee with an everlasting love, therefore in loving kindness
have I drawn you. Scripture says, how excellent
is thy loving kindness, O God. Paul said, let me show you a
more excellent way. How excellent is thy loving kindness,
O God, therefore the children of men put their trust under
the shadow of thy wings. So brethren, this is the wisdom
of God. When God permits us to fall captive in our sin nature,
Paul said, I'm brought into captivity in my sin nature. Do you know
that? Do you know what that's about? If you have two natures,
you do. There's a civil war in you. And
God lets you come captive to your sin nature. Why does He
do that? Because He provides a brother
to be long-suffering to you and kind to you. And when He does
that, He sanctifies that to your heart and breaks your heart and
makes you see His love and kindness and His long-suffering to you.
And that's how He grows you in love. Now let's look at these
negatives here. First, charity envieth not. Now envy covers many evils. It covers covetousness and jealousy
and hatred and malice. And all of that is from our sin
nature. Every bit of it. James said, the spirit that dwelleth
in us lusteth to envy. Our sinful flesh envies. It does. Do you envy? I do. I do. This love is of God though. Love is of God and everyone that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God. And the love that God produces
in the new man does not envy. We don't envy in the new man.
Because the love of God is in the new man. But we see this
somewhat on a carnal level. Because even on a carnal level,
you don't envy your children. No matter how well they do, no
matter how they prosper, no matter how they're gifted, have you
ever once envied your children? Know why, you love them. Now
that's just on a natural level, that's just carnally. But this
is God's love he gives for brethren and it makes you not envy your
brother. Now what I'm talking about when
he strengthens you and this is the general tenor of a believer,
you're walking in love and you don't envy your brother. Whatever
God has gifted that brother, you're thankful that God gave
it to your brother. You're thankful. However, God uses your brother.
He may use your brother and not use you. You're not envious of
that. He's using him. He's preaching the gospel of
God's grace. Why would I envy that? I don't
call people and schedule appointments. Some years the phone rings off.
Well, sometimes it don't ring. And other brethren go, I'm glad
they're going. They're preaching the gospel.
But we'd be lying if we said that our sinful flesh doesn't
mar this. Because you do have envy. You
do have it. You have it come up in you all
the time. And if we're honest, we'll say
that. We don't love perfectly. And if God doesn't subdue our
flesh, then we're more envy than we are love at times. Is that
not right? But Christ loved God and He loved
our brethren perfectly. Our Lord Jesus as our head and
as our representative with us in Him, He loved God and He loved
His brethren perfectly with a total absence of sin and envy. And
it's His love. wherein we're perfect. It's His
love, when He sheds this in a new man, that's what's gonna make
us know that our perfect salvation is in His perfect love, not in
our perfect love. And you know what that's gonna
do? That's gonna keep you from being envious of your brother.
That subdues this flesh and keeps you from being envious of your
brother. His love or His gifts or whatever He has, that's not
His salvation. His salvation is Christ. just
like mine is. And that's what's going to subdue
the envious flesh. That's what's going to keep you
looking to Christ as your perfect love, your holiness, wherein
you're complete. Verse 4, charity vaulteth not
itself and is not puffed up. Love doesn't promote self at
any time. You're not going to insist on
its way. It's not going to promote itself
is going to promote the one we love. And love's not puffed up
in pride, it's humble. It's humble. Now, our Lord Jesus
Christ is the perfection of humility and self-denying love. He's the
perfection of it. He alone is the perfection of
it. Our Lord Jesus made himself totally unknown. He came into
this world born in a cow stable, laid in a manger, in a feed trough,
to poor parents, in a despised place, and he controlled all
of that. He could have done that completely
differently, but he made himself of no reputation. Even when he
would work miracles, how many times he told the person that
he healed or whatever, don't go tell people. He didn't make
his voice to be heard in the street. He wasn't a self-promoter.
He rode into Jerusalem on a lowly ISIS cult. And everything he did, every
hour, every hour, he promoted the glory of God his father and
the salvation of his people. Every hour, every step, every
thought, every breath was for the promotion of somebody else,
not for himself. Do we want to brag about our
love? He loved us when we were proud,
when we were boasting in our will and our works and our worth,
trying to steal the glory that belonged to him. He loved us
in selfless humility, promoting our well-being in everything
he did. He laid down his life so that he might lift us up off
the dung heap and set us among princes. And he did this by totally,
selflessly denying himself in perfect humility, promoting the
glory of God and the salvation of his people. Now, God beholds you, believer. He beholds you adorned within
and without in perfect, selfless humility. in perfect love, that's
how God beholds you. Because he beholds you adorned
with Christ's love and his righteousness within and without. Now that's amazing. That's because
Christ didn't promote himself, he promoted our well-being. So
when we're puffed up in pride, what's going to save you from
that? When you get puffed up and you start looking out for
your own promotion, what's going to save us from that? If you
ever noticed how that you can be engaged in whatever it is
where it's just self-promotion is all it is. And pride and all
that. And the Spirit will cause you
to think on Christ and think on what He's done for you and
think about Him laying down His life. And it becomes so real
when He does that. And it becomes, the Word is alive
in you. And it makes you, he whispers
to you, why are you puffed up one for another? What do you
have that you didn't receive? If you received it, why are you
puffed up as if you didn't receive it? He makes that word alive
in you. That's the only thing that'll
subdue our self-promoting prideful flesh and increase that love
to humble in that humble selfless love that he gives. Charity, verse 5, does not behave
itself unseemly or unbecoming. It's not rude to anyone ever
in thought, word, or deed, but always constantly adorns the
gospel of God's grace. It always constantly adorns the
gospel of God's grace. It's never unseemly, ever. And
the Latin translation says it's not ambitious of honor, applause,
or position. That is so that you flatter those
who can promote you while you ignore those that don't offer
you any advantage. That would be unseemly. Our Savior was kind and courteous
and gracious at all times to all people. The poorest, most despised, rejected
sinner who couldn't offer Him anything. That's me. He received them. And Christ received scandalous
sinners. Self-righteous folks looked down
their holy noses at with disdain. And God said to do that is most
unseemly. And Christ received and He said,
I didn't come to save the righteous, I came to save sinners. Call
sinners to repentance. It would have been unseemly to
reject any service toward His disciples and consider His disciples
or any service toward them as beneath Him. That would have
been unseemly. The King of glory bowed down
to the feet, the dirty feet of His disciples and washed their
feet. That adorned His grace and His
love, and that's how He did in everything He did. And it was
a high priest like this that was becoming for us, that was
necessary to adorn us, one that's holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, made higher than the heavens. That's the only
way you and I could be made holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, and higher than the heavens, is by Christ. by
him adorning us. And that's the love that constrains
us to adorn the doctrine of Christ. That's what makes you want to
adorn the doctrine of Christ. But when we fall short, have
you ever fallen short of adorning the doctrine of Christ? When
we fall short, our Lord provides brethren who
love us and adorn the gospel by being kind and tenured hearted
and forgiving us even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven
them. And that is very adorning to
the gospel. And when he uses that, he uses
love, brethren. Have you ever seen it? When you're struggling in some
way and he'll show you you right in front of you with your brethren.
And when we're not being loving. He will do this by showing somebody,
brother, being loving to you in spite of you. And that's what
he uses to work love in his people and increase it with this gospel. He says here, love seeketh not
her own. Nothing our Savior did was for
self. He constantly sought our good, even at his own expense,
at his own fatigue, at his own And that's what he does now.
That's the heart he's going to give in his preacher and his
people is to seek the good of the people. But do you find yourself
being selfish? Do you find yourself needing
him to mortify your sinful flesh? It's only his care for you. It's only beholding his care
for you and making you think on how he's provided for you
that he uses to make you, he'll just stop you when you think
you're too tired or when you think you've done enough or whatever
it is that you're going to do for yourself. He'll stop you
and make you think, I need to check on my brother. I need to
do something for him rather than for myself. He gets the glory
for that because if he didn't do that in us, we would not do
it. Love's not easily provoked. It's
not easily stirred up. You think about when God walked
this earth. The Pharisees were constantly
trying to provoke Him. They were constantly trying to
provoke Him. The devil was constantly trying
to provoke Him. They came to Him and they pointed
out what they considered to be our Lord's faults. They were
constantly pointing out His faults. And they sent one after another
to question Him, to try to entangle Him in His words. And they were
doing all this false charging to Him. And they could not provoke
Him. Now He was stirred up on occasion
with righteous indignation, but He wasn't easily provoked. And if it wasn't for Christ's
intercession for us, Do you ever provoke God? Do you provoke God? If it wasn't
for Christ's intercession, would things you think provoke God? Would that stir Him up to anger,
if it wasn't for Christ? Anything you do, would that stir
Him up to anger, if it wasn't for Christ? Think how patient He was with
His disciples. How times they ask Him such,
dumb things, and when he taught them, and he wasn't easily stirred
up with them. You know, sometimes a brother
will be stirred up toward us, and what's the spirit going to
do? Sometimes he lets you just be
stirred up toward him. But what's the spirit going to
do to keep you from being stirred up and answer sin with sin? What's
he going to do? He'll make you consider yourself
and your faults and your sins. And he'll make you realize, my
brother wasn't easily provoked. He suffered a long time with
me to get to this point. Wouldn't it be good if we did
that every time? If we think a brother's being
easily provoked against us, wouldn't it be good to look at ourselves
and think, wait a minute, He has put up with a lot of sin
in me, and a lot of faults in me, and a lot of self-righteousness
in me, and a lot of just pure deep ugliness in me to get to
that point. You know what that'll do? That'll
keep you from being stirred up back. And the Lord uses that story.
See what I'm saying? He uses us together to keep us
seeing what sinners we are and how His love works in His people. Love thinks, it imputes, it takes
account, it keeps count, it dwells on no evil. Love thinketh no
evil. Love doesn't impute, it doesn't
take account, it doesn't keep count, it doesn't dwell on evil. Love doesn't. We don't do that with our children.
That's just carnal. What about the love of God? Love
of God doesn't do that. Love of God forgives. What constrains
us not to impute evil and think evil and keep count of evil and
make up our big inventory of evil and throw it on people?
What keeps us from doing that? God was in Christ reconciling
us to himself, not imputing our trespasses to us. That's the
only thing that'll do it. That's it. That's it. He made him sin for us who knew
no sin, and because he bore everything we deserve, God says, now, I
remember your sins no more. I don't impute them to you, I
don't think on them, I don't have an account of them, and
I don't dwell on them. They're gone. If I can still think on them
and impute them and dwell on them, after hearing that, the
problem's with me, it ain't with my brother. That's just so. His forgiveness makes us think
the best, it makes us not dwell on wrongs. The great constraint
is God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Now look at this next thing,
verse 6. Love rejoiceth not in iniquity,
but rejoiceth in truth. Now God's love makes His child
hate sin. You just can't rejoice in your
sin when the Spirit of Christ dwells in you. You just can't. Now you think on yourself, let
me think on myself. How about that? How about that? Because if I'm thinking about
you, I'm not loving you. I'm not doing this. And I get
this point now. Sin makes you mourn for it. Sin keeps you at Christ's feet. And I'm not talking about sin
you know about in your brother. I'm talking about sin that only
you know about, you and God. That sin you don't tell your
wife. That sin you don't tell your
nobody. That sin you know about. You
know the sin I'm talking about. That sin keeps you at Christ's
feet. And if we don't have any of that sin, we better be asking
God to have mercy on us, do something for us. Because that sin keeps
you at His feet. And you don't rejoice in iniquity
in others, especially not a brother. But from the trouble at Corinth
and from the context of what Paul is saying here, he's specifically
saying love does not rejoice in a brother's fall. Love doesn't rejoice in a brother's
fall. I've never found joy in a fall
in my brother. We're used of God to speak to
one another when a brother sins, and we should do that, but we
don't rejoice in a brother's iniquity. We don't rejoice in
their fall. God corrects us, but God doesn't take pleasure
in correcting us. But sinful flesh, mine and yours,
will joy in a brother's fall. Will joy to hear about it, and
will joy to repeat it. You know that's so. And that's rejoicing in iniquity.
Exactly what that is. I've done that. You know, you take a movie. We
don't mind if they do awful things to the antagonist as long as
they make him out to be a really bad guy first. And then you'll
rejoice. You'll even hope for vengeance
on him. That's our sinful flesh, brethren.
That's all that is. The love of Christ does not rejoice
in a brother's fall. The love doesn't uncover it,
doesn't want to seem shamed for it, don't want to hear it, don't
want to repeat it. What is it that makes us want
to do that? It's our old man, because he's
full of hatred. The new man that loves, you just
don't do that to somebody you love. God said, hatred stirreth
up strife, that's our flesh. Love coverth all sins, that's
the new man. Now that's you and that's me. There's a man in me that wants
to stir up strife and there's a man in me that wants to cover
all sin of my brother. I don't want to see my child
shamed. If my child sinned, I don't want
to go around telling people about it. Do you? Why not? You love them. Christ's love makes us rejoice
in the truth of what our brother is in Christ. It makes you rejoice
in the truth of what Christ has made him and what he is in Christ,
and that's what you rejoice in. This is what Paul told the Philippians. This was a common problem then,
it's a common problem now. But listen to what Paul told
the Philippians. He said, Brethren, whatsoever things are true about
your brother, you think about things that are true. Whatever
is true about him, whatever is honest, Whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report. If there's any virtue
in your brother whatsoever, if you've ever seen any virtue in
him and if there's any virtue in you, if there's any praise,
think on these things. And that's what the love of Christ
makes you do. It's just so, it does. Paul said, if there's any
consolation in Christ, if there's any comfort of love, if there's
any fellowship of the Spirit, any bowels and mercies, fulfill
ye my joy that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of
one accord, of one mind, and let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind. And here's where the
root of all this love of God, this is what it does right here.
Let each esteem other better than themselves. And so love, here's the positive
love, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
and endures all things. Christ bore all our sin, and
his love will make you bear your brother's sin. put up with it,
bear it. And as Christ bore our sins,
He believed all things the Father promised, and He hoped in all
the promise of God that He'd bring to pass. And so as we bear
our brethren's sin, we believe Christ is able to do exceeding
abundantly all that we ask or even think, and we hope in Him.
And knowing God's faithfulness, brethren, as we believe and we
hope in the Father, As he did that, Christ endured the curse
for us, and covered us. And so knowing his faithfulness,
as we bear all things, and believe all things, and hope all things,
we endure all things. If I'm going to have to endure
some things, doesn't that mean there's going to be somebody
that I'm going to have to be enduring? Isn't there some love
that, love is a, sometimes, You both are loving. Sometimes one
loves, another one don't love. Next time it'll be the other
one loves, that one don't love. But love keeps it going. Love
keeps enduring. Love keeps bearing. Love doesn't
just say enough. And here's the glory of love.
It's everlasting. Look at verse eight, charity
never failed. I'm not talking about human love.
I'm not talking about that sentimental notion that I gotta have a tingly
feeling or I'm not in love anymore. No, I'm talking about real love.
It don't fail. It don't fail. This ministry will end, preaching
will cease, all the gifts God's given us are going to cease.
You see two people and they get in an argument over some inanimate
object and they just, they'll end up killing each other over
that inanimate object. And you think, that's an object. This is another person to love. What he's telling us is all of
this is needful and all of this is important. It's not diminishing
any of this whatsoever. But all of this is going to end,
brethren. Me and you ain't going to end. Me and you is going to
be at the feet of Christ together. And none of this is going to
matter. We're going to be loving Him perfectly with perfect love
for each other and for Him. So what ought to be the more
excellent thing we pursue now? Same thing. The one thing that's
not going in. Whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they
shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away,
because we know in part, we preach in part, but when that which
is perfect is come, that which in part shall be done away. Now
we see through a glass darkly, but then, face to face, now I
know in part, but then shall I know even as also I'm known,
and here's the glory of love right here. Now abideth faith
and hope, but I'm not gonna need those one day. But this love,
this love is the greatest, because I'll
always love, and you'll always love, and we'll always have that. You know, Peter denied the Lord
three times. And Peter thought it was over
for him. He said, there's nothing anybody, and Peter was right
in this, and the Lord let him do this to show us There was
nothing a man could do worse than what Peter did. He denied
God three times. And he thought it was over. He
thought it was done for him. He went out and he left his apostleship. He left it and he went back to
his boats and was gone. He was done. And Christ came
to him and showed him that love never fails. And by showing him that, he said,
now Peter, you can go preach now. You can feed my little lambs
and treat them tenderly. You can feed my sheep, the middle-aged
ones who think they know everything. You can feed the old ones who
see their sins and are cast down, and you can help them. You can
feed them now. You know what love is. And so
as an old, old apostle, An old wise old apostle, you ever want
to listen to a wise old man, here's one to listen to. Peter
said, above all things, that covers it all, don't it
Adam? Above all things, have fervent charity. among yourselves, because charity
shall cover the multitude of sins." You think Peter knew? Peter saw charity cover the multitude
of his sins, and he knew. Loves the thing. Loves the thing. What is it when you love somebody,
you don't want to blame them? You won't blame them. You forgive them. You let it
go. And you say, whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, I'll do it.
Whatever I have to do, I will do it. Because I love you. And this is one thing I'm thankful
for. Charity never fails. And for that reason, nothing
shall ever be able to separate us from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus. The greatest gift is the one
that is eternal. That's love. I pray God will
increase our love. Amen.