So I take it everybody has heard
that Eric and Michelle are grandparents now. Alexis had a little baby
girl. I don't know all the details,
but I'm sure you do. About the size of a large-mouthed
bass, I think, and healthy. I don't know what her name is,
but I'll find out. We're thankful for that. Pray
for, as Art did, for them and for that little one. I've been
praying for my little ones since the day they put them in my arms,
saying, Lord, these are yours. Do with them what you will. Save
them by your grace. Next week we only have one service
at 11. One service at 11. Brother Eric
Lutter is going to preach Thursday night and Sunday. And I didn't
want to put too much on him. We'll be at the Danville conference.
So he's just going to preach one service at 11 on Sunday.
So let's turn to 1 Corinthians 13. We read in verse 8, this is our
title, this is our subject. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 8 says,
Charity never faileth. Charity never faileth. Do you remember after the Apostle
Paul denied the Lord Jesus Christ three times, he left the ministry. Apostle Peter left the ministry.
He went back to his boats, to his nets, to his fishing. That
had been his prior life. And he went back to it. And he
left the ministry. And Christ came to him to restore
him. And do you remember what Christ
asked him? He said, Peter, lovest thou me
more than these nets and these boats and this life that you
call life? Do you love me more than these? He didn't ask him about doctrine.
It was important for him to know doctrine if he was going to feed
Christ's lambs. But if he didn't have love, he
could have had all the doctrine and all the right doctrine. And
he would have done nothing but fleece those lambs. You can hear
a man preach, and he may preach the truth, but what's the man
done? What is he doing? Has he promoted
himself? Has he stepped up every time
he's moved? Has he sought more glory for
himself? Is he fleecing God's people?
You see, love is the most important thing. Without love, a man's
nothing. He asked Peter, do you love me,
Peter? And when Peter said yes, he said,
feed my lambs. Only those with the love of God
in their hearts can feed God's lambs and will be used of Christ
to feed His lambs. A man can know all true doctrine,
but Christ is the only one that can bless it. And Christ is only blessing that
one in whom He's put His love and He's blessing the Word that's
going forth. So, here's what I want us to
see. Why is love the first fruit given by the Spirit? Why is love
the most important thing of all? Here's what I want us to see.
We're to have fervent love amongst ourselves. Above all else, the
cause of what love does. Love never fails. Love never fails. First of all,
we're told in verse 4, charity suffereth long and is kind. Love suffers long and is kind. God is love. God is love. It's His nature, that's who God
is. He is love. And it was love, the love of
God that chose Christ and chose to exalt Christ and give Christ
all preeminence. It was love that made God choose
His Son and choose to exalt His Son and give Him all the preeminence.
And it was the love of God that chose the people in His Son.
In eternity, before sin ever entered, it was God who chose
the people in His Son, not based on any good in us, not based
on anything in us. He chose His people freely in
Christ. That was the love of God that
did that. And the love of God sent Christ forth and manifested
His love by sending His Son forth and His Son laying down His life
for His people. That's love. That's love, the
love of God manifested. We didn't love Him. He loved
us. And that's what He did. And I want you to think about
this now from the eternity. When God created this earth and
then Adam sinned, think of the thousands of years and all the
sin and all the rebellion till Christ came. God suffered a long
time with the sin of men before He sent Christ into this world
and put that sin away. And you and I came into this
world and I don't know how long it was for you before Christ
revealed Himself to you, but you think of how long He suffered
with you until He revealed Christ to you. He suffered a long time
with you. He did it for Christ. And He
still suffers long with you and me because we are still just
like Peter and we deny Him. But He suffers long with His
people. Jeremiah said, The Lord has appeared of old unto me,
saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and
therefore in loving kindness. We are talking about His long-suffering
and His kindness. I have loved you with an everlasting
love, therefore in loving kindness I have drawn you. Scripture says
how excellent is His loving kindness. Therefore the children of men
put their trust under his wings." And so with Peter, he learned
this by experience, and we know this by experience. Peter said,
you account, you mark it down, the longsuffering of our God
is salvation. That's how you and I were saved,
because God was longsuffering with us. The opposite of longsuffering
would have been the moment Adam sinned, God would have folded
it all up right then. But he didn't. He was long-suffering
with us because he's going to exalt his son and give his son
everything he promised his son. He's going to save his people
from our sins. So he was long-suffering. Continues to be long-suffering.
Now you think of what Peter did. Think about what Peter did. Peter
vocally, outwardly, and with his heart denied the Lord Jesus
Christ not just once, but three times. He denied Christ three times. And yet Christ did not cast him
away. Christ didn't separate himself
from him. Christ came to him where he was and Christ restored
him. Bearing that iniquity, bearing
that sin, he came to him and he restored him because Christ
was longsuffering and kind to Peter. I hear men get into arguments
over doctrine and arguments over this point and that point and
things that aren't even clearly revealed in the Word of God.
Things that are the secret things that belong to God. And they
get to arguing and fussing and fighting and the next thing you
know, some man's done separated himself from this other man that
he thought was a brother and claimed was his brother for years
and years and years. And here they are, they've been
separated from one another. And separated himself from the preacher
of the Gospel of Christ. And I want to ask men like that. I want to say to them, do you
love Christ? Lovest thou Christ? Do you have
the love of God in you? Yeah, but I believe so. I'm not
talking about doctrine. Do you love God? You got the
love of God in you. Do you even know what the love
of God does? Because this ain't it. That's not what Christ did
for us. That's not what He did for His
people. See, a man can know all doctrine and get puffed up and
kill his brethren with that doctrine. But love will be the driving
force, the motive that makes him want his brethren to understand
doctrine so that they really believe the truth and wait on
God to give it to them and teach them. That's love to God and
to brethren. Or despises thou the riches of
his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing
that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance. Indeed, declare true doctrine.
But there's an and that goes with that. You know that when
Paul told Timothy to declare doctrine, he said, exhort with
all longsuffering and doctrine. See, there's an and there. Not
just doctrine, but with long-suffering and doctrine. Therefore, as the
prisoner of the Lord, I beseech you that you walk worthy of the
vocation wherewith you're called, with all lowliness and meekness,
with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love and endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. See, love
is long-suffering and kind. And secondly, the love of God
does not envy. This is the love God gives. It
does not envy. Look at verse 4. Charity envieth
not. Not just sometimes it doesn't
envy. The love God gives never envies. Envy is of the sinful
man of our flesh. James said, the spirit that dwelleth
in us lusteth to envy. Do you realize that envy is what
Christ saved us from? Envy is what Christ saved us
from. Go to Titus 3. Let me show you this. Titus 3,
in verse 3. He says there, We ourselves,
well first he says in verse 2, Speak evil of no man. Don't be
brawlers. Be gentle, showing all meekness
unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving different lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy. That's not just what we did sometimes.
That's where we lived, Art. We lived in malice and envy,
hateful and hating one another. But after that, the kindness
and love of God our Savior appeared, toward man appeared, not by works
of righteousness which we've done, but according to His mercy
He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of
the Holy Ghost which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Lord. You see, Envy is what kept us
from believing Christ. The envy of our sinful flesh
is what kept us from believing Christ. Why did they crucify
Christ? Why did they deliver Christ up
to be crucified? Scripture says they did it for
envy. What do you mean? I mean this. Christ is the only
wisdom. The only way a man knows who
God is and how God saves is Christ. That's not in you and me by nature
and we can't teach it to a man and a man can't learn it by himself.
God gives it His way. Man hears that and he envies
that glory. No, I want to be my teacher.
I want to be the one that teaches me my way. God says, you're going
to be saved my way or you ain't going to be saved. Man envies
that glory that belongs to God. Christ is the only righteousness
and holiness of His people. You can't work out a righteousness
or a holiness for yourself, and I can't either. And men hear
that, and they envy that glory that belongs to Christ alone.
He's the righteousness and holiness of His people. Redemption is
all of Christ. I can't free you. Another man
can't free you from the curse of the law, from the sin of your
flesh, or from this world. I can't redeem you. Christ is
the Redeemer. And men hear that and they envy
Christ. We did that. We envied the glory
that belonged to Christ. That's what kept us from believing
on Christ. We wanted that glory. I want to say I did it. I want
to say I had some part of it. That was the envy that kept us
from Christ. When He put a new heart in you
for the first time, that grace, that regeneration, that renewing
of the Holy Spirit made you to see the love of God. He put the
love of God in your heart. And that's when you started loving
God. And believing God and wanting Him to have all the glory. And
that's the first time we started actually loving and not envying
our brethren. Folks that are in false religion,
they don't... If a man preaches the gospel
different from me, he don't love me. He can say he loves me, but
he don't love me. He don't. If he could get rid
of me and silence me, he would. It would make his life a lot
easier. He don't love me. And don't fool yourself in thinking
a man that preaches a gospel contrary to the truth of God
loves you. He don't love you. Only brethren that believe God
and have the love of God in their heart love one another. That's
so. That's so. If worse push comes
to shove, you know what they'll do? The Pharisees, the Sadducees,
the Nicolaitans, the Romans, the Jews, they all hated one
another. But they hated Christ more. And
so they all united in the common cause of crucifying Him and getting
Him out of the way. And they'll do the same thing
to a believer. It's only when God puts the love
of God in your heart that makes you bow to Christ and give Him
all the glory in every single aspect of salvation that you
start loving God's people. And loving men that don't know
Him. Does a mother envy her child? Does a mother envy her child?
No, that child's her. That child, she's doing everything
for the child. Brethren don't envy brethren
either. We're born of the same spirit and we love one another.
We're happy when another one is prospered in any way. Because
we're born of His spirit. One spirit. One spirit. And we
don't envy wicked men anymore. We used to. Used to drive by
houses, look at it and say, oh boy, that's Mr. Living Good right
there. I wish I had that. Drive by a church where it's
just this giant building and they got every kind of program
under the sun and they're not preaching anything there. Moralisms. and think, well, I wish our church
was that big. I don't envy them anymore. I've
seen fellas build buildings here since I've been here, huge buildings.
I could do that. All I got to do is preach what
man wants to hear and we could have that. Last week, I got y'all
out of here in one minute. All I had to say was the fire
trucks pulled in, moved, and everybody took off. It's not
hard to get people to do what you want them to do. But to preach Christ and wait
on Christ to do it is another story. I don't want you doing
what I want you to do. I want you to do what you do
because God is the motive of your heart. That's what I want.
So we don't fret ourselves because of evildoers. We are not envious
against the workers of iniquity for they shall soon be cut down
like the grass and wither as the green herb. Trust in the
Lord and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land
and verily thou shalt be fed. Now thirdly, the love of God
does not exalt self. Verse 4 says, charity vaulteth
not itself and is not puffed up. The love of God is not proud
and arrogant. The love, wherever God has put
love, where He dwells, when He makes you abide in His love because
He abides in you, you are not going to be proud and arrogant.
You know why? Go back to 1 Corinthians 4. 1
Corinthians 4 and look at verse 6. Paul said here, talking about
being puffed up, 1 Corinthians 4, 6, he says, These things,
brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos
for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think of men
above that which is written, and that no one of you be puffed
up for one against another. For who maketh thee to differ
from another? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now if thou didst not receive
it, why dost thou glorious this out if thou didst receive it?
We didn't love God. Here in His love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to work out
righteousness and forgiveness and atonement for us. We didn't
love God. It's the love of God the Father
that made us to differ, not our love. And it's the redemption
Christ accomplished that made us to differ, not anything we
did. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive honor. Thou hast redeemed
us. Thou hast made us kings and priests
under God. We didn't do anything. He's worthy. And it's the Spirit of God that
made us to differ in regeneration. He didn't just bring you little
ways and then work in you and make you do, take the steps on
your own. He irresistibly changed you and
made you a new man to put a new nature in you. I like that picture. I think Brother Scott sent it
to me. It was a Freewheel Works wheelchair ramp. It was an Armenian
wheelchair ramp, a Freewheel Workers wheelchair ramp. It had
one step at the bottom of it, and then it started rolling up.
You had to take the first step, and then after that, you could
go the rest of the way. Brother Henry used to say, if
I could take the first step, I could take the rest of them.
If I could do the first step, I got the rest of them. We can't
even take the first step. God has to do that. So we can't
be arrogant about anything. Everything we have, we got from
God. We're kept by His power. Then look at this, fourthly,
God-given love behaves in a way that adorns the Gospel. Now I
want us to get this, listen to this carefully. God-given love,
you know, it's the flesh that says, I want to wear this, but
this right here is going to show my butt. And it's not going to
be adorning to God. But you know, I want to wear
it, but I'm going to wear it anyway. That's love for me, not love for God.
Love for God says, what's going to adorn Him? That's what I'm
going to do. And that goes, that's not just
truth. That goes for anything. Everything. Listen to this. Verse
5. Love does not behave itself unseemly. Love does not behave itself unseemly. You know what the opposite of
unseemly is? Becoming. and adorning. That's the opposite
of unseemly. The very reason the Son of God
took the nature of His people and came into this earth, you
know why He did it? You know why He suffered and bled at Calvary's
cross? Because it was becoming to God. Listen to Hebrews 2.10. It became
Him. That's the opposite of being
unseemly. It became Him. It became God. It was adorning
to God. for whom are all things, and
by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the
captain of our salvation perfect, consecrated, holy, risen, successful
through suffering." It was becoming to God to do it that way. It
wasn't unseemly. It was becoming to God to save
us the way He did. And then the Scriptures tells
us this, such a high priest became us. It wasn't unseemly for Christ. It would have been unseemly not
to have a high priest like Christ. But it's becoming to us who He
saves to have a high priest like Christ who's holy and harmless
and undefiled and separate from sinners and made higher than
the heavens. That's becoming to us. That's fitting for us. That's what we need. See, everything
he did is becoming. Christ went there to John the
Baptist to be baptized. And he's got all his elect in
him. He's got John the Baptist in
him. He's representing as the head. He's representing all his
people. And so he goes there to obey God, to be baptized,
so he can enter into his public ministry. And John said, I need
you to baptize me. What do you mean me baptize you?
And Christ said, thus it's becoming. Thus it becometh us. me and all
the people that are in me that I'm representing. It becometh
us to fulfill all righteousness. It's becoming. It's becoming. That's the opposite of unseemly.
And that's why the love of God is not rude and unmannerly. That's
why the love of God doesn't make a regenerate sinner conduct himself
in a manner any other way than that adorns the gospel. It's
becoming to the gospel. Paul said, only let your conduct
be as it becometh the gospel of Christ. Adorning the gospel
of Christ, standing fast in one spirit with one mind, striving
together for the faith of the gospel. Titus, in Titus, Paul
told Titus, he said, speak thou the things which become sound
doctrine. If I stood up here and preached
to you that there's some goodness in you, that's unseemly. And
that wouldn't be love, that would be unseemly. But I speak sound
doctrine. I tell you, we're depraved and
can't do a thing. Speak sound doctrine and conduct
yourself with behavior as becometh holiness. Not that which is unseemly,
that which becometh holiness. And that we may adorn the doctrine
of God our Savior in all things. Adorn it, not do something that
makes it seem unseemly. You know why men and women don't
like to go to church? in our generation. You know why
they think it's just a bunch of voodoo? Because unseemly false
gospels have been preached for so long that there's nothing
adorning and becoming about it to men. Not even to dead sinners,
it don't even appeal. Who wants a helpless God? Even
a dead sinner knows that won't help you. A helpless God? Who wants to be around people
that act so unbecoming because they're in the church acting
like they're so holy and pious and better than everybody else
and then you see them the next day and they're the worst scoundrel
of the bunch. That's not becoming. And so the
gospel is spoken evil of because of this unseemly way in which
it's preached, in which it's lived. We want to adorn the doctrine
of God. That's what you do when God puts
His love in you. That's what you do. And then
it says here that the love, this love is not selfish. Look at
verse 5. It seeketh not her own, it's
not easily provoked, it thinketh no evil. While dead in sins,
we did everything for ourselves. Do you know that? Everything
we did when we were dead in sins was for self. That's all we did
was for self. for self, but God's love makes
us to have the mind of Christ. Remember when Paul said we have
the mind of Christ? That's to have the love of God
in you. That's to be given a mind and a heart to honor and glorify Christ.
And so when he puts his mind in you, you have the mind of
Christ. Listen to this, look not every man on his own things,
but every man also on the things of others. In other words, don't
just live for yourself and think that what you're doing and what
your world is everything and all, but look on other people's
situation and what they need and how they need to be helped.
Where do we get that? Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus. That's Philippians 2, 4 and 5.
That's what He did. Christ came down, not for Himself,
but for God and for His people. He took the form of a servant
for God and for His people. He obeyed to the death of the
cross for God and for His people. That He might declare God just
and justifier and save His people from our sin. He did everything
He ever did for somebody else. He became the very least in doing
that for others. That's why he is the love of
the law. He is the fulfillment of the
law. Everything he did shows that's who he is. He's perfect
love, brethren. He said perfect love is to love
God and your brethren as yourself. That's what he did selflessly.
So selflessly he was willing to be crucified between God and
his people. That's the ultimate love of the
law right there. That is the fulfillment of all
righteousness right there. So the love of Christ makes us
unselfish by looking on others and it's not easily provoked.
Easily provoked. You know, when people are touchy
and easily offended and walk on eggshells, it's hard to be
around them. Because you're watching everything
you do all the time. It's very pharisaical to be that
way. Because you're looking at how,
you're just looking for somebody else to offend you in some way.
And when that's the heart, you know what's really being said?
I don't deserve to be treated this way. I am somebody you failed
to recognize. That is pharisaical self-righteousness
that makes a man easily provoked. God's people, He puts His love
in you. The preacher, an elephant, an
elephant has a thick skin. Because it's over there, walking
in places where there's lots of thorns, and there's lots of
different things that could hurt it, and the sun bearing down
on it, and there's just, I mean, it has to have a thick skin.
Well, God's preacher has to have a thick skin. It gives him a
thick skin. And so that not every little
thing gets under his skin, and he's not easily provoked. Because
there's a lot of stuff that you just say. You know what you teach
your children? Choose your battles. You learn
to choose your battles. Not everything is end all, be
all. And you just let it go. And the
same is true with brethren. We have to have a thick skin.
You know why? Because we see how easily offensive we are to
others. How could we possibly be offended
by what others do to us? See, in everything I'm saying
to you here, this is not for us to say, yeah, they ought to
be hearing that. They ought to be treating me.
No, no, no, no, no. It's for me to say, I don't need to be
easily provoked towards them. Because there's enough in me
to offend everybody around me. How could I possibly be provoked
by something they did? That's what grace teaches you
in the heart. Love teaches you in the heart. If you want to
provoke somebody, consider one another to provoke unto love
and to good works. There's something to provoke
them to. And then love's not selfish because it thinks no
evil. I'm bad at this. All of this I'm bad at. But I'm
terrible at this. I just, you know, trying to read
into something. Something that's not there. Suspicious. I've just, I don't know. The Lord said, be wise as serpents
and harmless as doves. And I try to, for your sake,
I try to look at things and think, Melinda thinks I'm just going
to be an ultimate conspiracy theorist. But I do think that,
I know for a fact some of these churches have sent people in
here to spy out our liberty. I know that's happened. But don't
be, you've received men without doubting. love one another and
don't doubt. God will take care of all that.
You don't have to be walking around worrying about conspiracies
and reading something into a look. That's awful, boy. When a brother
or sister, maybe they're just having a bad day. They don't
even know they looked at you that way. And you think, what
in the world did they look at me that way for? Don't think evil, but think the
best. Put the best construction on
your brethren. Think the best of them. best
of their speech, best of their actions. Put the best on them. And then look at this next thing.
The love of God, verse 6, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth
in truth. Rejoiceth in truth. When we were
dead in sins, we rejoiced in iniquity, didn't we? The message
we'd love to hear was an inequitable message. It didn't measure up
to righteousness. The message we'd love to hear when we were
dead in the sins was God looked down through time and saw that
you'd believe on Him and that's why He chose you. That's inequitable. That's iniquity. That doesn't
measure up to grace, to free grace. That makes it put in your
hands. We loved the message when we
were lost that said Christ did all He can do, now it's up to
you. That put something in our hands. That was iniquity. We
rejoiced in God will give you a heart. Now you can either choose
Him or refuse Him. Because that left it ultimately
up to us. All we'd like to hear was that
which somehow brought it around and opened a loophole so that
ultimately I was my Savior. That we love. That's iniquity.
And it's because we love that, we loved every other kind of
immoral iniquity too. But when God puts a new heart
in you, That's not the case anymore. I've told you this over and over
again. I learned the doctrine. But I didn't have the love of
God in my heart yet. And I could argue the doctrine. And another
man would argue free will works universal redemption. And I would
argue particular redemption. And we'd sit there and argue
with one another. We got done. Okay, you believe that, I believe
this. We're friends. It's no big deal. But then when God put
the love of God in my heart, it became altogether different.
Because now, you're telling lies on my father. You're telling
lies on my elder brother, who is my Lord and my Savior. Now,
it became personal. You see, if it's somebody else's
father, somebody's running down, it don't bother you. That's their
father. You don't love him. But if it's
your father they're running down, that's a different story. Because
you love them. That's the difference between
having the love of God in your heart and just having a head
knowledge of doctrine. So we don't rejoice anymore in
hearing a lie told on Christ. And I'll tell you something else
we can't rejoice in anymore. We can't rejoice in hearing iniquity
spoken about our brethren either. Because we're one with them too.
I don't know which is worse, to speak iniquity about a brother
or to listen to it. They're both the same. But we
can't stand that. The other day Will come in the
house with that cut on his leg and it's bleeding and it looked
bad. It looked bad. And it hurt me. That hurt me. It hurt me because that boy is
my flesh and blood. It hurt me when I saw that. And
that's how it is for believers. It hurts you to hear something
said that's unjust about your brother or your sister And also,
it hurts you to hear somebody else talk about their stumblings
and their sin and their fault. I've told you before, some of
you have told me things and I'm not going to tell a soul about
it. And I'm not going to listen to anybody else talk to me about
it. Because that's not... I'm not
rejoicing in hearing a nickname. I want to hear truth. John said,
I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in truth.
I want to hear truth spoken about. You know, but you... I've been
in places before where, you know, somebody call up and this is
how it always goes. You know, I'm going to tell you
something, but now I'm just saying this for the glory of God. I'm
saying this because I want God to have the glory and God to
have... But did you know what so-and-so brother so-and-so did?
He did such and such and such and this and that and blah blah
blah. Oh, I can't believe that happened. Oh, I want God to have
the glory. Tell me something else. What
else did he do? And just go on and on, get the job done on brother
so-and-so because he fell and stumbled. You know what we ought
to do? Christ said he's perfect. Christ said there's no condemnation.
He's justified him. I'm not going to listen to it.
Take it to Christ. You want to complain about him
to somebody, go to Christ. Who is he that condemns? It's
God that justifies. Go to Christ and talk about it.
I'm not going to condemn him. I'm not going to tell you. What
are you going to do? I'm going to bear his burden. I'm going
to try to lift him up. I'm going to try to restore him.
Don't speak to one another about the sin and shortcomings of brethren.
Here's what you do. You think about something that
comes, and you know, sometimes it just comes into your heart,
and you start thinking about different things, and the whole
flesh gets puffed up, and you start thinking about a brother
or sister. Stop and do this. Paul said,
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there's any
virtue, any praise, think on these things. Sometimes we have
to just stop and say, you know, I'm thinking wrong. I just need
to think different. Let me find something good to
think on. Think on that. And then seventhly, the love
of God, that he gives, verse 7, "...beareth all things, and
believeth all things, and hopeth all things, and endureth all
things." Best picture that I know of in the Scriptures is this.
Noah came out of that ark, he got drunk, and he was naked laying
in his tent. And that cursed son could not
wait to go out and tell everybody that would listen about his daddy's
sin. He couldn't wait to expose him.
But those two blessed boys, you know what they did? They took
a blanket and they wouldn't even look on their daddy's sin. They
walked backwards and they covered him up and covered his nakedness.
That's what it is to bear all things and believe all things
and hope all things and endure all things. According to God's
Word, you know who it is that exposes sin? The wicked. The mouth of a righteous man
is a well of life. But violence covers the mouth
of the wicked. Hatred stirs up strife. Love
covers a multitude of sins. An ungodly man digs up evil. In his lips there's a burning
fire. He that is of a proud heart stirs up strife. And you know
what that is? That's so true. A proud heart
stirs up strife. You know what he's doing? Stirring
up strife. He's saying, I wouldn't do that. That's a proud heart. Look at what he's doing. I wouldn't
do that. And you might not say that. You might not say, I wouldn't
do that. But that's what you say in pointing out the sin of others.
I wouldn't do that. A proud heart stirs up strife.
But he that puts his trust in the Lord, he'll be made fat.
So love bears all things. Bears the sins and the shortcomings
of brethren. Love believes and hopes all the
best things. And love endures all the worst
things. It means love never gives up.
Never gives up. Endures the trials, and the sorrows,
and the offenses, and the hurt feelings, and the neglect, and
the disappointments. We don't have any newlyweds here, but
you know, it's easy loving husband and wife, loving one another
while you're in the honeymoon stage. Sooner or later, the honeymoon's
over. Do you still love them? You have
folks, we've seen folks come and go and, oh, while they're
in the honeymoon stage here, everything is love, love, love,
love, love. But sooner or later, the honeymoon's
over and then it's, you don't love me like I ought to be loved.
And they're gone. Scripture don't tell me how you
ought to love me. So we don't have to ever say,
you're not loving me like you ought to love me. Scripture don't
even tell me that. Scripture tells me how I'm to love you.
That's all I need to be worried about. How am I loving you? Not
how you loving me. How am I loving you? Love bears
all things. And that's the law of Christ.
This is my commandment that you love one another as I loved you. That's why Paul said, Bear ye
one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. He
took everything, bore it for us. And that's why we read in
verse 8, Charity never faileth. God's love in Christ never fails. It never fails. Everybody God
loves, God saves. And do you hear me? Everybody
God loves, God saves. Preacher, now if I'm reasoning
right, that means you're saying God don't love everybody. What
kind of love is it that has the power to save and don't save?
Love saves. Love provides. Love does everything
necessary for the object of its love. God loves, God saves everybody
He loves. That's why you read, nothing
shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Nothing. Nothing. But now everything
that men like to divide over and fuss and fight over, they
will end. They will fail. Look here, I'm
just going to read this, verse 8. But whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they
shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, we prophesy in part. You know what's going to be amazing
one day? Brothers that fought over some point of doctrine and
split and divided from one another, one day they're going to wake
up in glory and Christ is going to say, Neither one of y'all
didn't know enough to save either one of you. Both of you just
had a speck of dust. That's all you had. If I was
going to save you based on your knowledge, I'd have thrown both
of you into hell. And then it's going to seem so stupid and so
foolish that they even fought at all. We know in part. We just know in part. We preach
in part. But when that which is perfect
is come, then that which is in part should be done away. When
I was a child, I speak as a child, I understood as a child, I thought
as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Right now, we are all just children. We are in the children phase
right now. But someday, when Christ returns and we are made
perfect, we are going to put away the childish things. For
now, we see through a glass darkly. But then, face to face. Now I know in part, but then
shall I know even as I also am known. Now abideth faith, hope,
charity, these three. But the greatest, the one that
won't ever cease, is charity. See why it's the best thing?
See why it's the greatest thing? Faith will be sight. Hope will
be sight. Charity will always be the same.
He'll always be there. So what does he say in chapter
14 verse 1? Here's the application. Follow
after charity. Make love your aim. Follow after
love. Before God, with Christ and with
your brethren, follow after love. Peter was taught this. Can't
you just imagine how Peter appreciated the unchanging, unchangeable
love of God whenever he denied Christ three times and Christ
still came to him and restored him. Don't you know that love
of God meant more to him than anything else? Doctrine and gifts and all these
things is like gold. I had a friend that was a songwriter
that wrote a beautiful lyric. He wrote, ask a dying man which
he would rather hold, a loving hand or a pot of gold. Which
one would you rather hold? Don't you know that just thrilled
Peter's heart that Christ loved him in spite of him? And so years
later, you know what Peter wrote? He wrote, above all things, have
fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude
of sins. I pray God will teach us that.
Amen.