Technology. We're going to finish
out chapter four today, and we're going to do so by way of 1 Corinthians
13. 1 John chapter four, verse 16. So we have come to know and to
believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever
abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this
love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence for
the day of judgment because as he is so also are we in this
world. There is no fear in love but
perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment
and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because
he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and
hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his
brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must
also love his brother. I want us to think about that
for a moment. I want you to understand and
keep in mind what we've been going through for the last few
months. What John is trying to emphasize is that God is commanding
the body to love one another. And that when we love, we have
made ourselves at home in who God is. Okay? This is not about those who don't
love are lost. or those who love are saved.
Otherwise, the cults of the world would have the monopoly on salvation.
The works-based salvations and gospels of our culture, man,
they'd be lining up front and center at the pearly gates of
heaven. No, we are saved by the pure will of God, by his grace,
who eternally has had a people for himself. Election is the
gospel of free and sovereign grace. And it excludes all boasting. It excludes all knowledge. It excludes all preparation. And it excludes anything that
provides that the flesh can provide. There is no provision for the
flesh in the context of grace. None whatsoever. But there are
every turn of the page of the New Testament, there is a therefore,
therefore, therefore, therefore. These imperatives of the Bible,
these teachings, these commandments, these instructions are things
that because we are secure in the work of Christ, we should
and ought to do these things. Now if that doesn't motivate
you, if the gospel doesn't motivate you, if the love of God is not
the motivating factor for all these therefores, then they're
not going to be successful. And by the mere word successful,
we're automatically thinking, I'm gonna be able to do it. But
that doesn't necessarily mean that. It means the success in
the ministry of Christ, success in the body of Christ, success
in the love of God for one another is that we rest in the sufficiency
of God's love for us. And that when we are able, notice
I said when, when we are able to exercise our love for one
another, it is because God has granted that to us through his
power. And God's Word does not promise
an everlasting earthly power to the saints. God's Word does
not promise He's going to give every pastor a shepherd's heart
every day of the week. God's Word does not promise that
everyone who has ever been born again will love one another. Matter of fact, it's the opposite.
God's Word commands us to do that and then the unity of the
faith and the gospel of free and sovereign grace empowers
our hearts and minds with the right motivation to do that.
So when we are not together, when we are not confronted with
one another face to face in the teaching of the scripture, we
don't have opportunity to serve and to love. Yet we have a cultural
distinction that says while I love the Lord and he, myself, and
I, we are all good together, the Holy Trinity in my living
room. Well, we know that that's ridiculous. We know that that
is sometimes the only thing some people can do. But when God has
provided a means, it is always sweeter and fulfilling to be
together as the body of Christ. Even if it's just two. Without
the body of Christ, there is no promise of love in our lives. There is no promise of our ability
to love. You can't love that which is
not there. Now you can to a degree, but
you know what I mean. There is a connectivity. There
is a covenant relationship with God and himself and God and his
people through Christ. And in that same way, Jesus prays
this in John 17, doesn't he? He prays to the father that he,
the father would send the spirit to cause his people to have a
unifying love and to love one another as the father loves the
son. And then we have John teaching. To keep the commandments of God
and in doing so we are loving God. What is the commandment
of God? Well, the one unto salvation
is to believe in the finished work of the Christ. And the one
after salvation is to love one another with an everlasting love
as Christ has loved you. We can see it in every relationship,
right? We can go to the book of Ephesians and we can look
at that letter And we can go to the letter to Timothy, the
first one specifically, and we can begin to see what the church
is supposed to look like. We can see through the correcting
letters of the apostles, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians. We can see that there's a lack
of love when all of this infighting and heresy begins to stir the
pot. There's a lack of love when individual
sinfulness begins to bring reproach upon the body of Christ. There's
a lack of love when arrogance and pride and stubbornness gets
in the way of sacrifice, gets in the way of giving, gets in
the way of serving. There's a lack of love when people
staunchly hold to the context of what? Look at Ephesians and
Revelation, to the context of the true gospel at the cost of
loving their neighbor. Jesus threatens the church of
Ephesus to destroy their witness for the rest of eternity if they
don't go back and love him through the love that they should have
for their people and for the weakers among them and for the
community among them. We cannot look with disdain and
say that we are abiding in the love of God because God does
not look with disdain to his people ever. He does not hate
us. He loves us in Christ Jesus.
And we've gone through that. I mean, we have looked at this,
and I never thought it would take this long to get through
chapter four. And honestly, I could probably preach four or five more sermons.
There's so many little things there that I want to pull out.
But we must get the crux of this text, is that there is a sense
in which the Spirit of God testifies to our spirit that we are adopted
in Him, through which we can say, hey, Daddy, We can call
God, the Father, our dad. That intimate. It's not disrespectful. It's the words of Paul. Daddy. and that by the Spirit we know
that we are His children. We understand that we approach
the throne of grace not cowering, not crawling, not laying alms,
not burning incense, and not bringing sacrifices, but we come
clothed in the pure righteousness of Jesus Christ. We don't come
clothed in fig leaves, we come clothed in that which God has
killed and shed blood for Himself to satisfy the covenant of love
that He had with us before the world began. And if we're not
clothed in the blood and the righteousness of Christ, we will
not stand. We better cower before God because
he's not our father if we are not in Christ. But if he is our
father, we will be in Christ. And we will be in Christ forever. And he has loved us first. And
because of that, we should not say, verse 20 of chapter four,
I love God while hating our brother. We should not say, I love God,
while hating our brother. Because when we do that, we are
lying. Now what does it mean to be a
liar? That means to not tell the truth. To not tell the truth. Something is amiss. In other
words, if I say something about myself that I know is fabricated,
it is a lie. If I say, I, I don't know, I
don't even wanna, let me just use the content. As I say, I
love the Lord. I love God, but I'm not loving
anyone in particular. I am a liar. Because the only
way for us to literally and actively and emotionally and mentally
and spiritually love God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
is to only love one another. And that is so foreign, isn't
it? It is so foreign. The number of missionaries that
I've known through the years, who didn't love God because they
didn't love the people they were sent to. They just love the work. They love the accolades. They
love the esteem. They love the expression of,
oh, man of God. Man of God. Blessing. Pastors, same thing. You know
what an ego oven looks like? A pulpit. It's a pulpit. That's why I think
it's real healthy for pastors to save their hate mail. I saved
mine, I've got a drawer full of it. Cards, letters, stickers,
one particular letter that was stabbed onto the door of my office
with a knife. I didn't keep the knife, the
FBI took it, but I kept the letter. I'm not lying. I've got it. And it's just like,
it keeps you humble. You owe that bag of chips to
some people, but most people hate the flavor. They don't like
the flavor that you're offering. And the question is, are we being
hated for the truth or are we being hated because we're just
hateful? There's a difference. Ego, pride,
self-love is the point of the rebellion against God. Self-love
is Satan's sin. Self-love is Eve and Adam's sin.
Self-love, and this is tough because I've got this question.
My brother and I were talking about this last week. We think
of it that way, but there is a sense in which we should love
ourselves. And I wanna talk about that a week from today on Theology
on Call. Is there a sense in which through
the gospel we are to love ourselves? Yes, absolutely. We should not hate who we are
because Christ has loved us eternally. Not that we're worthy of love,
but because we are the object of God's love, we should have
a humble esteem and affection for ourselves. Because in the
context of love, how does Paul deal with that? He says to love
your enemies. Jesus says to love your enemies.
How? Turn to the other cheek, give them your clothes, feed
them when they're hungry. He says, fathers, Don't make
your children angry. Don't treat them in such a manner
that would cause them to be angry because God the Father does not
do that to us. He sacrifices his son instead
of punishing us. Now I'm not saying that we go
to the neighbor's kid and whip the neighbor's kid when our children
do bad, but you know, our kids would like it. But there is a
sense in which when we discipline our children, we need to pretend
like they're somebody else's because they are. I can discipline
and correct and corral everybody else's children easily. When
it comes to my own, I'm going to snatch them by the head and
throw them against the wall. That's a joke. I can see protective
services coming through the back door now. It's a joke. I don't
throw them against the wall. I throw them on the ground. Husbands, love your wife in the
way that Christ loved the church, who gave himself up for her to
present her blameless, without blemish, spotless, before the
Father. Husband, love your wife. For
no one, what does he say? And he alludes back to Genesis
chapter 1 and 2. That God put Adam to sleep and
out of Adam came woman, Eve. That's why she's called woman.
Out of man came woman. And he put the two together and
the two became one flesh and what God has assembled let no
man tear apart. And Paul says, I say this mystery
is profound but it means to be a picture of Christ in the church.
It means to be a picture of God's eternal and effectual love in
a relationship that is temporary, as the temple was temporary,
as the sacrifices were temporary, as all of the other precepts
of Moses were temporary, yet they pointed to the to the perfect
love of God that is perfected in the finished work of Christ,
that is continually perfected, that means finished, through
the relationship of the church of which marriages are comprised,
but the marriages and the parental relationships of the family unit
in the context of the local family of Christ are temporary, yet
our relationships stand eternally. That's what I meant last week
when I said that the covenant with the body of Christ is as
important, if not more, than the marriage covenant. Because
you can't have one without the other, and one is temporary.
Now I'm not saying that we put church work and parties and programs
and all that minutia above our family. I'm talking about the
family of Christ in like manner as the family of blood. Because
the family of Christ is eternal. They take priority. I live my
life by the best of God's grace to make sure that what we do
as a home doesn't affect the eternal relationships of who
we are in Christ. That's the most important. That's
the most important. And so when we look at love in
that context, we see this laying down of oneself. Paul says in
Ephesians, Five, husbands, you love your wives, for no one hates
his own body. No one despises his body, but
he takes care of it. He washes it. He nourishes it. He treats it when it's ill. I
love my hands and fingers. I want to keep them all. I have
arthritis in these hands sometimes, and I can't do the things that
I used to do. Full card flourish anymore. I can't palm certain
things out when I'm doing illusions I can't play the saxophone the
piano like I used to however I don't want to chop off the
fingers because of that I Still like them long as I can scratch
my head and pick my nose and point to the Bible. I think I'm
in good shape The same way the love that a
husband has for his wife is equal to the love that he has for himself
Husbands, wives, respect your husbands as unto the Lord. Not all husbands, your husband. Men do not have a overarching
misogynistic authority over all women. There's no such man in
the world whatsoever, aside the elders, brothers of the fellowship,
who have any authority in any context over my spouse. And the authority that I have
is to die for her and laid out my life in the context of Christ's
life so that she may be presented blameless. And that's another
sermon in itself. That's another series in itself.
But ultimately, we need to recognize that love is something that I
think a lot of unbelievers get right in the way they live. But they don't get it right in
the context of the gospel. I think a lot of the cults get
love correct. So if we were to measure the
world in all of its spirituality by the true gospel of free and
sovereign grace, and here's this little old group over here that
stands for the truth. I think a lot of times, beloved,
that we are like the church of Ephesus in the latter days of
John's life. We have forsaken the first love, who is Jesus
Christ. And we do so by our comments,
by our aggression, by our snod remarks. We do so in a manner
that is unbecoming of the Lord. And we do so at the cost of the
truth. Because let me tell you something, beloved, and I'm going
to tell you this right now. God will not bring light to an elect
person when it is executed in hate. No matter how true that we teach,
it is that we teach. No matter how argumentatively
sound it is, God will not save somebody through those arguments.
He cannot do it. It is against his nature. He
will only do what he's promised to do. God is not a liar. He
has promised to bring truth through the teaching of his word, and
he has promised to grow his people through our love for each other
as we learn the word. No other means has God promised.
Because to think otherwise is to put ourselves as a pivotal
necessity in the context of salvation,
in the context of proclamation. I am a talking head, and that's
as good as I'll ever be. And when I stop proclaiming the
word of God, there are many qualified men who can step into my shoes. It doesn't matter. how smart
we are. As a matter of fact, 1 Corinthians
1, it says that God doesn't use the smart things in the context
of, he uses smart people, but he doesn't use their intelligence
to bring about salvation. He doesn't use philosophers to
bring about salvation. He uses the simple truth. So
that when somebody who hears the simple truth of Christ, simply
taught, and they go, that makes perfect sense. It's because the
spirit of God has taught them that. They're resting now, all
of a sudden, in the sufficiency of the proclamation of the gospel.
These things are the promises of God. We do not mock them by
not being loving. The love of God for His people
casts out fear. We talked about that a little
bit last week. It casts out fear in the context of judgment, for
fear has to do with punishment. We do not fear our Father, but
yet we know we should. We know what he can do, but we
know what he did do for his elect. We know that his wrath is satisfied. The idea of propitiation, which
John loves to use the word, is that the wrath of God is at peace
because it has been poured out. It has been paid. Justice the
gospel is all about righteousness which is all about justice and
the only way that justice is satisfied is through wrath and
judgment and death and We sit here this morning beloved because
God's justice and wrath and judgment is satisfied he did not forbear
it and He executed it upon his son, Jesus Christ, in our place,
who substituted for us that we now are the righteousness of
God because we bear the righteousness of Christ. Perfect love casts
out fear. So we love because he first loved
us. Now the question now, as John
brings it here, verses 20 and 21, is how am I to love this
way? Now I'm gonna tell you, John
doesn't give us a lot of examples, does he? He teaches it, and he
teaches it very well. But he comes to a place of saying,
okay, it leaves it up to the reader in some sense. But what
John knew is that the church that he wrote to and the leaders
and the elders of this body understood and had Paul's writing. 1 John, in and of itself, may leave
a lot open. But the community of faith, aka
the church, the assembly, the gathered ones, the saints, we
are always in life. Whether we're sitting here, or
whether we're sitting out there, or whether we're over at Hoodies,
or whether we're standing at the back of a pickup truck at
a range day, or whether we're cleaning somebody's house, or
delivering food because people need something to eat, Whatever
we're doing, the gospel and the word of God is always around
us, it's always in us, there's always something to discuss.
And it's not that we have to get into theological debates,
but we can have godly, Christ-centered conversations. And so we're feeding
each other and taking care of each other and enjoying each
other's lives, but we also have this truth that constantly moves
in us and through us. And so if we're not digesting
the letters as they're written, if we're just becoming experts
on Romans 9, we're going to be really dumb. If you think you
understand the gospel because you understand Romans 9, that's
not even all, that's not even most of it. Romans 9 is an argument
for the gospel that's already been presented the first eight
chapters of Romans, you see. Then the therefores come later,
right? Chapter 11, 12, 13. So we must be in the Word of
God. Well, John knew that the elders of the church would teach
this correctly so that when someone raised their hand after or during
the assembly or however they did or they had the question
pop up, maybe they had a Sunday night question and answer, and
they said, well, how am I supposed to love this knucklehead next
to me? I don't like this guy. I don't feel loving toward him.
Praise the Lord, you're step one in the right direction. It's
not about how you feel toward someone, it's about what you
do toward them. And maybe as you learn the gospel
more and see just how much God has loved you, in what way God
has loved you, and the efficacy of how God has loved you, you
will then have a tenderness in your heart toward those Unloving
people, as they have tenderness in their heart toward you, who
are also many times, through many circumstances, unloving.
I'm an unlovable guy. A lot of people, no, I love you.
No, you love this part of me. You love this 24 inch by 36 inch
square. Or if it's on the big screen,
it might be bigger than that. But I mean, you like the teaching,
but you may not love me a lot one-on-one and in person. It
may be difficult. It may be different. It may be
disillusioning. This is my pastor? But ultimately, then God can,
as we stay together, teach us what love is all about. So as
John wrote these words, he knew that the elders would pull out
the letter that was written for the Corinthians and show them.
He would show them, he would show the elders, would show the
church, okay, this is what love looks like. How am I supposed
to love Johnny over here? Let me show you what it looks
like. By what it doesn't look like and then what it does look
like. So let's go over to 1 Corinthians. Let's go over there. to what's known as the love chapter.
I mean, Paul is talking about a lot of problems with this little
church, right? Now keep in mind too, there's
never been a people of God who have come to salvation through
false gospels. Even when false gospels come
into the community of faith, it's because they've been now
what? They've been now taught lies in contrast to the truth
that they believe. You can't be in Kingdom Hall
and say, well, I'm born again, but then I learned that Kingdom
Hall was wrong, so I came out of Kingdom Hall. I can't be a
Satanist and an atheist, but I was really a believer, I just
didn't have all the words right. Now that's silly, we don't say
that kind of stuff. So the same thing is true when
the people of Galatia heard the gospel, they heard it from the
mouths of the apostles, and Paul himself said that they received
it. But they had been bewitched because The Judaizers and the
Circumcision Party and all these people have come in with great
charisma and had turned it up on their heads. That happens
a lot, by the way. In evangelism, when we teach the gospel, people
come to believe. There have been people that sat on these front
rows many, many times who have come to believe and then get
connected with some family sometime down the road or another church
that they grew up in, and now they're just twisted. And we
pray by the Lord's mercy to call them out of that. And as they
study the word of God, they will see that it's error. Otherwise,
we must say that they do not have the spirit. Because we test
the spirit by the confession of the gospel. But this church had a problem.
They had the spirit of attitude, spirit of ignorance, spirit of
indifference, spirits, all sorts of spirit. You know what I mean
when I say spirit? I'm not talking about demons. I'm talking about
the spirit of. The spirit of Christmas, what
is it? High price junk. Music. I saw an entire Valentine's
display yesterday, by the way. Are you kidding me? Next to the
half-priced Christmas trees. I say we leave the tree up all
year and just change the ornaments. Christmas tree, New Year's tree. Anyway,
I digress. Here's Paul. He's saying there's
some problems. Some of you guys are spiritual. There's a lot
of stuff going on. You don't understand marriage.
You don't understand divorce. You don't understand intimacy.
You don't understand love. You don't understand obedience. You
don't understand any of this kind of stuff. What is going
on with you? Oh, I know what's going on with you. You were tolerating
this stuff in the midst of the assembly. Get rid of these people
who refuse to stop living in a public way that brings reproach
upon the body of Christ. You got a man having an affair
with his own stepmother. What is wrong with you people?
This is Paul now. throw him out on his head, give
him over to Satan so that Satan may have his way, that this brother
may be disciplined and brought back. You see, for the salvation
of his soul, that kind of context. That's the language of Paul.
Why are you going to court? Why are you suing each other?
Because you can? It's my right. Yeah, it is your
right. There's a higher authority in
the courts of men. If I put up a fence for David and it falls
apart, he doesn't have to sue me, he just got to tell y'all. And I'd rather be sued because
I'm convinced the judge, he tore the fence down. I can lie, bear
false witness. I mean, stop doing that, he says. Don't take your personal issues
that belong in the body privately to the world and let the world
make judgment when Christ has given us the wisdom of judgment.
The problem is many people think that they're smart. Many people
think that they're intelligent. Many people think they're wise.
When we see the people who profess to be wise in the word of God,
what does Paul say? They became fools. God dumbs
down the people who think they're wise. Just like he says that
they are guilty when they say they can see in their own self-righteousness.
The words of Jesus of the Pharisees. And this church of Corinth, there
was a majority of them were living good and well. They were living
rightly. They were living in good intimacy,
but there were this little faction here or there that were always
stirring issues. And if you notice, it wasn't
necessarily, it wasn't like Galatia where there was a doctrinal issue,
where there was a false gospel now coming into the church, but
it was false gospel living coming in. It was a lack of love. And
then everybody was saying, well, you know what, I'm spiritual.
I mean, how do you argue with a man who raises his eyes to
heaven and speaks in a heavenly tongue and then tells you what
it means? How do you argue with these knuckleheads that get on
television throughout all these years who say, God told me last
night to say this, and you need to give some money. It's always
about money, isn't it? It's never about preparing for
a storm, or planning for retirement, or brushing your teeth. It's
never anything practical or good. It's always about how he's gonna
get your money, or she. I mean, God's not in the business
of giving visions except to make the guy rich. I don't get it. And that's a whole nother conversation.
But that's what was happening in Corinth. People were taking
spiritual gifts that they had seen, spiritual expressions,
expressions of spirituality, and they were using them for
self-glory. Oh, that's James. He can tell
the future. Oh, look at there. There's John, man. That boy right
there can heal anything. I saw him bring a plant back
to life last week. I mean, what do you do? I mean,
if all I am is a talking head and John's healing plants, holy
cow, let's open up a garden center. That's a good ministry. I think
it's about worthless, but I mean, it's a good ministry. It'll pay
the bills until everybody's plants never die and then you're out
of business. Silly stuff taking place. And one of those specific
things were the fact that people were exercising the spiritual
gifts of Galatia, or languages, And Paul's saying these spiritual
gifts, you need to understand what's going on here. He says
there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. And these
are a variety of services, of servanthood, of living and practicing
service, but the same Lord. There are a variety of activities,
of actions, of things to do. Some people may sweep, some people
may pray, some people may give, some people may counsel. but the same God who empowers
them all and everyone. To each, verse 7 of chapter 12
of 1 Corinthians says this, to each is given the manifestation
of the Spirit for the common good. And you say, well, what's my job?
Am I in charge? No, you are the slave to all. That's the point. For to one
is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom. What does
that look like? What is wisdom? And I've got this new baby and
I just can't get any sleep. What am I supposed to do to the
parents who have raised grandchildren? They've got some wisdom. Or how
am I supposed to deal with my in-laws or my parents or my family
or my neighbor who just refuses the gospel and swears that they've
got the truth and they're believing this or they're believing that?
Well, you ask and then somebody clearly operates in a way of
wisdom. This is a gift from God. It's not about their smarts. It's not about their expertise. That's why God doesn't let me
remember a whole lot about the Bible. I'm serious. Most of you
think, you've got to be kidding. I couldn't tell you a chapter,
verse of anything right now. If you asked me anything, I wouldn't
know where it was. I have to open it and read it.
And then God brings back to mind what that is clearly. And then
I can go, oh yes, here it is, wisdom. And I could have taught
it yesterday. But I may not know it today because
I used to operate in a level of arrogant intelligence. And I'm thankful that God took
it away. Utterance of wisdom unto another, the utterance of
knowledge according to the same spirit to another, faith. See,
he's not talking about salvation right there, right? What does
it mean to have faith other than saving faith? To trust in the
Lord. to have a resolve. When things
happen in my life and I'm falling apart and then you see it and
you go, wait a minute, why are you falling apart? This happened
to me and this happened to me and this happened to me and God
showed me that I can stand still and I can, God will grant you
that peace. You see? Some people who have
a great, strong resolve to trust in the Lord when their heads
have been blown off, oh, that's okay. That head will be renewed
later. The brain wasn't that good anyway.
I mean, there's always this positive outlook of, you know, this is
a faith that God grants, and not everyone has the same measure. We all have the little, minimal,
nothing, hardly visible faith that Christ alone is our Redeemer,
and all the ins and outs of who He is and what He did for whom.
It's the faith of a mustard seed. It isn't about how big and bad
our faith is. It's about how awesome, big and bad, and big
and bad in a positive way that our Savior is. Faith by the same Spirit. To
another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit. To another, the
working of miracles. To another, prophecy. To another,
the ability to distinguish between spirits. To another, that's called
discernment. to another various kinds of languages,
to another the interpretation of these languages. And all these
are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to
each one individually as he wills. Now Paul was not saying all of
you have these gifts and there are all of these gifts here and
these gifts are normative. He wasn't saying that. He was
just going through a list of things that were known. And he says we got one body and
it is one And there are many members, and all the members
of the body, though many, are one body. So it is with Christ.
For in one spirit, we're all baptized into one body, Greeks,
Jews, slaves, free people, and we're all made to drink from
the one spirit. For the body does not consist
of one member, but many. And if the foot should say, I'm
not a hand, and because I'm not a hand, I'm not part of the body,
that's just ridiculous. It would not make it any less
part of the body. And if the ear should say, because
I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make
it any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye,
Remember my jokes about being a bag of eyeballs or a bag of
toenails? Where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body
were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But as it
is, God arranged the members in the body, each of them as
he chose. Beloved, God has promised that
in the local assembly of Grace Truth Church, everything every
one of us needs is here when we're together. And when we're
not together, we're missing some stuff. We're missing some stuff. If
all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is,
there are many parts, yet one body. And he goes on to talk
about honorable and modesty. In verse 27, it says, now you
are the body of Christ and individually members of it, and God has appointed
in the church first apostles, prophets, teachers. Then miracles,
gifts of healing, helping, administration, and kinds of tongues, various
kinds of languages. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work
miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing?
Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly
desire the higher gifts. What are the higher gifts? Prophecy
and teaching. But earnestly desire the higher
gifts. But what's the highest gift? He says, I'll show you
a more excellent way. Here it is. If I speak in the tongues of men
and in the tongues of angels, but I have not love, I'm a noisy
gong or a clanging cymbal. Now, Christmas Eve day, my nephews
were at my house. And my daughter, Abby, has a
kitchen set. And in that kitchen set is a
toy set of Melissa and Doug pots and pans made out of aluminum.
I don't know what demonic soul decided to create aluminum pots
and pans for children. But they marched that pot and
pan around my living room for an hour. And I'm going. Oh, so now I know to add that
to the other 63 toys when they pull up that hid hides in the
closet. Like the little The little pulley
thing from my wife's childhood. The telephone with the googly
eyes. I mean, that's what it sounds like. You know what I'm
talking about? Oh, no. And the popcorn popper. Why don't we just light firecrackers
and set the house on fire? Imagine, no matter how powerfully
spiritually you are, when you're not loving, that's what you are.
The googly eye phone, the crazy pot, and the popcorn popper. We're just running amok, screaming
and running and screaming and running. No matter how eloquently
I may speak up here, which is not very eloquent, but no matter
how eloquently we may teach and how generous we may be with our
language, we're not loving. It's just noise. You see? Now people will accuse us of
not being loving when we are, because it is loving to confront
sin humbly. It is loving to teach against
error. Humbly, it is loving to say that's
not the gospel. Lovingly, it is loving to say
the truth. That's why Paul says speak the
truth and love to the Ephesians. But we've missed the love part
and we just learn how to keep it real. We love to speak. I'll show you a more excellent
way. And if, these are conditional examples. These aren't saying
that Paul is and has done these things. He's just saying if,
if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and
have all knowledge and if I have all faith not to ever be shaken
or worried or fearful or concerned so as to take mountains down
but have not love, listen to what he says about himself. If
I have not love, I am nothing. Now think about that for a minute.
He didn't say, I have nothing. He says, I am nothing. When we
don't have love, we are nothing. We are nothing. And what does
that mean? We serve no purpose. It's an existential crisis. What
am I here for? For the glory of God. Okay, now
what? Love one another. That's all Jesus ever taught.
Why are you here? For the glory of God. How so?
By loving one another. God's love for you is evident.
You believe in the Lord Jesus. You understand free grace. You
understand the sovereignty of God and salvation. Now love one
another. With whatever service you have.
With whatever gifts you have. With whatever encouragement you
have. With whatever compassion. You
know compassion is a gift. Empathy is a spiritual gift.
And we don't all have it. I don't have it all the time.
I used to and then I couldn't do my job. I felt everything. I went through everything. It
was like constant. It was 24 hours a day of worrying
and laboring. My prayer journal was like 30
pages long a week of just names and problems and praying that
God would empower me to be David. you know, like I talked about
last week. God would empower me to be sort of like Jesus and
give me all this supernatural ability to fix all the problems
when it's really about Christ having solved all the problems
and that the body of Christ together is the problem solver of the
local assembly. And it's rooted first and last
in love because love is what motivates, love is what empowers,
love is what encourages, and love is the service to the Lord.
And I have all faith, but have not love, I am nothing. If I
give away all I have, even if I deliver up my body to be burned,
but I have not love, I gain nothing. And you think, well, what is
love? What is love? Well, that's what I want to teach
about today. That was the introduction. Love is patient. So now we embark on a 27-week
series on love is patient, and we'll still be out of sorts when
we're through, right? Hurry up, get through this, okay.
I get it, love is patient, moving on. You know, that's how we are. I get it, Tippins. 24 weeks in like a postcard,
what are you doing here? Let's go. We don't get it. And
we just have to be encouraged. And the cool thing about it is
I don't get it either. I'm up here learning a little bit ahead of
you and being reminded of things that I've already learned, but
I have to learn them again. And then I have to be put to the
test and it's like, okay, I'm gonna learn about love. We're gonna
get the church to love each other. And God goes, how about you? Get
away, your breath stinks. I mean, you know, don't talk
to me about love. I love these people. I mean,
you know. The phone rings, you're going, oh, no. Doorbell rings. Family shows up. Neighbor comes
over. What do they want to do? They
want to complain to you about what you've done to them. That's
when I don't feel love. You know what you did to me?
Your cat got over in my car. Well, you said you was going
to come by last week. I forgot that last week existed. Please
forgive me. That's just not good enough.
I mean, this isn't normative, but I mean, for 20-something
years, it's happened. And that's what happens. You
don't want to hear the complaints. You don't want to hear how bad
you've done. You don't want to hear how wrong you are. It's
a pet peeve, isn't it? I mean, how many of you just
get up every morning and go, Lord, send me some complainers. Show me
just what a rotten wretch I am and how many lives I've stepped
on. But yet, it seems like ministry, that's what you get. Not from
you, praise the Lord. It's a joy to shepherd you. It's a joy to know you. It's
a joy to love you. But y'all ain't the only people in the
world, see? Praise God for our assembly time. Praise God for
our intimacy. Praise God for each other. Because
if we weren't together like this, if we weren't intimate around
the truth, I'd lost my mind many, many years ago. Because all I
would have would be the other. But we're still called to love
them. And sometimes, as Grace Truth, you well aware of, there
are people who rise up in the body and they stir it. They don't love one another.
And we have to be patient and loving in the context of that.
Love is settled. Love is not on fire. Love is
not about eros or passion. Love is not about urgency, unless
it's an emergency. Love is not about getting to
the bottom of it all so fast. Love is not about making sure
that person corrects themselves this week. Love is not about
making our spouse who we want them to be in the first months
of the honeymoon. Love is patience. Love waits
upon the Lord. Love rests in the power of his
sovereignty. Love knows the gospel is a power
of God, is the power of God unto salvation. And that through God's
merciful longsuffering for his people, we are also being granted
God's patience. Love is patient. Folks, everybody's
not going to grow at the same rate you do. Everybody's not
going to learn at the same rate we do. I'm so far behind in so
many things theologically because I've just given them no time.
Because you can't give it all. You can't give systems time. And you can't study the same
things over and over again to the neglect of other things.
You can't always be an expert on eschatology and expect that
to feed the body when it comes time. Oh, you got a bad report
from the doctor and you're going to die? Oh, you know what? Let
me tell you about pre-tribulation. Let me tell you about the rapture
and all of its tomfoolery. You know what I'm saying? I'm
being sort of funny, but love is patient. Love is kind. Kindness is simple. Children,
I can teach three-year-olds. I haven't tried to teach any
younger than that, but I mean, I've had little classes of three-year-olds
teaching them about kindness. And it's real easy. You just
open the conversation, raise your hand. Don't ever not say
raise your hand with small children. Because they're already going
to blurt out, and then they'll, you know. Raise your hand if you
can tell me the last time somebody was not kind to you. All of them
have their hands raised. If there was a thousand, though
I couldn't handle a class that big, but if there were a thousand,
a thousand of them had their hands raised, and they'd all
say something about a sibling, or a cousin, or a friend, or
a classmate, or somebody who took a toy, snatched it and ran
away, or spit at them, or called them a name. Children know what
kindness is. Is that kind? Give them an example. Kindness, yes or no? No. Kindness, yes. We know what
kindness is. We know that kindness comes with tenderness. Tenderness
is fed by patience, isn't it? When do we lose our kindness?
When we're impatient. I mean, that's the bottom line. When we're not lovingly patient,
we're not lovingly kind. And if we could go through and
look at what kindness. Why do we care about kindness? Because
when the kindness of the Lord appeared, he saved us. God's merciful kindness is equivocal
to his saving grace. His love for his people. Beloved,
we can be kind. Cults can be kind. Unbelievers
can be kind. It's within our human makeup
to pretend even. You ever had a unkind waitress
or waiter? Yeah, and you pay them well,
don't you? Leave them the penny on the table or the fake 20.
Disappointed? You won't be. I mean, you know,
those terrible tracks that look like money. How I can pay my
car payment? Nope. No I can't. I mean it's very disappointing.
Kindness. Love is patient and kind and
there are some things that love does not do. Love does not. Look at this. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. What is
envy? Jealousy. Not being happy for
somebody else because they got something you didn't. Or maybe
they didn't work quite as hard but financial success landed
them, or marital success landed them, or health came their way,
or they got something that you wish you could have. It's not
that you don't like them, you just don't like that you didn't
get what they got. That's envy. And it also doesn't boast. It
doesn't walk around saying, what all we got? What all we have?
What all we can do? Look at what I know. A quiet
man is a man of wisdom. A quiet person is a person of
wisdom. A quiet person is a person who has much to say but doesn't
because it's better. You know those people? I have
friends like that. And they could be in a room and
not say anything for days. And then when they speak, everybody
goes, and it's worth listening to. But when you hear the voice
over and over again, it sort of just tunes out. It tunes out. We don't have to boast. Love
doesn't boast. It is not arrogant. It is not rude. We know what
that looks like. Now, I'd be amiss if I didn't
say, okay, yes, there are two things that need to be learned
by this, and we're going to rush through and pick up next week
in continuation, but I don't want to rush through, so I'm
going to pick up next week. But we need to understand that this
is the essence of the mind of Christ. This isn't just a list
of to-dos. This is what Paul says to the
Philippians, have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ
Jesus. And then he talks about Jesus.
Remember that hymn of Christ? There in Philippians 2. He says,
Christ, though he was equal with God, though he was God, did not
take equality with God, something to be grasped, something to boast
about, something to display a sense of pride and arrogance. I mean, could you imagine if
we were divine and the Pharisees come and talk to us like they
talk to Jesus? Who do you think you're talking
to? I mean, that's what I would say. Who do you think you're
talking to? I get real redneck when I get mad. You must not
know about me. I'm God. Who are you talking
to? I mean, come on guys, let's be honest. But what did Jesus
do? He gave glory to the Father.
You can get upset with me, but I came to speak the words of
the Lord. I came to do the work of the
Father. What the Father's doing, I'm doing. What the Father is
saying, I'm saying. So if you hate me, you hate the
Father. And Jesus doesn't hold back the punches when he's teaching,
does he? But he's not rude and arrogant. He's not rude and arrogant. He's not irritable. Boastful envy. No, Peter says
that when he was reviled, he did not return with revile, but
he remained quiet. How did he do that? Because he
knew the love of the Father for him and the promises of God that
one day in the moment that God had decreed that he would be
vindicated. And when Christ resurrected from
the dead, he didn't bust out to the populace of the entirety
of the first century Palestine. Jesus didn't hover over the horizon
of Palestine, Asia Minor, Turkey, Jerusalem, Israel, Egypt. He
didn't go to Damascus and float up and shoot lightning out of
his hands and say, I told y'all, boom, suckers. Y'all thought
y'all killed me, burning down houses, blowing up cars, like
a villain on Marvel comic movies. No, he hid himself. He exposed
himself to just a small number of people, a small number of
people. And ultimately, at his ascension,
only 500 people watched. Folks, we get on about 4,000
people at our Christmas in the Square down here, in a town that
ain't got but 1,000 people. How does that work? I mean, you
know, where do you people live at? This is kindness. This is not boasting. So as Christ's mind is, we also
have, let us remember this when we're relating to others. It's
about remembrance. Love does not insist on its own
way. This is a marriage sermon. This verse right here, it is
not arrogant, it is not rude, it does not insist on its own
way. And see, every side of the relationship,
the husband side and the wife side, right now in our spirit,
for those of us who are married, are going, yeah, that's right,
honey. I mean, you know, we're both saying that in our minds
to one another. If my spouse could just get that
right, boy, howdy. But that's not the point, is
it? It's about me. It's about me wanting my own
way, wanting people to believe that I'm right, wanting people
to see that I know what I'm talking about. That's sometimes what
it all boils down to. It does not insist on its own
way. It is not irritable. It is not resentful. I don't
have to explain these things. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing.
What does that look like? Ha! I knew that guy was going
to mess up. Got him. You ever said that? I have. Especially about false
teachers. It's a matter of time before
the shoe drops. Gotcha. That's not love. It does not
rejoice around it, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all
things. Love believes all things. Love
hopes all things. Love endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies,
they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease.
As for knowledge, it too shall pass. For we know in part, and
we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial
will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought
like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man,
I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly,
but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall
know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now, And that
actually, what he's about to say here, explains what he just
said. So now, faith, hope, and love remain. They hold fast,
they make home here. They're at home here. These three,
but the greatest of these is love. And so what we'll see over
the next week or so, as we finish this out, is we'll see that love
is related to the gospel because it is related to the nature and
the mind of Christ, and that we are to emulate and practice
these things And in doing so, there is no law against us. Now,
wait a minute, I thought we were free from the law. We are free
from the law. The law only kills us. So we are free from the law,
but the law of Christ is the law of faith. The law of faith
expects love. And so where is there then a
law? Well, it's not talking about
the same thing. And we'll look at this over the next few weeks.
But there is a sense in which we know when we're not living
in a loving way, we have a sense of overwhelming guilt and shame,
and our conscience is not free. Our conscience is not at rest.
We don't want to bust into the throne room of God and say, hey,
Dad. When he walks out to water the grass, I want to come in
the back door and go to bed early. We don't want to see him. And we need to live in a manner
that allows us to be free. in our conscience that allows
us to be pure in our thoughts. And the only way that's going
to happen is if we constantly learn and grow in the gospel
and that we together are preparing our hearts and minds daily for
that meal, for that glory, for the grace of God. And all that and more is built
up into that command. Love you, brother. Love you,
sister. There's so much there. Why? Because Christ has loved
us first. We were his enemies, he died
for us. When we were dead in our trespasses and sins, he laid
down his life for us. Paul exclaims it this way, he
says, it is not I who live, but I live by faith in the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me. So in Paul's ministry,
as an apostle, teacher, and church planter, Paul lived and did all
that he did so that he could love Christ. When Jesus says in Matthew 25,
Matthew 5, I can't think of where it is now. Oh, when Jesus says,
that the goats and the sheep, the goats will be the ones who
don't love and the sheep will be the ones who love. And they'll
say, well, when do we have opportunity to love? When we have opportunity
to serve? When you did it under the least
of these, my brothers, you did it unto me. When you didn't do
it under the least of these, my brothers, you didn't do it
unto me. Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? If I wake up tomorrow morning
and somebody's taking a hammer to my left foot while I'm laying
in the bed, he's assaulted me, not my toe. In the same manner, when we love
one another, we're loving Christ. When we're not loving one another,
we're not loving Christ. And it's tough, but we're going
to learn it, and we're going to live it, and we're going to
be at peace with it, not guilt, because Christ has set us free
from guilt. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord,
for this opportunity to learn. Lord, help us to hear the truth
of your word and to not be bogged down with our own aspects, our
own philosophies concerning these things. But Lord, to take it
at face value, to learn that what you're teaching us is the
truth of Christ, and that how we, by your mercy, by your grace,
by your love, are found in Him. So even when we're unloving,
Father, you have taught us that we are still counted as loving
because Christ loves perfectly. And we're not trying to earn
favor. We're not trying to earn rewards. We're not trying to
earn credit. We're not trying to prove our
salvation. But Father, we are trying to worship. We are conforming to the gospel,
not to the world. And Lord, in that transformation,
in that conformity to the truth of Christ, we will be looked
at oddly. We will be hated. We will be
mocked and we will be persecuted. So, Lord, as long as you allow
us, let us hold together in the grace that you have given us
through Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. Thank
you, Church.